King's College London

Professor Sofia Vasilopoulou, Professor of European Politics in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy.

Professor Vasilopoulou has published extensively in the fields of electoral politics, public opinion and party politics. She studies the causes and consequences of political dissatisfaction among the public and the ways in which this is channelled through party strategies and party competition. The findings of her research feed into debates about democratic legitimacy, accountability and representation in Europe and the European Union.

The title for her ERC Consolidator Grant award is: Sub-national economic inequalities and electoral change in Europe. Her project will explore support for the populist radical right in wealthier locations, counter to the perception that it is usually ‘left-behind’ places who vote in in this way. It will constitute a major data collection endeavour that opens the ‘black box’ of the micro-foundations of the relationship between sub-national inequalities and populist radical right support in five European countries: France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and Greece.

Dr Nicola Leveringhaus, Reader in International Relations in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy

Dr Leveringhaus specialises in the International Relations of Asia. Her current research falls under three areas: early Chinese nuclear weapons history; contemporary China-India nuclear weapons relations; and conceptions of responsibility across regional and global forms of nuclear order.

The title for her ERC Consolidator Grant award is: Nuclear Weapons Pasts in the Present. It is the first project of its kind to systematically study nuclear weapons commemoration and their present-day effects as the world witnesses a global nuclear weapons revival. All nuclear weapons states are actively modernising their nuclear arsenals and arms control agreements are being abandoned. In Europe, for example, the War in Ukraine reinforces nuclear weapons as a core feature of extended security among NATO countries. Nuclear Echoes offers a new historically informed contribution to the nuclear field on the political relevance of nuclear weapons commemoration today. 

Dr Leveringhaus is a non-resident research affiliate with the Nuclear Knowledges team from 2025 at CERI, SciencesPo in Paris, where she will also be conducting research on nuclear weapons commemoration.

Dr Mads Sylvest Bergholt, Reader in Biophotonics in the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences

Dr Bergholt’s research interests include biomedical optics and light-tissue interaction, linear/non-linear optical spectroscopy/imaging, advanced endoscopy and artificial intelligence in preclinical disease models and in patients to shed new light on disease onset and progression.

The title for his ERC Consolidator Grant award is: Endoscopic tissue time machine.

Dr Francisco José Rodríguez Fortuño, Reader in Nanophotonics in the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences

Dr Rodríguez Fortuño’s research combines the topics of plasmonics, nanophotonics, extreme parameter metamaterials, hyperbolic metamaterials, spin-orbit coupling, optical nanoantennas, and optical forces, developing novel theoretical concepts in optics and plasmonics, and always aiming at their experimental demonstration and practical applications.

The title for his ERC Consolidator Grant award is: Advanced Techniques in Light and Acoustic Near-fields: Time and Spatial structuring.