King’s Academic Elected as a Fellow at The Royal Academy of Engineering

Staff Writer Sara Naz Anjum explores the achievements made by King’s College London (KCL) Professor of Experimental Physics Anatoly Zayats. Professor Zayats has been elected as a Royal Academy of Engineering Fellow, as part of the Academy’s 50th anniversary cohort (2026).

At the end of September 2026, the Royal Academy of Engineering announced that 75 leading figures in the field of engineering and technology would be elected to their fellowship, including Professor Anatoly V. Zayats FREng.

Professor Zayats is a researcher and physicist at KCL who has made “pioneering contributions to photonics and nanotechnology”. His current specific work interests focus on nanophotonics, plasmonics and metamaterials.

A major milestone in his career was his discovery of optical skyrmions, which can be described as “nanoscale regions where the orientation of electron spin changes in a vortex-type manner”. In other words, these are small, stable patterns of light that act as knots of energy. Their applications include imaging, data storage and the development of next-generation quantum devices.

“It’s a great honour.”

Professor Anatoly Zayats FREng, via Linkedin

Additionally, Professor Zayats is one of the founding co-editors-in-chief of Advanced Photonics, a global and publicly accessible journal. Advanced Photonics is devoted to “innovative research in all areas of optics and photonics”.

The Royal Academy of Engineering, founded in 1976, marked 2026 as their 50th anniversary, with a series of special events and activities to “celebrate five decades of engineering better lives”. These included a unique prize at the annual Academy Awards Dinner, titled the “Engineering Better Lives Award“, awarded to the Concrete Canvas co-founders whose climate-proofing infrastructure innovations derived a solution to the global water crisis. This award served as a one-off prize to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Academy.

“This year’s cohort will be joining a community of over 1,700 top engineers and innovators in the UK and around the world. Together, we ensure that bright ideas are supported, scaled and shared, turning ambition into innovation and innovation into impact.”

Sir John Lazar CBE FREng, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Professor Zayats and the other 74 academics will be formally admitted into the Academy on October 19th, at a special ceremony in London. Each new member will sign the Academy’s official roll book to complete their admission.