Incredible!! One of most amazing experiences of my career – attending as one of the guests of honor at the annual Premier Awards dinner of
@royalsociety today to receive the 2026 Bakerian Medal for lifetime achievement in the physical sciences – specifically for contributions in the field of bioelectronics (
lnkd.in/dPJwfACs). All of the officers of the Royal Society, including the president Sir Adrian Smith, were in attendance for the dinner, held in the stately, awe-inspiring Wolfson Suite of the Royal Society headquarters building in London. I was there with my spouse, Dr. Lisa Dhar, at a table that included Prof. Matthew Rosseinsky (
@LivUni), the winner of the Royal Medal in Physical Sciences and his spouse, along with several senior members of the Society. Seated next to me was Prof. Sheila Rowan (
@UofGlasgow), Physical Secretary of the Royal Society. Wonderful conversations and discussion late into the night – our table was the last to depart, and we would have stayed even later if it weren’t for the fact that I have to give a virtual presentation at BioCAS in Abu Dhabi at 5:30 am... As a snotty nosed kid growing up in a ~1000 sq ft single-story ranch house in Sugarland, Texas, spending most of my childhood fishing in the muddy bayous of that area – I have no idea how I ended up in this august place, in many ways the pinnacle of academic research. Life is so interesting and unpredictable…. Thanks so much to the >300 postdoctoral fellows, MS and PhD students who have moved through the group over the years and have made so many essential contributions to our work – nearly 170 of whom are now in faculty positions around the world, running independent research programs of their own and doing extremely well. But, most of all, thanks to Lisa for support across all aspects of life, to
@aTonyBanks for making everything work, and to Prof. Yonggang Huang for an amazing run of scientific collaboration, still going strong – ours is already the most prolific scientific duo in the history of academic research (measured by number of co-authored publications and associated citations…) and we are nowhere close to finished yet! Finally, congratulations to the others honored this evening – Sir John Pendry (Copley Medal,
@imperialcollege), Prof. David Baker (Croonian Medal,
@UW), Prof. Suanne von Caemmerer and Prof. Graham Farquhar (co-recipients of the Royal Medal in biological sciences, both at The Australian National University), and Prof. Anthony Davis (Royal Medal in applied sciences,
@BristolUni)! What an evening!