Professor Louise Thomas was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in January 2023 and attended the New Fellows Ceremony in Regents Park on Thursday 4 May 2023.
Becoming a fellow at the RCP will allow Professor Thomas to join a community of vibrant and engaged individuals driving regional, national and international change. Professor Thomas was nominated for the fellowship last year by Professor Simon Taylor-Robinson, former Professor of Medicine and consultant hepatologist at Imperial College London, in recognition of her significant contribution to clinical research during her career. Her fellowship application was endorsed by Dr Nader Lessan, a Consultant Endocrinologist and Diabetologist based at the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre.
This recognition has been in respect to Professor Thomas’ research over the last 30 years in pursuit of more accurate and robust methodologies for precision phenotyping which have provided unique methods to characterise, describe, classify and measure aspects of human health, and monitor disease progression.
Professor Thomas’ background was originally in Biochemistry, and she obtained a BSc from Queen Mary and Westfield College followed by a PhD investigating the effects of diet and development on adipose tissue composition using in vivo 13C NMR Spectroscopy.
Professor Thomas joined the University of Westminster in October 2014 and was appointed as Professor of Metabolic Imaging at the University of Westminster in 2021. She delivered her inaugural Professorial Lecture, the Beauty of Body Fat to a large and enthusiastic Fyvie Hall audience on Wednesday 17 May 2023.
Professor Thomas said of her fellowship: “As a scientist, it is a huge honour to have my contribution to medical research being recognised by the Royal College of Physicians. Meeting 'fellow Fellows' at the New Fellows Ceremony from around the world and from such diverse disciplines was wonderful. It was a celebration of achievement and such a happy event. My family came along too and were made to feel part of the ceremony. There was a reception for everyone and a fantastic celebratory dinner. It was a truly memorable occasion.”
About the inaugural lecture Professor Thomas gave to her family, friends, collaborators and colleagues on 17 May, she said: “It was an extraordinary evening. I’m truly humbled by the honor the university has bestowed upon me and was so pleased to share my journey, my research and my love of body fat with everyone. It was an unforgettable evening.”
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