News

2023

Joe Willis wins Poster Prize at UWO 2023

On the 05th of June, Ke Li and Joe Willis representd the group at the inaugural Ultra-Wide Bandgap Oxide (UWO2023) which was held in the University of Bristol. Ke presented a poster on Sb(V)-based oxides, and Joe presented his work on defects in Gallium Oxide. Joe impressed all of the academics who were present, and was awarded a poster prize sponsored by the Institute of Physics. Well done Joe!!

Bastien Grosso awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship

Bastien Grosso has been awarded a very prestigious Marie Curie fellowship to study ferroelectric nitrides. Bastien will move with the SMTG to Birmingham and we will host the fellowship there. Very exciting times as Bastien embarks on the road to indepdence. Again, this European funding will convert to a UKRI funding due to the ongoing political impasse. Well done Bastien!

Seán Kavanagh wins Gold Medal at the 2023 MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco

Seán Kavanagh followed up his Silver Graduate Student Award (GSA) medal from the 2022 MRS Spring meeting with a Gold GSA award at the 2023 meeting which was held in San Francisco just after Easter. Seán was the only finalist from a European University, which is a credit to the hard work he has put in. Strangely, he was not the only Irish Gold Medalist! A great day for the Emerald Isle! Well done Seán!

Here is Seán delivering his prize winning talk at MRS Spring 2023.

Luisa passes her PhD viva!

Luisa Herring-Rodriguez becomes the 10th PhD graduated from the SMTG, passing her viva on the 30th of March 2023. Luisa’s thesis was examined by Dr Rob Bell (UCL Chemistry), and Dr Keith Butler (QMUL). Luisa got a friendly grilling and passed with flying colours. Conrgatulations Dr Herring-Rodriguez!!!

Pictures (from left to right) are Dr Rob Bell, Dr Luisa Herring-Rodriguez, and Dr Keith Butler.

David awarded ERC Consolidator Grant

On January 31st, it was announced that David had been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant worth €2 million to discover new wide band gap conducting oxides. The grant, entitled PRAETORIAN, will combine chemical know-how and advanced computational chemistry techniques to narrow down phase space in the search for these key industrial materials. The grant will start in September 2023, and will run for 5 years. Due to the UK’s continued absence from the EU’s Horizon funding mechanism, the grant will be funded instead through UKRI.

SMTG is moving to the University of Birmingham in 2023

The Scanlon Materials Theory Group will be leaving UCL after 12 fantastic years, to join the rapid expansion of the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham. On the first of September, David will take up the Chair in Computational Chemistry, and oversee a large investment in High Performance Computing at the University. Exciting times ahead! Birmingham has invested £83 million in a new Building, so we are looking forward to seeing our new home.

2022

Joe Willis and Katarina Brlec win Poster prizes at the SSCG Xmas Meeting

Both Joe Willis and Katarina Brlec won poster prizes at the recent RSC Solid State Chemistry Group Christmas Meeting, held in Cambridge in December. Kat was awarded a prize for her poster on novel oxychalcogenides, and Joe won for his poster on new Sb(V)-based transparent conducting oxides! Well done Joe and Kat!!

Pictured are Joe (top) and Katarina (bottom) being presented their poster awards by Dr Jeremy Allen from the RSC.

Joe Willis wins Best Oral Presentation award at MRS Boston 2022

Post doc Joe Willis was award a “Best Oral Presentation Award” for his talk in Doping and Mobility Limits of Cuprous Iodide, which he delivered in Symposium EQ05: Contacts and Interfaces in Optoelectronic Devices at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston. Congrats Joe!!!

Seán Kavanagh wins the Ramsay Medal for 2022

Seán Kavanagh won the Ramsay Medal for 2022, which is a competition for the best graduating PhD student in the UCL Chemistry Department. Students compete for this prize at the end of their third year of research. Luckily, Seán’s PhD programme is a 4-year one, so we still have the pleasure of his company for another year! Seán presented an overview of his work on PV materials, and on defect chemistry analysis. Great work Seán!

Seán presenting his talk in the Ramsay Medal competition. (Photo courtesy of Professor Martijn Zwijnenburg.

Bodoo Batnaran wins the 2022 Nyholm Prize

Our talented MSci project student Bodoo Batnaran just found out that he has been awarded the Ronald Nyholm prize for 2022. The Nyholm prize was established in 1982 in memory of Professor Sir Ronald Nyholm FRS (1917-1971), who was a pioneering figure in the field of transition metal chemistry and co-inventor of the VSEPR concept. He was Professor of Chemistry at UCL from 1955, and Head of Department from 1963 until his death in a car accident in 1971. The prize is awarded annually to the UCL student who has done the most distinguished work in Inorganic Chemistry. Bodoo’s MSci project was focussed on assessing how defect chemistry calculations could be done faster to aid high throughput studies of new materials. Bodoo is starting a PhD in the Department of Oxford with Professor Volker Deringer. Well done Bodoo!!

Bastien Grosso wins poster commendation at the 2022 Psi-k Conference

Dr Bastien Grosso was awarded a Poster Commendation at the 6th general conference for the worldwide Psi-K community in Lausanne, Switzerland. Bastien presented some teasing results on new nitride perovskites, which will be published soon. The top 10% of posters from the 750 submitted were selected for commendation, and recieved a €50 cash prize courtesy of Psi-K. Well done Bastien!

Ethan Rubinstein passes his PhD viva

Ethan Rubinstein has become the ninth student from the SMTG to earn a PhD, after defending his thesis on the 15th of August. His examiners were Dr Rob Jackson from from Keele University, and Dr Alex Rettie, from the Department of Chemical Engineering here in UCL. Finally, we had a return to in-person vivas, and so got to open a bottle of Champagne in person to toast Ethan’s super achievement. Well done Dr Rubinstein!

From left to right: Dr Alex Rettie, Ethan and Dr Rob Jackson.

Seán Kavanagh wins the 2022 Catlow Prize, with Joe Willis as runner up

On the 28th July it was announced that Seán Kavanagh is the winner of this year Catlow Prize, for the best third year PhD talk in the UCL Chemistry Department, where he presented his work on inorganic solar aborbers. Seán will now go forward to represent the Computational Chemistry section in the Ramsay Medal final in October. This is the 4th time an SMTG member has won the Catlow Prize in 6 years. It was a very strong competition this year, and our own Joe Willis was announced as one of the official runners up for his work on transparent conductors. Well done Seán and Joe!

Alex Squires wins poster award at SSI23 in Boston

On the 19th of July, Dr Alex Squires was awarded a poster prize at the 23rd Solid State Ionics meeting in Boston, USA. Alex presented his work on “Computational Design of Sustainable and Low-Cost High-Entropy Disordered-Rocksalt Li-Ion Cathode Materials. Well done Alex!

Alex Name in lights on the winners screen!

Alex presenting his poster at SSI23.

Adair wins a poster prize at the CDT-ACM retreat in Barcelona

On the week of the 11th of July, Adair Nicolson joined the rest of the CDT-ACM cohorts in Barcelona for the annual CDT retreat. Adair received a poster prize for his work on solar absorber materials! Well done Adair!

Adair (far right) is pictured here with the other poster prize winners!

Luisa and Kat win the IEP PGTA awards for “Best Assessment and Feedback” for 2021-2022

On the 27th of June, it was announced that both Katarina Brlec and Luisa Herring-Rodriguez have been awarded the 2021-2022 Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP) PGTA award for “Best Assessment and Feedback”. Well done ladies, making SMTG and the Chemistry Department proud! Enjoy the £150 prizes!

Adair wins poster prize at the Binks Trust Renewable Energy Conference in Oxford

On the 24th of June, Adair Nicolson won a best poster prize at the Binks Trust Renewable Energy Conference which was held in the Cavendish Laboratory in Oxford. Adair was presenting his work on disorder in Sn2SbS2I3. Well done Adair!

Pictured is Adair receiving his award from Professor Henry Snaith, FRS, father of perovskites solar cells!

Lavan wins the prize for best Computational Poster at the second year PhD poster competition

On the 13th of June, the UCL Chemistry Department held their annual PhD poster competition for second year PhD students. Daniel Sykes, Jia Cen, Adair Nicolson and Lavan Ganeshkumar presented their posters on their work. Lavan’s poster on the defect chemistry of LiNiO3 was selected as the best Computational poster at the session! Congrats Lavan!!

Pictured is Lavan (on the right) explaining his work to a captive audience.

David wins the Student Union Student Choice Award for Excellent Personal Tutoring

David was both shocked and delighted to win the UCL Student Choice Award for “Excellent Personal Tutoring”, which was announced at the UCL Education Awards on Wednesday the 8th of June. Commenting on his win, David said: “This is very unexpected, and I am very grateful for the recognition from my group! We are trying to build an an ethos of support and inclusiveness into everything we do in the group, and this award recognises this.” Well done David!

Seán Kavanagh wins three awards at the eMRS Spring Meeting 2022

Seán Kavanagh had a busy week at the virtual eMRS Spring meeting 2022, giving three talks. Remarkably, he won a Young Researcher Award from Symposium G on “sustainable energy materials” for his talk on vacancy ordered double perovskites, he won a best presentation award from Symposium K on “Emerging Chalcogenide Materials” for his presentations on AgBiS2 and metastable defects in CdTe, and was awarded a Rising Star award from Materials Today Chemistry! Well done Seán!!

Seán Kavanagh wins Silver Graduate Student Award at MRS Spring 2022, in Hawaii

Congratulations to Seán Kavanagh who was awarded a Silver Award at the Graduate Student Awards at the 2022 MRS Spring Meeting, which was held in Hawaii from the 9th to the 13th of May. The MRS Spring meeting is the world’s foremost international scientific gathering for materials research, and this year’s meeting featured 71 symposia running concurrently. The Graduate Student Awards final is extremely hard to get in, with the top 20 students from around the globe competing for either a Gold or Silver Medal. Seán was one of only 2 UK students and 3 Europeans who reached the final. Well done Seán!!

David Shortlisted for Student Choice Award

On the 6th of April, David was notified that he was on the shortlist of three for the “Excellent Personal Tutoring” award within the 2022 UCL Student Union Student Choice Awards. David didn’t even know he had been nominated, so was bowled over to have been shortlisted. He commented: “It’s easy to supervise a team of superstars, so I am just doing my job!” The ceremony to announce the winners for each award will take place on campus on the late afternoon/early evening of Wednesday 8th June. Best of luck David!

Seán Kavanagh wins MAPS Faculty Education Award

On the 04th of April it was announced that Seán Kavanagh has won a individual Excellence award for Academic Support in the MAPS Faculty Education Awards 2022. He has now been nominated for the UCL Education Awards 2022, which will be judged by a central panel. Shortlisted nominees for a UCL Education Award will be announced at UCL Education Conference on Wednesday 06 April 2022. Winners will be announced at the Education Awards celebration on Wednesday 08 June 2022. Well done and best of luck Seán!!

David becomes Lead Editor for PRX Energy

On the 28th of February, David took up a new position as the inaugural Lead Editor for PRX Energy, a new a fully open access and highly selective journal from the American Physical Society for the multidisciplinary energy science and technology research communities.

David said: “I am incredibly excited to be the inaugural Lead Editor of PRX Energy. With the climate emergency currently dominating our newsfeeds, there has never been a more exciting or more crucial time to be working in the energy field. The Physical Review has provided a venue for breakthrough research since 1893, and now PRX Energy provides a much needed home for high quality, innovative energy research in the Physical Review family. Being part of the PRX stable, PRX Energy will give center stage to the most exciting research from our multidisciplinary community, with the complete accessibility of open access.”

2021

Seán Kavanagh wins the Roy Prize at the RSC Solid State Chemistry Group Meeting 2021

Covid deprived us of an in-person 40th anniversary SSCG Xmas meeting this year, but the event went on virtually with 194 attendees. Seán Kavanagh was awarded the Roy Prize for the best graduate student talk, and will receive £250 plus his certificate. Amazingly, he gave the talk in Gatwick airport after missing his flight to Dublin due to two cancelled trains! Looks like the prize money will be used to pay for the rescheduled flight! Well done Seán!

Former group member Alex Ganose, who is now an EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship holder at Imperial College London also picked up an award, for the best computational work by an early career researcher. Congrats Alex!!

Jiayi Cen wins Best Poster Award at the virtual MRS Fall Meeting 2021

Jiayi has won a Best Poster Award for her poster on modelling defects in the high voltage spinel LMNO at the Virtual MRS Fall Meeting 2021. Fantastic work Jiayi!

Arthur Youd Passes his PhD Viva

On the 19th of November, Arthur Youd became the eight student from the group to earn a PhD. His examiners were Dr Rob Bell from UCL and Dr James Dawson from Newcastle University. Once again, this was a remote viva, so we will have to wait for a while to be able to celebrate Arthur’s achievement in person with a well deserved bottle of Champagne. Congratulations Arthur!

Seán Kavanagh Spends a Month at the Max Planck Institute in Düsseldorf

Seán Kavanagh spent the month of November (2021) visiting the lab of Dr. Christoph Freysoldt at the Max Planck Institute in Düsseldorf, Germany, funded by a Max Planck Travel Award and a TYC Junior Research Fellowship (JRF). The project was focused on modelling dynamic defect behaviour and the impact of metastable defect structures on recombination in solar cells. Seán says: “I really enjoyed my time working closely with Christoph (Freysoldt), his group and the rest of the Computational Materials Design dept at MPIE. Working in a different research environment, and intensely on a specific project, made for a powerful collaboration and I definitely learned a lot from the experience.
The work from this project has been accepted for publication in Faraday Discussions, and is due to be presented at the RSC Faraday Discussions on Emerging Solar PV Materials in July 2022, in Bath.

Here is Seán alongside the Rhine with the Düsseldorf TV tower behind him.

Seán Kavanagh wins two Graduate Student Awards at the recent virtual eMRS Fall Meeting 2021

Seán Kavanagh was feeling greedy at the 2021 eMRS Fall Meeting, and won a Graduate Student Award for his presentations in Symposium A, and Symposium F. We have never heard of a student winning two awards at the same meeting, so it must be a record! Well done Seán!

Helen Spong wins the Neil Sharp Prize

Our recently graduated MSci student Helen Spong was awarded the Neil Sharp Prize for best performance in Theoretical/Computational Chemistryby a graduating MSci student. Helen becomes the second SMTG MSci student to win the prize after Katarina Brlec in 2019. Very well deserved Helen!!

David becomes a Scientific Editor for Materials Horizons

On the 6th of September, David joined the Editorial Board of Materials Horizons as a Scientific Editor. David commented “I am very much looking forward to supporting the computational materials science community and the wider materials science community as a Scientific Editor for Materials Horizons. Computational research is now a vital partner for experimental research as we search for the next generation of advanced materials, and I am excited to see the best and brightest new ideas being submitted to Materials Horizons”

David wins the Inagural RSC Materials Chemistry Division Early Career Award

On June 8th, it was announced that David had been awarded the inagurgal RSC Materials Chemistry Division Early Career Award for 2011, for For contributions to materials modelling of conducting oxides. This award recognizes work carried out with a myriad of excellent collaborators, in UCL, Diamond Light Source, nationally and internationally, as well as with a host of dedicated and talented students and postdocs from the SMTG in UCL.

Seán Kavanagh wins the UCL 2nd Year Computational Chemistry Poster Prize for 2021

Seán Kavanagh was the 2021 winner of the UCL Chemistry Department 2nd year Computational Chemistry Poster Competition. Well done Seán!

Warda Rahim wins the Catlow Prize for 2021

On the same day as her PhD viva, it was announced that Warda Rahim has won the Catlow Prize, which is awarded for best presentation by a final year PhD student in the Computational Chemistry section. Warda presented his computational work on complex oxides for thermoelectric applications. She will go on to represent the Computational Chemistry section in the Ramsay Medal final in September! Well done again Warda!

Warda Rahim successfully defends her PhD thesis

On the 9th of July, Warda Rahim became the seventh student from the group to earn a PhD, and also became our youngest ever PhD graduate at just 23 years of age. Her examiners were Professor Sir Richard Catlow from UCL and Dr Nicholas Bristowe from Durham University. Once again, this was a remote viva, so we will have to wait for a while to be able to celebrate Warda’s achievement in person with a well deserved bottle of Champagne. Congratulations Warda!

Seán Kavanagh wins talk prize from MRS Boston 2020

On the 9th of April, it was announced that our second year PhD student Seán Kavanagh has won an “Excellent Contributed Talk Award” for his presentation on the “Enhanced Optical ABsorption via Mixed-Valent Doping of Vacancy-Ordered Triple Perovskites from the 2020 Virtual MRS Spring/Fall Meeting. Congratulations Seán!

Kavanagh-MRS-Boston-2020-Talk-prize

Maud Einhorn successfully defends her PhD thesis

Maud Einhorn has become the sixth student from the SMTG to earn a PhD, after defending her thesis on the 15th of March. Her examiners were Professor Steve Parker from the University of Bath, and Professor Ben Slater, from the Department of Chemistry here in UCL. Again, due to COVID, the viva was done remotely, and so we have to wait to open a bottle of Champagne in person to toast Maud’s super achievement. Well done Maud!

2020

Winnie Leung successfully defends her PhD thesis

Winnie Leung has become the fifth student from the SMTG to earn a PhD, after defending her thesis on the 28th of August. Her examiners were Dr Geoff Hyett from the University of Southampton, and Dr Yang Xu, from the Department of Chemistry here in UCL. Due to COVID, the viva was done remotely, and so we have to wait to open a bottle of Champagne in person to toast Winnie’s great achievement. Well done Winnie!

Winnie-viva

Warda Rahim gives invited seminar at Colorado School of Mines

After arriving in Denver for the 2020 APS March meeting, we found out that the meeting had been cancelled. Instead of letting that get us down, we visited the Colorado School of Mines in Golden Colorado to discuss our latest results on understanding polymorphism in Bi2Sn2O7. Second year PhD student Warda Rahim gave an invited seminar on her work in this area. Well done Warda!

Warda_Mines_png

Seán Kavanagh wins poster prize at the TYC Student day 2020

Seán Kavanagh, our first year PhD student on the Centre for Doctoral Training in the Advanced Characterisation of Materials has won a poster prize at the TYC Student Day 2020. Seán presented his work on the Band Alignment of Lead Free Antimony and Bismuth Silver-Halide perovskites. Well done Seán!!

Sean_TYC_2020_poster_pmg

2019

Maud Einhorn wins the Journal of Materials Chemistry A poster prize SSCG 2019 Xmas Meeting

Continuing the popularity of Maud’s poster on the thermoelectrics properties of LaZnOP and LaZnOAs, Maud won the Journal of Materials Chemistry A poster prize at the 39th Royal Society of Chemistry Solid State Chemistry Group Xmas Meeting, hosted by the University of Liverpool. Well done Maud again! Killing it!!

Maud-SSCG-2019-1

Maud picking up her prize from the Chair of the SSCG Committee, Professor Jan Skakle (Aberdeen).

Maud-SSCG-2019-2

Maud with the other pize winners, posing with their certificates.

Maud Einhorn wins a poster award nomination at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston

Maud Einhorn received a poster nomination at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston for her work on calculating the thermoelectric properties of LaZnOP and LaZnOAs. Well done Maud!!

Maud-Poster-nomination-MRS-Bos-2019

Katarina Brlec awarded the Sharp and Gillespie Prizes

Our new PhD student Katarina Brlec, who did her MSci project in our group last year, has been notified that, due to her excellent performance in her final year (and her entire undergraduate career at UCL), she has been awarded the Neil Sharp Prize for best performance in Theoretical/Computational Chemistry and the Ronald Gillespie Prize for Best graduate beginning PhD in Inorganic or Materials Chemistry. Congratulations Katarina!!!

SMTG wins Faraday Institution Phase 2 Funding.

On the 5th of September, it was announced that SMTG has been awarded funding in two projects from the Faraday Institution Phase 2 projects. Firstly, David along with a team of collaborators from the University of Sheffield, Cambridge University, Oxford University and Lancaster University has been awarded funding for “Next generation lithium ion cathode materials”, in a project entitled FutureCat. The aim of the project is to take a coordinated approach to cathode chemistry design, development and discovery (including tailored protective coatings and designer interfaces) to deliver cathodes that hold more charge, that are better suited to withstand prolonged cycling and promote ion mobility (increasing battery durability and range and acceleration of the EV) while reducing the dependency of cell manufacturers on cobalt.

Secondly, in a project called NEXGENNA a team led by Professor John Irvine of the University of St Andrews, with contributions from Lancaster University, University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Sheffield and the Science and Technology Facilities Council will investigate next generation sodium ion batteries. The team aims to accelerate the development of sodium ion battery technology by taking a multi-disciplinary approach incorporating fundamental chemistry right through to considerations for scale-up and cell manufacturing. Its aim is to put on the path to commercialisation a safe sodium ion battery with high performance, low cost and a long cycle life. The relatively low cost of sodium ion batteries makes them an attractive next generation technology, particularly for static energy storage applications and low-cost vehicles.

In addition, Faraday will provide £1.3 million for the expansion of the MICHAEL supercomputer, the Faraday insttutions dedicated computing cluster. The expansion will cover the calculations envisaged for the FutureCat, NEXGENNA, and CatMat projects.

TFI_logo_final_RGB

Congratulations to our four MSci Students on their exam results

Our four MSci students, Katarina Brlec, Shareef Sbaiti, Adrien Richard and Sebastian Palmer all received their MSci results on the 2nd of July. All four worked really hard on their final year projects. Kat is staying on to do a PhD in the group, while Adrien will be joining Furio Cora’s group for a PhD. Sebastian is going to travel for a year, and do a ski season in Japan, and Shareef is taking some time to decide what the future holds. Wherever the future takes them, we know they will do fantastically. Well done team!

Our paper wins the 2019 Chemistry of Materials Lectureship and Best Paper Awards

On the 16th of April it was announced that our paper “Anharmonicity and Octahedral Tilting in Hybrid Vacancy-Ordered Double Perovskites”, which was the fourth paper in our excellent collaboration with Jamie Neilson’s group at Colorado State University, was the 2019 Chemistry of Materials Lectureship and Best Paper Award winner. Dr Annalise Maughan (first author, now a PDRA at NREL), and Jamie will represent the entire team when they present their research at a half-day symposium and award ceremony this August during the 2019 Fall ACS National Meeting in San Diego, CA.

Dr Alex Ganose awarded the MAPS Faculty Postgraduate Research Prize

On the 6th of March it was announced that Dr Alex Ganose and Dr Guanjie He (both from the UCL Chemistry Department) were joint winners of the 2018 MAPS Faculty Postgraduate Research Prize 2018 MAPS Faculty Postgraduate Research Prize. Alex, who will pick up his award at the graduation ceremony on the 4th of September said: “I am incredibly thankful to receive this award from the Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Climate change is currently the most pressing challenge faced by society. Working on renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaics and thermoelectrics, at such a critical time has been a stimulating and rewarding experience. I feel fortunate to have studied at UCL and for the opportunity to work with so many talented scientists in the UK and abroad. I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Professor David Scanlon, for his encouragement and advice throughout, and my colleagues in the Scanlon Materials Theory Group. I owe additional thanks to EPSRC and Diamond Light Source for cosponsoring my EngD, and to the Legion, Grace, and ARCHER high-performance computing facilities where my research was performed.” Well done Alex!

2018

Dr Ben Williamson wins a poster award at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston

On the 28th of November, Dr Ben Williamson won an award from the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) for his poster entitled “Computationally Driven Discovery of Layered Quinary Oxychalcogenide p-Type Transparent Conductors” at the 2018 Fall MRS in Boston. Well done Ben!

BADW-MRS-FALL-2018

Alex Ganose wins the Scopus Early Career Researcher UK Award for 2018 in the area of Physical Sciences

On the 4th of October 2018, Dr Alex Ganose was awarded the Scopus Early Career Researcher UK Award for 2018 in the area of Physical Sciences. Elsevier describe the awards as “The Early Career Researcher Awards recognise and reward outstanding young research talent making a significant contribution to their field of research and thus having a positive effect on society. Elsevier believes in the vital importance of supporting researchers at an early stage in their career and wants to recognise the institutions that foster them.” Alex was unable to attend the awards ceremony which was held in the Royal Society, as he is currently living and working in the US as a PDRA at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, so David accepted the award on his behalf. Alex won a grant of £1500 and a tropy for his efforts. The video below shows Alex describing his research.

Alex_scopus_award
The trophy!

Alex_Banner
The Banner!

Arthur, Warda, Kieran, Joe and Maham join the Group

After a year of many changes including Dr Alex Ganose leaving for a PDRA position at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Dr James Pegg departing for a PDRA position at Imperial College London, Zhenyu Wang returning to Xian Jiaotong University, and Dr Katie Inzani returning to NTNU, the G19 office has started to fill up again. This year we have four new PhD students starting in the group! Arthur Youd is going to study battery materials, linked to the Faraday Institution, Warda Rahim is going to examine oxide thermoelectrics, Kieran Spooner is going to screen mixed anion systems for energy generation, and Joe Wills is doing an EngD project joint with Diamond Light Souce where he will be trying to understand dopant incorporation in transparent conducting oxides. In addition, Maham Karim is going to do a joint theory and experiment PhD focussed on thermoelectrics, jointly supervised by Dr Rob Palgrave and David. Welcome to the group guys!!

Double PhD viva success for Alex Ganose and Chris Savory

In a double whammy, Alex Ganose and Chris Savory both happened to have their PhD vivas on the 13th of August. Alex and Chris both passed with flying colours – Alex’s examiners were Professor Ben Slater from UCL Chemistry and Prof Nicholas Harrison from Imperial College London, and Chris was examined by Prof Andrew Wills from UCL Chemistry and Prof Neil Allan from the University of Bristol. Chris is staying on in the group as a Faraday Fellow, and Alex will be departing for pasture new in September – He is taking up a position at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in San Francisco, with Dr Anubhav Jain as part of the Materials Project.

Alex_Chris
Chris (left) and Alex (right) pictured after their vivas!

David promoted to Professor Of Computational Materials Design

It has been announced that on October 1st, David will become Chair of Computational Materials Design in the Department of Chemistry at UCL. It has also been announced that David’s joint appointment with Diamond Light Source will continue for another 3 years from September 2018.

Alex Ganose wins the Catlow Prize for 2018

Alex Ganose has won the Catlow Prize, which is awarded for best presentation by a final year PhD student in the Computational Chemistry section. Alex presented his computational work on novel solar cell materials. Unfortunately, Alex will not be able to represent the Computational Chemistry section in the Ramsay Medal final in September, as he will have stated his post doctoral research in Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in San Francisco. Its a pretty good excuse though! Well done Alex!

Alex_Catlow_Prize
Alex Ganose here recieving the Catlow Prize from our Head of Department, Professor Claire Carmalt. Credit for the dark picture goes to Ben Williamson.

Congratulations to our three MSci Students on their exam results

Our three MSci students, Puja Pramanik, Venus Cheung and Kieran Spooner all received their MSci results on the 15th of June. All three worked really hard on their final year projects and were rewarded with first class results for their projects, and first class degrees overall. Kieran is staying on to do a PhD in the group, but Puja and Venus are taking some time to decide what the future holds. Wherever the future takes them, we know they will do fantastically. Well done guys!

David wins Student Choice Award for Outstanding Research Supervision

On the 5th of June, the UCL Student Union held its Student Choice Awards Ceremony, which recognises the hard work of both academic and support staff in UCL. David was shortlisted in the “Outstanding Research Supervision category, and was annouced as the winner! The criteria for the award included: (i) Demonstrating enthusiasm for their role, and being flexible and prepared to go the extra mile to support students, (ii) challenging students while encouraging them to contribute substantially to their specific discipline, (iii) being exceptionally supportive in the planning of assessments and the PhD viva, and (iv) offering constructive employment and career advice. David commented “it is easy to be seen as a good advisor when I have such an awesome group”.

James Pegg successfully defends his EngD thesis

James Pegg has become the second student from the SMTG to earn a PhD, after defending his thesis on the 25th of May. His examiners were Dr Ricardo Grau Crespo from the University of Reading, and Professor Dario Alfe, from the Department of Earth Sciences here in UCL. James is heading to the Department of Chemistry in Imperial College London to work as a PDRA in the group of Dr Kim Jelfs, and we wish him all the best. Well done James!

Pegg_viva
Dr James T. Pegg (left) pictured with his industrial supervisor from AWE Dr Mark Storr (right).

Ben Williamson successfully defends his PhD thesis

Ben Williamson has become the first student from the SMTG to earn a PhD, after defending his thesis on the 11th of April. His examiners were Professor Steve Parker from the University of Bath, and Dr Rob Bell, from the Department of Chemistry here in UCL. I was told that Ben put in a very good viva performance, and passed with no corrections! Ben will now commence as a PDRA in the group working on mixed anion systems funded by our ERC project. Well done Ben!

Ben_Williamson_Viva
Dr Benjamin A. D. Williamson (middle) pictured with his examiner Dr Rob Bell (left) and Professor Steve Parker (right).

Alex Ganose wins Gold Medal at the MRS 2018 Spring Meeting Graduate Student Award Finals

Alex Ganose, 3rd year EngD student on the Molecular Modelling and Materials Science (M3S) CDT whose studentship is co-sponsored by Diamond Light Souce Ltd has won a gold medal at the Graduate Student Awards at the 2018 MRS Spring Meeting, which was held in Phoenix, Arizona from the 2nd to the 6th of April 2018. The MRS Spring meeting is the world’s foremost international scientific gathering for materials research, and this year’s meeting featured 63 symposia running concurrently, and was attended by nearly 5000 attendees. The Graduate Student Awards final is extremely hard to get in, with the top 30 students from around the globe competing for either a Gold or Silver Medal. Alex was one of only 2 UK students and 3 Europeans who reached the final. All finalists were guaranteed at least a silver medal, so Alex was already a winner going into the final, but Alex clearly impressed in the special session of oral presentations and took home a Gold medal for UCL. His presentation was entitled “Beyond CH3NH3PbI3: Prospects for Emergent Solar Absorbers”. For his win, Alex received a certificate and a $400 dollar prize for his efforts. Well done Alex!!

Alex-Ganose-Gold-Medal-Photo
Alex Ganose (back row, second from the right) with the other gold medal winners from the meeting

SMTG wins Faraday Institution Funding.

David, along with a team of collaborators from Imperial College London, University of Warwick, University of Southampton, Lancaster University and the University of Bath has been awarded funding for “battery system modelling” from the Faraday Institution. The aim of the project is to equip industry and academia with new software tools to understand and predict battery performance, by connecting understanding of battery materials at the atomic level all the way up to an assembled battery pack. The goal is to create accurate models for use by the automotive industry to extend lifetime and performance, especially at low temperatures. We are looking forward to starting the grant early in 2018, and to collaborating with old friends Professor Aron Walsh at Imperial and Dr Ben Morgan at the University of Bath.

TFI_logo_final_RGB

2017

Adam Jackson wins a Software Sustainability Insititute Fellowship.

Adam Jackson has been awarded an 18-month fellowship by the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), starting in 2018: https://www.software.ac.uk/blog/2017-12-08-welcome-software-sustainability-institute-fellows-2018. Academic software plays a vital role in modern research, and the SSI exists to support the quality and sustainability of this resource in the UK. As well as promoting “research software engineers” as a distinct professional group (“Supporting people who write code, not papers”), the SSI is involved in training and outreach, working heavily with researchers who do write papers. Adam’s Fellowship goals involve outreach as a researcher in the Materials Chemistry community, as well as work on accessibility issues in research software. The network of SSI Fellows covers a wide range of career stages and research areas; Adam hope’s to learn good practices from other areas and feed them into SMTG’s own software development. Well done Adam!

Seven Masters students join the group.

This year, seven very talented masters students have chosen to join the group to do their research projects! We welcome Venus Cheung (MSci Chemistry), Puja Pramanik (MSci Chemistry with Maths), Kieran Spooner (MSci Natural Sciences), Teng “Daisy” Wang (MSc Materials for Energy and the Environment), Arthur Youd (MSc in Molecular Modelling), Kevin Wohlhauser (MSc in Molecular Modelling) and Gaoxiang “Molly” Di (MSc in Molecular Modelling). Looking forward to a great year of novel science.

Alex Ganose selected for the MRS 2017 Fall Meeting Graduate Student Award Finals

Alex Ganose has been selected as a finalist for the Graduate Student Awards at the 2017 MRS Fall Meeting, which will be held in Boston from the 26th of November to the 1st of December 2017. The MRS Fall meeting is the world’s foremost international scientific gathering for materials research, and this year’s meeting will feature 54 symposia running concurrently, with up to 6000 atendees expected. The Graduate Student Awards final is extremely hard to get in, with the top 30 students from around the globe competing for either a Gold or Silver Medal. Alex is the only UK student in the final, and one of only 3 Europeans who have reached the final. All finalists are guaranteed at least a silver Medal, so Alex is already a winner, but the final decisions will be based on a special session of oral presentations that all of the finalists present at. Adam and I will be there to cheer Alex on as he goes for gold.

Zongda and Ethan join the group

On the 26th of September Zongda Xing and Ethan Rubinstein joined the group as new PhD students. Both will be doing projects in the area of earth abundant photovoltaics! Welcome to the team!

David awarded an ERC Starting Grant

On the 6th of September it was announced that David has been awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant worth €1,500,000. The project entitled “Design of Mixed Anion Inorganic Semiconductors for Energy Conversion” (DISCOVER) will commence in February 2018.

ERC_logo

Dr Katie Inzani and Kieran Spooner join the group

The group has welcomed two new visiting members this August. Dr Katie Inzani who is a visiting PDRA from the Ceramics Group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Katie will be staying with us for 12 months until the end of August. Kieran Spooner, a third year Natural Sciences student has joined us for 8 weeks to study Sn-based solar cell materials.

James Pegg wins M3S Industry Day prize for best oral presentation

Group member James Pegg won the M3S Industry Day prize for best oral presentation by a final year EngD student. Jame’s work is focused on understanding the magnetic structure and surface chemistry of PuO2, and is sponsored by AWE . James is pictured receiving his prize from Professor Ivan Parkin, Dean of the MAPS faculty in UCL.

IMG_20170706_162411

Alex Ganose wins M3S Industry Day poster presentation award

Alex Ganose won the M3S Industry Day prize for best poster presentation by a second year EngD student. Alex’s research is based on the discovery of new solar cell materials. His EngD is co-sponsored by Diamond Light Souce Ltd. Alex is pictured receiving his prize from Professor Ivan Parkin, Dean of the MAPS faculty in UCL.

IMG_20170706_162547

Alex Ganose wins Chemistry Department poster presentation prize

Alex Ganose won the annual Computational Chemistry poster presentation prize in the Chemistry Department. Alex’s research is based on the discovery of new solar cell materials. His EngD is co-sponsored by Diamond Light Souce Ltd.

DD0rOS5XgAAEm41.jpg large

Chris Savory wins the Catlow Prize for 2017

Chris Savory has won the Catlow Prize, which is awarded for best presentation by a final year PhD student in the Computational Chemistry section. Chris presented his computational work on novel solar cell materials. Chis will now go forward to represent the Computational Chemistry section in the Ramsay Medal final in October. Well done Chris!

IMG_20170629_161708

Alex Ganose wins “Best Use of ARCHER” competition

Alex Ganose won the “Best Use of ARCHER” competition, which was sponsored by EPCC. Alex’s application was based on his use of ARCHER, the UK’s national supercomputer, to investigate the electronic structure and defect chemistry of Cs2SnI6 in collaboration with Prof Jamie Neilson from Colorado State University (CSU). Alex will use the £3,000 prize money to fund a trip to present his work at the MRS Sping 2018 meeting in Phoenix, and to visit Prof Neilson’s group at CSU.

Winnie Leung wins eMRS poster prize

Winnie Leung, who is in the first year of her PhD has won a poster prize at the eMRS Spring meeting in Strasbourg. Winnie presented a poster on NaSbS2, a promising new solar absorber which she has synthesized in the lab. Winnie is jointly supervised by Dr Rob Palgrave .

Image uploaded from iOS(3)