Institute of Physics

Mentors play a vital role in helping members develop their careers and achieve professional registration. On #NationalMentoringDay, we congratulate James Doherty CPhys MInstP and Phillip Powner CPhys MInstP, recipients of this year’s Mentoring Certificate of Excellence 👏

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Congratulations to Dr Michele Punturo, winner of the Giuseppe Occhialini Medal and Prize as part of the #IOPAwards26 🎉 Recognised for his pioneering contributions to gravitational-wave science, including leadership of Virgo and the development of the Einstein Telescope.

Congratulations to Professor Stuart Palmer on being awarded Honorary Fellowship for more than 50 years of contributions to the Institute of Physics and physics worldwide. His distinguished work spans Condensed Matter Physics, Non-Destructive Evaluation and Medical Physics. Read more: bit.ly/4zUqEyI

Congratulations to the STFC QuEST Programme for winning the Apprentice Employer Award! The team are celebrated for equipping apprentices with advanced skills in quantum, cryogenics & engineering, and building a highly capable pipeline for the UK’s future science & technology workforce. #IOPAwards26

We're delighted to see the launch of the Metamaterials Commercialisation Roadmap. Building on work supported through the UK Metamaterials Network, it sets out how the UK can turn world-leading research into commercial success. 🔗 Explore it here: iop.org/metamaterials

Congratulations to the winners of the Technician Award as part of the #IOPAwards26! 🎉 The award – now split into two categories – recognises & celebrates the skills and experience of technicians and their contribution to physics. The winners of the School and Further Education Technician Award are:

IOP School and Further Education Technician Award winner: 🏆 Donna Morton Colley for exceptional technical expertise and innovative support, significantly enhancing physics learning and student achievement within her school and across Scotland.

🏆 The winner of the Business, Higher Education and National Research Facility Technician Award is Reuben Chesterman for exceptional technical contributions to the design, assembly and delivery of complex space instrumentation, supporting nationally significant missions and public engagement.

IOP School and Further Education Technician Award winner: 🏆 Gwyn Pritchard-Williams for lifelong dedication to practical physics, inspiring generations of students through innovative demonstrations and sustained hands-on support.

Congratulations to Ethan Ellis (@lucideon.com) and Nikky Joyce (@durham.ac.uk) for winning the IOP Apprentice Award! 🎉 This award shines a spotlight on the talent and impact of science and engineering apprentices, recognising their vital contributions to physics. #IOPAwards26 👇🧵

IOP Apprentice Award winner: 🏆 Ethan Ellis @lucideon.com is celebrated for leading pioneering work in advanced materials development as an apprentice, delivering major commercial impact and building strong links across industry and research.

IOP Apprentice Award winner: 🏆 Nikky Joyce @durham.ac.uk wins for outstanding achievement as an apprentice technician, making high-impact contributions to research, teaching and engineering innovation early in his career.

Congratulations to the winners of the Phillips Award! This award recognises members who have played a significant role for the IOP. 🎉 This year’s awardees are 👇🧵 #IOPAwards26

IOP Phillips Award winner: 🏆 Elizabeth Cunningham for outstanding contributions to IOP South Central Branch engagement activities: World Space Week, Physics on Film and Surrey lectures and for her sustained commitment to member activities for twenty years.

IOP Phillips Award winner: 🏆 Tamara Clelford for volunteer work with IOP committees over 26 years, working to make the organisation more accessible for physicists from under-represented backgrounds and industries.

Want to work at the IOP? We're hiring a Project Manager - Teaching Resources. This is a part-time position (21 hours per week) offered on a fixed-term basis until December 2028. 📅 Applications close 1 November. 🔗 Find out more: https://bit.ly/3TPT0ee

Congratulations to the winners of the Teacher of Physics Award! 🎉 This award celebrates the success of secondary school physics teachers who have raised the profile of physics and science in schools. Have a look at this year's awardees 👇🧵 #IOPAwards26

🏆 Emma Swift for her work supporting students, colleagues and student teachers, and her commitment to ensuring all feel included and welcomed, resulting in steadily increasing enthusiasm, uptake and achievement.

🏆 Bethany Thomson for supporting a sustained growth in post-16 physics including excellent retention over the A-level course, alongside extra-curricular work that includes establishing an Engineering Club and guiding students in the British Physics Olympiad and CREST Awards.

🏆 Ellie Peacock for her dedication to an engaging and inclusive classroom approach, leading to increased uptake at A-level and the opportunity to support local primary and secondary colleagues through an Ogden Trust partnership.

🏆 Eve Prendergast for transformative impact on the teaching and uptake of physics, both in curriculum time and through an annual SciFest fair which has led to Physics Olympiad involvement for students and cross-subject development for colleagues.

🏆 Rebecca Mack for her sustained work with students both within and beyond the physics curriculum, and contributions to the wider community in the form of peer-reviewed work published by the Association for Science Education and Chartered College of Teaching.

🏆 Dr Carrie MacTavish for applying her experience as a practicing research physicist to develop the attitudes, skills and confidence of the girls in her classes while providing opportunities for student engagement in a range of international physics and engineering competitions.

🏆 Peter Clarke for using his passion for innovation to support all students achieving their potential, demonstrated by exceptional exam results and particularly high application rate to study physics in higher education.

Are you a tech-based company looking to take new innovations to market and seeking investment? Don’t miss out on our Sector Forum and Networking Event with investment company Quantum Exponential and special guests! 📆 Tuesday 5 Nov 2026 | 9am to 1pm 🔗 Spaces limited: iop.eventsair.com/businesses-i...

From compost to Parliament! 🌱⚡IOP's The Eurekas third place winners Daniela and Amélie visited the Houses of Parliament to meet MP Fleur Anderson and discuss their award-winning Rot-to-Watts project, which turns heat from decomposing compost into electricity. theeurekas.co.uk/submissions/...

Congrats to the winners of the IOP Bronze Early Career Medal & Prize categories! 🎉 🏆 Jocelyn Bell Burnell Medal & Prize Natalie Lines (Uni of Portsmouth) for exceptional early-career contributions to observational cosmology & the application of machine learning to large-scale astronomical surveys.

🏆 Clifford Paterson Medal and Prize Dr Benjamin Dawson (NIQS Tech Limited) for developing the first commercially viable non‑invasive glucose sensor which combines photonic materials and artificial intelligence to achieve an industry leading 99.8% accuracy.

🏆 Mary Somerville Medal & Prize Dr Bethany Rothwell (Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School) for championing the role of physics in cancer research, making UK proton therapy accessible to diverse audiences through national films, outreach & public engagement at festivals & museums.

🏆 Daphne Jackson Medal and Prize Dr Will Yeadon @durham.ac.uk for empirical research into the performance of generative AI in physics assessment, providing benchmarks and policy guidance to safeguard academic integrity from GCSE to university level.

🏆 Henry Moseley Medal & Prize Dr Said Ergoktas @uniofbath.bsky.social for exceptional early-career contributions to experimental terahertz & infrared photonics, pioneering new approaches to controlling light and enabling innovative device functionalities with broad scientific & technological impact.

🏆 James Clerk Maxwell Medal and Prize Dr Katja Klobas @unibirmingham.bsky.social for discovering new methods to exactly characterise the dynamics of interacting many-body systems and microscopically explain emergent non-equilibrium phenomena.

Are you making the most of your IOP membership? 💡 Join Matthew and Allie from our Membership team next Tuesday 20 October at 12:30pm BST to explore member benefits, how the IOP works and ways to get involved. Open to members and those considering joining. Find out more: https://bit.ly/3VMctgo

Huge congratulations to the winners of the IOP Medal and Prize Silver categories! 🎉 🏆 Rosalind Franklin Medal and Prize Professor Sarah Bohndiek @cam.ac.uk for pioneering the use of light and sound in early disease detection, with a focus on clinical translation and equitable healthcare outcomes.

🏆 Dennis Gabor Medal and Prize Dr Darran Milne (VividQ) for pioneering the commercialisation of realtime computer generated holography, transforming waveoptics research into global industrial products and establishing holography as a scalable next generation display technology.

🏆 Marie Curie-Sklodowska Medal and Prize Alan Denton (Science Alan Ltd) for leading evidence-based programmes helping teachers to build subject expertise and confidence, supporting hundreds of educators and thousands of students to engage successfully with physics.

🏆 Fred Hoyle Medal and Prize Professor Ofer Lahav @ucl.ac.uk for pioneering artificial intelligence for astronomy from the early 1990s, and for scientific leadership in developing and exploiting the now completed Dark Energy Survey, which has delivered major advances in precision cosmology.

🏆 James Joule Medal and Prize Professor Akshay Rao @cam.ac.uk for pioneering contributions to the physics of energy materials, specifically developing ultrafast optical methods to resolve exciton dynamics in photovoltaics and operando ion transport in batteries to drive sustainable innovation.

🏆 Joseph Thomson Medal & Prize Prof Myungshik Kim @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social for foundational advances that redefined nonclassicality as a physical resource & extended quantum optics from photonic systems to mechanical, plasmonic and gravitational regimes, shaping modern quantum technologies.

🏆 Ernest Rutherford Medal and Prize Professor Zsolt Podolyak @uniofsurrey.bsky.social for seminal discoveries in nuclear structure physics which have driven a new understanding and inspirational leadership of international experimental collaborations using radioactive-ion beams.

🏆 Edward Appleton Medal and Prize Professor Paul Brewer (NPL) for exceptional global leadership in redefining the ozone absorption cross-section, ensuring accurate and comparable measurements worldwide and enabling science-based decisions for improved air quality and environmental protection.

The Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund is now open for applications! It supports graduates from groups currently under-represented in physics to pursue a doctorate - full-time or part-time. Applications close 18 January 2027 🔗 Find out more: iop.org/bellburnellfund

Huge congratulations to the winners of the IOP Medal and Prize Gold categories! 🎉 🏆 Michael Faraday Medal and Prize Professor J.C. Séamus Davis @ox.ac.uk for discovery and exploration of macroscopic quantum phenomena and states of matter. (1/3) 👇🧵

🏆 Katharine Burr Blodgett Medal and Prize Professor Russell Cowburn @cam.ac.uk for sustained discovery and invention across 25 years in nanotechnology, optics and magnetism, leading to the creation of four spin-out companies and multiple patented, mature and field-validated products. (2/3)

The Institute of Cancer Research

🏆Lawrence Bragg Medal and Prize Orbyts @orbyts.bsky.social for their outstanding work empowering girls and students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds in Physics education through cutting-edge research partnerships, and supporting Physics teachers with novel teaching materials. (3/3)

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📢 Coming up on Thursday 15 October at 11:30am (UK), Professor Uwe Oelfke will give the Indian Physics Association @iop.org Cockcroft Walton Lecture from NISER Bhubaneswar in India. He'll speak about his #Radiotherapy research. You can watch it live on YouTube ⤵️ www.youtube.com/live/J-aEA9d...

youtube.comIPA–IoP Cockcroft-Walton Lecture by Prof. Uwe OelfkeYouTube video by NISER

Congratulations to Professor Ignacio Cirac, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, who has been awarded the 2026 Isaac Newton Medal and Lecture! 👏🏻 Read more: https://www.iop.org/about/news/quantum-pioneer-ignacio-cirac-wins-isaac-newton-medal-prize #IOPAwards26

The IOP Awards are here! 🏆 Over the coming weeks, we’ll celebrate outstanding physicists and physics champions from academia, schools, business, startups and beyond. We’re starting with the prestigious Isaac Newton Medal and Lecture. 🎉 Stay tuned for more!