Two University of Southampton academics have been named future leaders by a scheme designed to support UK research talent.
Dr William Allen, an Associate Professor of Political Science, and Dr Soumya Sarkar, a lecturer in electronics and computer science, have both been awarded Future Leaders Fellowships.
The UKRI scheme aims to sustain and grow the strong supply of talented researchers needed to ensure that UK research and innovation continue to be world class.
Dr Allen's four-year project aims to transform our understanding about how data and data visualisation can support more resilient democracies by changing what people know and think about climate change, migration, and economic issues including inequality and public welfare. It includes support from Southampton's Sustainability and Resilience Institute (SRI) and the university's Winchester Gallery.
Dr Allen said: 'I am deeply honoured and thankful to UKRI for this award.
"In a turbulent political moment, finding ways of telling factual stories that develop and sustain more knowledgeable and democratic societies is especially urgent. This will require building bridges across fields and sectors-an objective that has personally motivated my research agenda, and one that I am grateful the Future Leaders Fellowship scheme specifically supports.
"I also hope to use my Fellowship to create more opportunities for the next generation of researchers in ways that pay forward the support I have received from many others."
Dr Sarkar works on advanced materials for future electronic chips, and his Fellowship research will address the energy consumption of computing hardware, which has become a growing environmental and economic challenge for artificial intelligence.
During his four-year project, Dr Sarkar will develop ferroelectric and spintronic in-memory computing devices with atomically thin semiconductors that use far less energy by co-locating information storage and processing, helping AI operate locally on personal devices rather than relying on energy-intensive data centres.
Dr Sarkar said: "This generous award from UKRI will enable me to mentor a team working to deliver improvements in energy efficiency, endurance and memory density, while ensuring that the chip fabrication processes remain compatible with industry-standard manufacturing."
