NanoFutures Leadership Awards
Celebrating Innovation, Leadership and Impact in Nanoscience
About the awards
The NanoFutures Leadership Awards support final-year PhD students in the NanoDTC in developing projects that translate their research into real-world impact—whether commercial, environmental, or societal. First launched in 2016 as the Translational Prize and expanded in 2021 to recognise a broader range of impact pathways, the award celebrates exceptional initiative in research, commercialisation, and leadership. Awardees receive mentoring, as well as access to advanced commercialisation training through the Maxwell Centre Impulse Programme to develop their projects.
The awards are open to final-year PhD students currently enrolled in the NanoDTC programme. Selection is highly competitive and takes place through a two-stage process: a presentation, followed by a written proposal reviewed by a multidisciplinary panel. Two broad categories of projects are considered for the award:
Stream A – Projects focused on the commercialisation of technologies, including startup creation or development of social enterprises.
Stream B – Projects not directly tied to commercialisation, such as those targeting education, policy, sustainability, or other routes to impact.
Past Awardees
NanoFutures Leadership Winners
Dr. Tomi Baikie
Translational Prize Fellow, 2022-23
Translational Prize Topic: In-Vivo Topographic Electropotential Measurements of Skin
Dr. Joonatan Laulainen
Translational Prize Fellow, 2022-23
Translational Prize Topic: Creating Environmental Metrics for the Research Environment
Dr. Katherine Sanders
Translational Prize Fellow, 2020-21
Translational Prize Topic: Structured Nanomaterials for Efficient Removal of Organic Pollutants in Water
James Meech
Translational Prize Fellow, 2022-23
Translational Prize Topic: Non-Uniform Random Number Generation for Sensor-Driven Edge Artificial Intelligence
Dr. Benjamin Droguet
Translational Prize Fellow, 2021-22
Translational Prize Topic: Cellulose Photonic Pigments
Dr. Jeroen Verheyen
Translational Prize Fellow, 2016-17
Translational Prize Topic: Magnetically Actuated on-chip Microfluidic Mixers
Dr. Tarun Vemulkar
Translational Prize Fellow, 2016-17
Translational Prize Topic: Magnetically Actuated On-Chip Microfluidic Mixers
Haralds Abolins
Translational Prize Fellow, 2022-23
Translational Prize Topic: Non-Uniform Random Number Generation for Sensor-Driven Edge Artificial Intelligence
Tiarnan Doherty
Translational Prize Fellow (Honorary), 2021-22
Translational Prize Topic: Metal Halide Perovskites for X-Ray Detection
Dr. Oliver James Burton
Translational Prize Fellow, 2020-21
Translational Prize Topic: 2D Materials - A Template for Transferring Research to Production
Dr. Jean de la Verpilliere
Translational Prize Fellow, 2017-18
Translational Prize Topic: Conversion Li-ion Battery Anodes for Electric Vehicles
Dr. Tobias E. Naegele
Translational Prize Fellow, 2023-24
Translational Prize Topic: Implantable Devices for Cancer Therapy Bioelectronics Laboratory
Dr. Tommaso Busolo
Translational Prize Fellow, 2021-22
Translational Prize Topic: Wearable and Reusable pH Sensor Integrated with a Fluidic System for Continuous Vaginal Infection Monitoring
Dr. Richard Howe
Translational Prize Fellow, 2016-17
Translational Prize Topic: Highly conducting, Low-Cost Graphene Inks for Roll-to-Roll Printing using a Standard Graphics Press
Subhajit Bhattacharjee
Translational Prize Fellow, 2022-23
Translational Prize Topic: PROTONERA - Green Hydrogen from Waste using Sun, Bio & Nano
Philipp Braeuninger-Weimer
Translational Prize Fellow, 2017-18
Translational Prize Topic: A Ubiquitous Graphene Sensor Platform
Niklas Ermann
Translational Prize Fellow, 2020-21
Translational Prize Topic: A Point-of-Care Cancer Diagnostic Device Based on the Amplification-Free Quantification of MicroRNAs
Dr. Ryo Mizuta
Translational Prize Fellow, 2020-21
Translational Prize Topic: ?
Dr. Michael Stanton
Translational Prize Fellow, 2020-21
Translational Prize Topic: Plastics Recycling by Photoreforming