We’re delighted to announce that AIchemy Co-Director, Prof. Andy Cooper and Co-I Prof. Matt Rosseinsky have been honoured for their outstanding contributions to science.
Each year the Royal Society recognises exceptional research achievements through a series of prestigious medals and prizes. Professor Cooper has been awarded the Davy Medal and Professor Rosseinsky has been awarded the Royal Medal for Physical Sciences.
Professor Andy Cooper has been awarded the Royal Society’s Davy Medal, named after Humphry Davy FRS, the chemist and inventor of the Davy Lamp.
He receives the award for pioneering digital approaches to chemistry that integrate first-principles computational chemistry, autonomous robotics, and artificial intelligence.
Professor Cooper’s research is pushing boundaries at the interface of AI, robotics, and chemistry. He holds a Royal Society Research Professorship which he is using to advance the capabilities of the world’s first fully autonomous mobile robotic chemist, which he and his team developed and reported in Nature in 2020.
Commenting on his award, Professor Cooper said: “This prize reflects the work of a diverse team of collaborators who have believed in the long-term value of creating new digital approaches to chemistry research. This can be a hard path, particularly in the early stages, and I’m fortunate to have had colleagues who were not afraid to pursue speculative and risky ideas.”
Professor Matt Rosseinsky has been recognised for pioneering contribution to the design and discovery of materials, changing our understanding of synthesis to create function with digital tools. He will receive the medal from His Majesty King Charles III at a special ceremony later this year.
Three Royal Medals are awarded every year for the most important contributions in the physical, biological and applied sciences. Since 1826, they have recognised some of the most eminent scientists including Francis Crick FRS, Frederick Sanger FRS and Max Perutz FRS.
On receiving his award, Professor Rosseinsky said: “I am deeply honoured and humbled to receive the Royal Medal for Physical Sciences from the Royal Society.
“This award reflects the huge role materials chemistry – and condensed matter science more broadly – plays in our everyday lives.
“I want to take the opportunity to highlight the support and contribution of numerous people and organisations to my work over the past 25 years.
“These include the multidisciplinary team of colleagues that I work with in the Department of Chemistry and at the University of Liverpool.
“I’d also like to highlight the support of academic collaborators and industrial partners, in particular Unilever, Johnson Matthey, Ceres Power and NSG Pilkington, as well as the funders of our research including EPSRC and the Leverhulme Trust. This support has been indispensable for the development of work on artificial intelligence for materials design and discovery at the University’s Materials Innovation Factory.”
Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said: “The recipients of this year’s medals and awards have all made outstanding contributions to science and its applications for the benefit of humanity.
“They have done so by furthering our understanding of the processes that govern the world around us, changing the practices of academia to build a more robust and inclusive research environment, and engaging new audiences.
“Celebrating these diverse contributions is core to the Society’s mission and I offer my congratulations to all the 2025 recipients.”
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
Further information about the 2025 Royal Society Awards can be found here.