Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal recipients announced

Posted on: 18 November 2022

The Royal Irish Academy awards two RIA Gold Medals every year. The medals are awarded to individuals who have made a demonstrable and internationally recognised outstanding scholarly contribution in their fields. The medals acclaim Ireland’s foremost thinkers in the humanities, social sciences, physical and mathematical sciences, life sciences, engineering sciences and the environment and geosciences.

The 2023 Royal Irish Academy Gold Medals are sponsored by AIB.

Jane Ohlmeyer MRIA, Professor of Modern History, Trinity College Dublin has been awarded the 2023 Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities and Jonathan Coleman MRIA, Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin has been awarded the 2023 Academy Gold Medal in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

Jonathan Coleman

Jonathan Coleman is the Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy (1724) in the School of Physics and a Principal Investigator in the CRANN and AMBER research centres at Trinity College Dublin. Professor Coleman’s area of interest is in solution processing of nano-materials, predominately carbon nanotubes, nanowires and 2D nanosheets such as graphene. He is most well-known for developing Liquid Phase Exfoliation, a versatile and widely used method for preparing 2D materials. These solution processing methods allow the formation of dispersions, suspensions and solutions of nanostructures and facilitate the production of coatings, thin films and composites. Coleman works on applying these materials and methods in a number of areas including electro-mechanical sensors, printed electronics and energy storage materials. In the latter area, he has particular interest in new electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries, battery electrode architectures and the factors limiting rate performance in batteries. Professor Coleman has been involved in a number of industry-academic collaborative projects with companies including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, SAB Miller, Nokia-Bell Labs and Thomas Swan.

Jane Ohlmeyer

Jane Ohlmeyer is Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History (1762) at Trinity College Dublin. She was the founding Head of the School of Histories and Humanities and Trinity’s first Vice-President for Global Relations (2011-14). She was a driving force behind the 1641 Depositions Project(link is external) and the development of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute which she directed (2015-20). She chaired the Irish Research Council (2015-21). She was the Principal Investigator for ‘Shape-ID’, ‘Shaping Interdisciplinary Practices in Europe’ and a MSCA Co-fund called ‘Human+’, both funded by European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. She is the author or editor of numerous articles and 11 books.  Her next book on ‘Ireland, Empire and the Early Modern World’, which she gave as the 2021 Ford Lectures in Oxford, will appear in 2023.  She is currently working on a 4-part documentary called ‘From that Small Island: the story of the Irish’ which will be broadcast in March 2024. 

Professors Coleman and Ohlmeyer will be presented with their Gold Medals at a special ceremony in Spring 2023. 

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