Tim Leighton awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society

The Royal Society is the UK's national academy of science. Founded in 1660, it is dedicated to the promotion of excellence in science and to supporting scientific endeavour. Each year the Royal Society awards up to 44 Fellowships to the best scientists in recognition of their scientific achievements, and is one of the highest accolades a scientist can achieve.

Tim, who is Professor of Ultrasonics and Underwater Acoustics at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR), and Associate Dean (Research) in Engineering and the Environment, said "I am humbled to receive an honour that counts so many great and heroic scientists amongst its membership, past and present.'

Tim is known for taking fundamental research through to deliverables by asking unusual questions, investigating them with scientific rigour, and offering innovative engineering solutions.

From the question ‘why do brooks babble?' came insights, devices, and data for climate change monitoring, in studies used in reports by UNESCO and by the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee. It also produced a technique for the detection of gas leaks from undersea pipelines that has been described by the oil and gas industry to be ‘at least two orders of magnitude more sensitive than current model-based techniques for large, long pipelines'. From this idea Tim was commissioned to invent sensors for the $1.4 billion dollar Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA.

From the question ‘can I make human cheeks luminesce using ultrasound?' came the invitation for him to co-author the guidelines under which foetal ultrasonic scans are done (currently around 2 billion children since the guidelines were published).  From ‘do dolphins think nonlinearly?' came a sonar system that the the sonar manufacturing industry described as ‘a top priority', and a radar system for the detection of buried catastrophe victims, covert ‘bugging' devices, and hidden explosives such as roadside bombs.

The question ‘do whales sing in spirals?' led to hypotheses that are now standard in the repartee of whale tour guides and TV wildlife documentaries; and the question ‘what would we sound like on another planet?' led to licensed technology used in planetaria, and design critiques for equipment for planetary probes. From this Tim even advised for a fashion shown, a Hollywood blockbuster, and the Dutch national TV quiz.

The question ‘can I build a conical bubble' enabled the development of a subcutaneous needle-free injector. Toby King (CEO of Bowman Power Group) said "His solution enabled further development, such that in 2006 the company Zogenix was formed around this technology, and has now raised a total of over $150 million of Venture capital and loans, primarily to fund approval (successfully achieved in the USA) and marketing of the product with a migraine drug, now called Sumavel Dosepro. The current global market for just this one drug (Sumatriptan) is over $1 billion per year. The needle-free injector is now selling well in the US and the EU- they have just made their millionth device, and quarterly revenues have grown from nothing to $7 million in only a year".

Tim's research has in the past been recognized by his receiving the award the 1994 A. B. Wood Medal of the Institute of Acoustics. He was also awarded the inaugural (2001) International Medwin Prize for Acoustical Oceanography, awarded by the Acoustical Society of America. He was awarded the 2002 Tyndall Medal of the Institute of Acoustics; the inaugural (2004) Early Career Medal and Award of the International Commission of Acoustics; and the 2006 Paterson Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (the citation describing him as ‘an acknowledged world leader in four fields'). Tim was also awarded the 2009 R. W. B. Stephens Medal of the Institute of Acoustics. In 2011 he received the Royal Society's premier award for innovation, the Brian Mercer Award for Innovation, £250,000 shared jointly with Peter Birkin of Chemistry, for their StarStream^TM technology. Tim was also awarded the 2013 Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Silver Medal of the Acoustical Society of America; and the 2014 Rayleigh Medal of the Institute of Acoustics. In 2012 he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Institute of Acoustics, a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and has been awarded both Chartered Physicist and Chartered Engineer status. In 2013 he was selected for inclusion in Who's Who.

Two inventions have received major awards. StarStream^TM technology won the 2012 Institute of Chemical Engineering Award for "Water Management and Supply". John Melville, MD of Ultrawave Ltd. described StarStream^TM as "the only true technological leap forward in ultrasonic cleaning that we have seen for decades". A second invention, the LithoCheck^TM kidney therapy monitor (invented jointly with Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust [GSTT] in London) won the "The Engineer's" 2008 Medical and Healthcare Award. On the topic of LithoCheck^TM, Dr Fiammetta Fedele of GSTT said: "Prof. Leighton's predictions of the acoustic signals emitted when bubbles collapse against kidney stones during shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) led (through collaboration with GSTT and Precision Acoustics Ltd.) to a £ 5,000 passive acoustic sensor (patent applied for)). When placed on the patient's skin this sensor diagnoses successful SWL treatments (with 94.7% accuracy in clinical trials, compared to the 36.8% achieved by clinicians with the current ~£1M state of the art equipment suite). An accurate diagnostic is needed to conform with the 2004 ‘The NHS improvement Plan: Putting people at the heart of public services'  of reducing the ‘patient pathway', because currently 30-50% of SWL patients require re-treatment and an unknown number are overdosed. The NHS is trialling it as part of major plans to reduce inaccurate diagnoses and ineffective treatments. GSTT has used the sensor on over 100 patients".

Tim has not only been inventive in his research, but has also had to be inventive in funding many of the above research projects, for example by earning funds from Enterprise and Consultancy to plough back into research (to fund studentships, equipment etc.), because the traditional research sponsors have often not prioritized these ideas sufficiently to fund them.