Powering Britain's
Battery Revolution
Powering Britain's
Battery Revolution
Congratulations to Dr Mona Faraji Niri, Associate Professor of Battery Modelling at WMG, University of Warwick, for winning the 2025 Individual Faraday Institution Community Award for Public Engagement and STEM Outreach.
Picture: Mona holding the award at the Faraday Institution Conference 2025. From left to right: Colin Rouse from PI-KEM (Award sponsor), Dr Mona Faraji Niri and Prof Martin Freer (Faraday Institution CEO).
Mona has provided consistent and extensive support for outreach initiatives over the last few years. Her contributions span University of Warwick projects (such as STEM Connections), Faraday Institution projects (including participating in the STEM outreach evening as part of the 2023 Faraday Institution Conference), via professional membership bodies (e.g., British Computing Society), podcasts (Innovate UK’s Battery Café) and online videos. A particular highlight was her presentation in the iconic lecture theatre at the Royal Institution for a “For Your Inspiration” careers event aimed at 13-18 year olds.
Mona’s research is focused on modelling, control algorithms and machine learning for dynamic systems, with applications in energy storage, lithium-ion batteries and battery management systems. As a Co-Investigator on the Faraday Institution Nextrode project, her research extends to the optimisation of battery manufacturing processes via machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Mona presenting at the Faraday Institution conference in 2023.
She brings her expertise of this exciting and topical area to her outreach, inspiring young audiences by highlighting the role of AI and machine learning in the development of battery technologies and the career opportunities available in the field for the next generation of engineers.
Mona is committed to being a positive role model, demonstrating that anyone can succeed in engineering. Given the under-representation of women in the field, her willingness to support numerous events and serve as a role model is both impactful and important to the battery sector. In addition to representing women in engineering, Mona has increased the accessibility of battery research by developing outreach content in Farsi.
She is a longstanding and valuable ally to the WMG Outreach team, generously giving her time to support projects such as week-long work experience programmes. Mona has mentored student groups alongside other engineers, guiding them as they developed a battery automation factory model using robot arms performing pick-and-place tasks with dummy cells.
STEM outreach shows young people how research can shape their future, while giving me the joy of inspiring the next generation and sharpening how I communicate real-world impact.”
Mona Faraji Niri
Mona has also supported university research projects investigating best practice in work experience, with the aim of delivering systemic change. She is a co-author on a journal article on work experience in the higher education context, following on from “Employability for Young People in STEM”, a project designed to encourage diversity and inclusion, support career development and provide open access resources to enable researchers to deliver impactful work experience that inspires students to pursue STEM careers.
Mona presenting a WMG talk on Machine Learning.
Mona has logged 93 hours of recorded activities as a STEM Ambassador and made 11 recorded contributions to WMG outreach activities (including several week-long projects), reaching an estimated 350 in person attendees and garnering over 1,000 online views.
I greatly value Mona’s collaboration with the outreach teams here, and her commitment, professionalism, and passion for engaging people with AI, machine learning, and batteries. I thoroughly believe that her track record over the last five years demonstrates her value to the Faraday Institution as an ambassador, making a difference and ensuring that her activities have legacy.”
Dr Phil Jemmett, Widening Participation Co-ordinator, WMG
Join us in congratulating Mona on her achievements.
