Dr. Derya Baran won the Energy & Environmental Science Lectureship Award 2025. As head of KAUST’s OMEGA group, Baran explores solution-processable organic and hybrid soft materials that can be printed, stretched and scaled into real devices: flexible solar films for greenhouses, printable electronics, thermoelectrics and wearable sensors. 

“Energy is invisible but its consequences are not,” Baran explains. “I want to craft materials and processes that are honest — that use less, waste less, and give more: more light for a greenhouse, more power for a village, more time for people to live. Science must be stewardship.”

Her motivation is to develop materials and methods that reduce waste, save water and make energy technologies accessible. The EES nomination recognises that mission: the focused, incremental engineering of materials that could quietly improve life for the next generations.

Read more at the Royal Society of Chemistry website.