Professor Meera Mehta is among four Oxford University researchers who have been selected from over 350 nominations to receive one of the 2025 Philip Leverhulme Prizes.
These awards recognise and celebrate the achievements of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future careers are exceptionally promising. Each prize winner will receive £100,000 to be used for any purpose that advances their research.
The Philip Leverhulme Prizes commemorate the contribution to the work of the Leverhulme Trust made by Philip, Third Viscount Leverhulme and grandson of William Lever, the founder of the Trust. This year, the Leverhulme Trust awarded five prizes in each of the following subject areas: Archaeology, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Geography, and Languages and Literatures.
Prof Mehta has been awarded a Chemistry prize for her work on the fundamental chemistry of earth-abundant non-toxic elements and their application in synthetic and materials science. She said:
Besides providing financial support to initiate a very ambitious project, this prize celebrates and recognises all the hard work of my research team. It allows me to be part of the elite Philip Leverhulme Prize winners community, and engage with academics beyond science.
Prof Mehta’s research spans a broad range across fundamental chemical science, including the synthesis of molecules and catalysis. A particular interest is nitrogen chain structures. Under ambient conditions, these structures are highly reactive, meaning that they can typically only be studied under extreme conditions, for example at ultrahigh pressures or ultracold temperatures. However, preliminary work from Prof Mehta’s lab indicates that it is possible to synthesise stable units with four nitrogen atoms, under ambient conditions.
She intends to use the Leverhulme Prize to develop this work, and explore how adjusting the organic groups of these nitrogen-containing units influences the molecules’ electronic structure and, in turn, their chemical behaviour.
You can read more about Prof Mehta and the other Oxford winners here.
