Dr Radha Boya

Dr Radha Boya is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellow in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester. Her primary research interest relates to ultimately narrow capillaries made by effectively removing a single atomic plane from a bulk layered crystal. These capillaries with atomically smooth walls are only several angstroms (Å) tall and can transport molecules one layer at a time.

After completing her PhD in India, Dr Boya secured a series of highly prestigious international research fellowships. She was awarded with Indo-US pre- and postdoctoral fellowships in 2012 to work at Northwestern University, USA. In 2014, Radha relocated to the UK with Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship held at the University of Manchester. She was awarded a Leverhulme early career fellowship in 2016, a Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw fellowship from the University of Manchester in 2017, and a Royal Society University Research fellowship in 2018. In 2019, Dr Boya secured an ERC starting grant to work on confinement induced molecular structure dynamics and molecular separation. She has published 46 research papers, including in Nature and Science journals. She was named as a UNESCO L’Oréal-women in science UK fellow, International Rising Talent as well as being recognized as an inventor in a global list of “Innovators under 35” by MIT Technology Review.

Dr Boya established her research group at the University of Manchester in 2016 which now consists of five PhD students and four post-doctoral researchers. Her group focuses on investigating the mass transport of ions, gases and water through angstrom-scale confined channels.