Department of Engineering / News / Alumna Heba Bevan presented with The Princess Royal Silver Medal

Department of Engineering

Alumna Heba Bevan presented with The Princess Royal Silver Medal

Alumna Heba Bevan presented with The Princess Royal Silver Medal

Princess Royal Silver Medallists L-R; Dr Oliver Payton, Dr Atif Syed, Heba Bevan OBE, Professor Paul Shearing and Professor Daniel Brett

Five of the UK’s leading engineering innovators have been presented with The Princess Royal Silver Medal, one of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s most prestigious individual awards.

The individuals recognised are emerging leaders in their fields and united by a commitment to improving society and the economy through enterprise, technology, and collaboration.

Professor Bashir M Al-Hashimi CBE FREng, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Committee

They received the awards at the Academy Awards Dinner in London on Tuesday 12 July from HRH The Princess Royal, who is a Royal Fellow of the Academy.

The Princess Royal Silver Medal celebrates an outstanding personal contribution made to UK engineering by an early to mid-career engineer resulting in market exploitation. The work of this year’s winners spans miniature AI sensors, battery and charging solutions for net zero, a high-speed atomic force microscope for disease identification or radiation mapping for nuclear emergency response, and robotic skin for food packing.

The recipients of The Princess Royal Silver Medals for 2022 are:

  • Heba Bevan OBE, CEO and Founder of UtterBerry
  • Professor Daniel Brett and Professor Paul Shearing, UCL Electrochemical Innovation Lab (joint winners)
  • Dr Oliver Payton, CTO and Founding Director of Bristol Nano Dynamics and Founding Director of ImiTec
  • Dr Atif Syed, CEO and Founder of Wootzano

Alumna Heba Bevan OBE, CEO and Founder of UtterBerry

Heba Bevan OBE is the CEO and Founder of UtterBerry Ltd, a patented, wireless sensor system that consists of a collection of miniature, artificially intelligent, ultra-low-power sensors. Its technology has been used in a variety of major national infrastructure projects including London’s Crossrail and Thames Tideway, with customers including Network Rail, London Underground, Thames Water, Laing O’Rourke, Costain, BAM and BFK.

Heba is a businessperson and engineer with a track record of technical innovation in the areas of wireless sensor and sensor network design. She is passionate about technology design and expanding the STEM education and hi-tech manufacturing in Britain. Her technical expertise includes AI, machine learning, robotics, blockchain, optics, semiconductors, and communication systems.

Upon graduation Heba worked for the microchip design company ARM. She returned to study low power wireless sensor networks at the University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering and it was during her PhD in 2013 that she founded UtterBerry.

Heba was awarded an OBE for her contributions to technology, innovation and STEM education 2018. In 2021, she received the Woman of the Year Innovation Award. Heba is committed to sustainability and the application of engineering to create new sustainable technologies in the electronics industry. She participated in COP26 and supports the government in international engagements related to sustainability.

Previously known as the Silver Medal, the award was renamed in 2021 in honour of HRH The Princess Royal, to recognise Her Royal Highness’s outstanding contributions as a Royal Fellow and as an exceptional champion for engineering more broadly, particularly as a longstanding supporter of women in engineering and science.

Professor Bashir M Al-Hashimi CBE FREng, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Committee, said:

“All five recipients of The Princess Royal Silver Medal for 2022 are worthy of this award, demonstrating wide-ranging innovations and making measurable contributions to engineering in the UK. The individuals recognised are emerging leaders in their fields and united by a commitment to improving society and the economy through enterprise, technology, and collaboration.”

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.