Three UCL researchers among Royal Society Medal winners

Three UCL researchers among Royal Society Medal winners UCL Professors Polina Bayvel, Stephen Fleming and Mohan Edirisinghe have been honoured with prestigious Royal Society Medals recognising their outstanding contributions to science. The winners are announced each summer and celebrated throughout the year at the Royal Society. This year 25 medals and awards were presented, marking excellence across a wide range of scientific research areas and roles. Several of the awards are accompanied by a prize lecture. Professor Polina Bayvel CBE FREng FRS receives the Rumford Medal for pioneering contributions to the fundamental physics and nonlinear optics, enabling the realisation of high capacity, broad bandwidth, multi-wavelength, optical communication systems that have underpinned the information technology revolution. Professor Bayvel (UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering), who is the first woman and the first UCL researcher to win the Rumford Medal, said: "I am so deeply honoured to join the list of some of the world's greatest scientists, responsible for so many discoveries and inventions that have helped understand the world around us and have transformed our lives. It is so extraordinarily humbling, and yet I also feel a tinge of pride at being the first woman to be awarded the prize in its 223-year history and the first UCL recipient.