Congratulations to Professor Robert Thomson FREng, Professor of Photonics at Heriot-Watt University, on being awarded The Princess Royal Silver Medal this year. The award recognises outstanding personal achievement in engineering, particularly where innovation has led to significant impact in research and UK industry.
The Royal Academy of Engineering is the UK’s national academy for engineering, bringing together leading engineers to advance excellence in engineering for the benefit of society. Through its awards and fellowships, the Academy recognises individuals whose work demonstrates exceptional contribution to engineering innovation, research, and industrial impact.
Professor Thomson’s work sits at the interface of photonics, physics, and engineering. He is internationally recognised for developing the integrated photonic lantern, an innovation that addresses long-standing limitations in how optical signals are collected and transmitted. By enabling efficient conversion between multimode and single-mode light transmission, this technology preserves information that would otherwise be lost, improving signal quality and sensitivity.
The impact of this work spans multiple fields, including astronomy, biomedical imaging, and next-generation telecommunications. His approach to photonic design—using ultrafast laser microfabrication to create precise 3D light-guiding structures within glass—has also enabled scalable manufacturing of advanced optical components with wide-ranging applications.