Dr Mengfan Guo awarded Royal Society University Research Fellowship

Dr Mengfan Guo has been awarded a prestigious eight-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship to establish a new research programme in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy.  The University Research Fellowships are awarded to scientists in the early stages of their research career who have the potential of becoming leaders in their fields. The programme aims to support the next generation of research leaders to undertake cutting-edge research. Researchers are provided with the freedom and flexibility to pursue curiosity-drive research, form international collaborations and establish new research groups.

The Fellowship, entitled “Topologically Mediated Electrocaloric Effects in Organic Ferroelectrics”, will investigate how unusual topological textures of electric dipoles in soft matter could provide a new route towards efficient solid-state cooling.

Electrocaloric materials heat up or cool down when an electric field is applied or removed. In the longer term, this effect could contribute to compact, energy-efficient cooling technologies that do not rely on the greenhouse-gas refrigerants and mechanical compressors used in conventional heat pumps. Potential applications range from thermal management in electronics, batteries and medical devices to heat pumps and domestic cooling.

The Fellowship will support Mengfan to create an independent research programme and team, including PhD students, specialist experimental equipment, materials preparation and collaborations with researchers in the UK and internationally. A major strand of the research will focus on developing new ways to characterise polar materials and understand the microscopic origins of their thermal response.

Mengfan said: “I am deeply honoured to receive the Royal Society University Research Fellowship, and excited to begin this new chapter in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. Its outstanding research environment provides the ideal home in which to build my group and pursue ambitious new ideas.”

Mengfan studied Materials Science and Engineering at Tsinghua University, where he completed both his undergraduate degree and PhD. He joined the Department in 2023 as a Royal Society Newton International Fellow and subsequently became the Goldsmiths’ Early Career Research Fellow at Churchill College. His research focuses on polar materials, with the broader aim of connecting fundamental materials physics with technologies for energy and thermal management.

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