Congratulations to Ed Mahoney for success in his PhD viva. Ed’s thesis explores alternative excitation mechanisms in microwave activated plasmas operating under conditions relevant to the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of diamond. Ed is spending a few more months in Bristol as a PDRA working on an impact acceleration project to improve the atom efficiency of diamond CVD, but plans to be travelling in South East Asia before the end of 2019.
Dr Daniel Polak joins the Bristol group following PhD studies with Dr Jenny Clark at the University of Sheffield. In his PhD, Daniel studied singlet fission of polyenes inside de novo maquette proteins and the effect of microcavities on the emission efficiency of singlet fission. Daniel will use multidimensional optical spectroscopies to explore chemical and biomolecular condensed phase dynamics.
Congratulations to Aditi Bhattacherjee who won a poster prize at the 14th Femtochemistry Conference (FEMTO 14) in Shanghai (July 28 – Aug 2 2019). Her poster, “Tracking a Photocatalytic Decarboxylation Reaction over Picosecond to Millisecond Timescales using Ultrafast Infrared Transient Absorption Spectroscopy” described some of the Bristol group’s recent studies of the mechanisms of photoredox catalysed organic reactions using transient infra-red absorption spectroscopy.
Victoria Taylor, Giordano Amoruso, Mahima Sneha and Luke Lewis-Borrell presented their ultrafast studies at the 29th International Conference on Photochemistry in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Tom Oliver co-chaired and organised the Ultrafast Photochemistry session of the conference with Vanessa Huxter (University of Arizona).
To celebrate Mike Ashfold’s sixty-fifth birthday, Andrew Orr-Ewing has guest edited a special issue of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics themed on Photodissociation and Reaction Dynamics to coincide with Mike’s birthday. The volume contains 59 peer-reviewed articles from Mike’s friends, colleagues and collaborators from across the world, including contributions from current Bristol colleagues Carmen Galan, Tom Oliver, Andrew Orr-Ewing, Dudley Shallcross, Colin Western, and Bristol alumni Basile Curchod, Jeremy Harvey, Craig Murray and David Tew.
Congratulations to Joe McManus, Becky Martin and Ben Carwithen who all won School of Chemistry prizes for their achievements in the final year of their degree programmes. Joe (left) was awarded the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Project Prize and received a Head of School Commendation Letter. Becky (centre) received the Peter Cox Prize and a Head of School Commendation Letter. Ben (right) was awarded the Richard Dixon Prize.
The Scientific Committee for Faraday Discussion 217, the first ever to be held in California, comprised Mike Ashfold and recent Benjamin Meaker Fellow Steve Bradforth (Univ. S. California), Tom Oliver, Jennifer Ogilvie (Michigan), Naomi Ginsberg (U.C. Berkeley) and Vas Stavros (Warwick). The Discussion, which was very well attended, featured Introductory and Closing Remarks lectures by, respectively, Majed Chergui (EPFL) and Bern Kohler (Ohio State), 23 other papers for discussion and about 60 posters (including one from group member Marta Duchi, who is pictured with Mike on the beach in Malibu).
Andrew was invited to give the 2019 Burton Lecture at King’s College London on 20 March, and spoke about his research group’s work on the use of transient absorption spectroscopy to study photochemical reaction mechanisms. Professor Harold Burton was Head of the Department of Chemistry from 1947 until 1966, and the series of annual lectures to commemorate his contributions began in 1970.
Congratulations to Luke Lewis-Borrell who won a poster prize at the SCI Spotlight on Photoredox Catalysis and Photochemistry meeting in London on 26th Feb. Luke’s poster highlighted how ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy methods can be used to characterize the excited state lifetimes and electron transfer rates of organic molecules designed for use as photoredox catalysts, and hence how photoredox-catalysed reaction mechanisms can be unravelled. The work will lead to new design principles for future generations of catalysts.
Andrew Orr-Ewing travelled to the University of Kansas in February 2019 to deliver the annual Arthur William Davidson Lecturer. This lecture series in Physical Chemistry has run since 1987 and Andrew was the first scientist based outside the USA to be invited to deliver the Davidson Lecture.
Congratulations to Ryan Phelps who won a prize at the RSC Spectroscopy and Dynamics Group’s annual conference for his poster entitled “Observing the fate of keto carbenes using ultrafast spectroscopy”. The poster describes Ryan’s studies of short-lived reactive intermediates in solution using transient infra-red spectroscopy on femtosecond to picosecond timescales. The SDG annual meeting was held at the University of Nottingham from 7-9 January 2019 and was attended by almost 150 delegates.
Dr Rabi Chhanytal-Pun has recently returned from a trip to Nepal in which he established links with the Department of Chemical Science and Engineering at Kathmandu University, and visited Loyola Secondary School in Kathmandu to lead outreach activities. The outreach was supported by Bristol ChemLabs colleagues who provided Rabi with colorimeter equipment to take to Nepal for hands-on experiments by the school students. About 80 students and two school teachers participated in the outreach activities.
Congratulations to Dr Ravi Kumar Venkatraman who was awarded the Elsevier Prize for Best Oral Presentation at the 2018 International Conference on Perspectives in Vibrational Spectroscopy, held at BARC, Mumbai in Nov 2018. Ravi’s talk was entitled “Novel Insights into the Photophysics and Photochemistry of Benzophenone: A Tale of Two Different Solvent Environments”. Part of his presented work was reported in a recent paper in J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 9, 1642−1648 (2018). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00345.
Congratulations to Tom Swift who has been awarded a prestigious EPSRC doctoral prize fellowship to work with Tom Oliver. His research will investigate the dynamics of photosynthesis in crop species.
Congratulations to Sohail who will start as a senior application scientist with Mass Spectrometry Instruments Ltd in January 2019. MSI specialises in the design and application of high performance magnetic sector double focusing mass spectrometers.
Georgia joins us from the University of Warwick as a new PhD student. She will be working on the study of mechanisms of photoredox catalysed reactions in solution using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy.
Fabiola Cardoso Delgado and Teo Garcia Millan are Bristol Centre for Functional Nanomaterials Centre for Doctoral Training students, and will study for PhDs with Tom Oliver, jointly supervised by Heather Whitney and Carmen Galan, respectively.
Academia Europaea was founded in 1988, on the initiative of the Royal Society and other National Academies in Europe. Academia Europaea is the only Europe-wide Academy with individual membership from Council of Europe states and other nations across the world.
Congratulations to Matt Bain who won a prize for his poster at the RSC Photophysics and Photochemistry Interest Group Meeting, held in Swansea from 20 – 21 September 2018. Matt’s poster was entitled “‘Coulomb Explosion Imaging: watching molecular structure on a femtosecond timescale”.
Professor Stephen Bradforth (University of Southern California, USA) was a Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor at Bristol during September 2018. Steve uses ultrafast spectroscopic techniques to explore a range of topics including DNA photodamage and protection, light harvesting and solar energy conversion. Tom hosted his scientifically rewarding visit. Andrew and Mike are pictured here with Steve at Golden Cap on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset.
