Professor Anongnat Somwangthanaroj
Loughborough Leicester IAS Fellowship
Chulalongkorn University
Prof. Anongnat (Annie) Somwangthanaroj is a project leader of the CLEANET (Collaborative Leadership in Electrochemistry and Advanced Materials Networks for Energy Transformation) initiative and the Thai–UK Bio-Circular-Green Technology Research Collaboration under the UK–Thailand World-Class University Consortium (British Council). She has supervised over 70 graduate theses and serves as Advisor to the Bio-Circular-Green Technology Centre.
As part of collaborative battery research teams in Thailand, she specialises in the design of membranes for zinc-based batteries supporting long-duration energy storage aligned with Thailand and the UK’s net-zero goals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led rapid-response teams to deliver Thailand’s first PPE virus barrier testing system and the CUre Air Sure, the reusable respirator. Co-founded through her spin-out Cure Enterprise, the respirator won the 2021 Good Design Award, reached over 300 hospitals, and was later featured by WIPO as a global innovation case study. Based on this expertise, she has been selected as a Royal Academy of Engineering Leader in Innovation Fellow.
During their IAS Fellowship, Professor O’Brien is Somwangthanaroj with Dr Dowon Bae from the School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering in Loughborough University and Dr Jake Yang from the School of Chemistry at Leicester University.