Dr Tom Swift awarded EPSRC doctoral prize
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 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.
Welcome to Stuart Crane who joins the Bristol group as a postdoctoral research associate. Stuart studied for his PhD in ultrafast chemical dynamics with Prof David Townsend at Heriot-Watt University, and will work on a project in Bristol to study photochemical dynamics using ultrafast laser spectroscopy and velocity map imaging with PImMS camera detection.
We are delighted to welcome Dr Xu-Dong Wang to the Bristol group as a postdoctoral research fellow. Xu-Dong obtained his PhD from the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, where he used velocity map imaging to study the dynamics of dissociative electron attachment to molecules, under the guidance of Professor Shan Xi Tian. In Bristol, Xu-Dong will be working on VMI studies of reactive scattering and photodissociation dynamics.
Congratulations to Marta, who won a poster prize at the Celebration of Bristol Chemistry V, held on 3rd July 2018. Her poster, entitled “Charge transfer dynamics and vibrational wavepackets explored with ultrafast techniques” described recent work she has carried out in Tom Oliver’s ultrafast laser laboratory. The event brought together postgraduate students and postdocs from across the School of Chemistry to present their wide-ranging research achievements.
Welcome to Dr Patrick Robertson, who has joined the group as a postdoctoral research fellow working on velocity map imaging of chemical dynamics. Patrick joins us from La Trobe University in Melbourne, where he obtained his PhD with Dr Evan Robertson studying the the effects of hydrogen bonding in organic molecules and their clusters using laser spectroscopy techniques.
We are delighted to welcome Dr Chu Fenghong as a China Scholarship Council Visiting Scholar. Chu is visiting from the Shanghai University of Electric Power, and will be working on the study of optical properties of single, trapped aerosol particles using cavity ring-down spectroscopy.
Welcome to Dr Mahima Sneha and to Luke Lewis-Borrell who have joined the group. Mahima is a Marie-Sklodowska Curie Research Fellow, and obtained her PhD working with Prof Richard Zare at Stanford University. Luke is a member of the Bristol Chemical Synthesis Centre for Doctoral Training and will study for his PhD under the guidance of Andrew Orr-Ewing and Bristol colleague Varinder Aggarwal.
Mike Ashfold and Chris Hansen have just completed a successful 3 week visit to the new Dalian Coherent Light Source, where they had the honour of being the first international visitors to use this unique vacuum ultraviolet free electron laser. The images show Chris, Mike and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics scientists Kaijun Yuan, Zhichao Chen and Chang Yao.
Congratulations to Victoria Taylor who won the three minute thesis people’s choice prize with her presentation “Ultrafast lasers – Shining a light on the future of renewable energy.” The three minute thesis final was held on 9th May 2018 as part of the University of Bristol’s Research without Borders event.
Research by Daisuke Koyama and Harvey Dale has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The paper is entitled ‘Ultrafast Observation of a Photoredox Reaction Mechanism: Photo-Initiation in Organocatalyzed Atom-Transfer Radial Polymerization’, and describes how ultrafast absorption spectroscopy can be used to observe the short-lived reaction intermediates involved in chemical reactions initiated by electron transfer from a photoactive organic catalyst. Harvey contributed significantly to this research while he was a final year undergraduate project student in the Bristol Laser Chemistry group. The paper citation is D. Koyama, H.J.A. Dale and A.J. Orr-Ewing, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140, 1285-1293 (2018). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b07829.
Congratulations to Giordano Amoruso who won best poster prize at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Spectroscopy and Dynamics Group 2018 Meeting at Durham (8-10 January, 2018).
Best wishes to Magda, who will start as an R&D Engineer with Folium Optics Ltd in Thornbury in January 2018.
We are pleased to welcome Dr Ankur Saha who is visiting for a couple of months to gain experience with velocity map imaging methods. Ankur is based at the BARC in Mumbai where he is establishing a new laboratory for VMI experiments.
Welcome to new PhD student Giordano Amoruso who has recently joined Dr Tom Oliver’s research group. Giordano recently completed his Master’s degree at the University of Padua. At Padua, Giordano worked in the laboratory of Dr Elisabetta Collini using 2D electronic spectroscopy to investigate the ultrafast dynamics of quantum dots.