Susan Perkin
University of Oxford, UK
Susan Perkin is Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Oxford. She earned her DPhil in 2006, which was followed by a Junior Research Fellowship at Merton College, Oxford. She then set up a laboratory at UCL (London) before moving to the Physical & Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory in Oxford in 2012. She leads an experimental research group investigating properties of liquids and soft matter in confined geometry. Current interests include electrostatics in concentrated electrolytes and ionic liquids, molecular mechanisms of friction and lubrication, and field effects on confined liquids. She has been awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council , the Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a Philip Leverhulme Prize from The Leverhulme Trust.
Susan Weatherby
Royal Society of Chemistry, UK
George Booth
King’s College London
George Booth is a university reader in theoretical physics at King’s College London. The main focus of his research lies in computational electronic structure theory, with the development of a range of numerical tools to tackle correlated electron problems in both quantum chemistry and condensed matter. He aims to work at the intersection of traditional chemistry and physics disciplines, with applications ranging from frustrated magnetism to theoretical spectroscopy and quantum computing. His group develop in a number of widely used simulation packages, and is an active member of national computational modelling consortia, including the Thomas Young Center and the Materials and Molecular Modelling Hub.
After completing his a MSci at Nottingham (2006), he studied for a PhD in computational chemistry at Cambridge university, where he developed novel stochastic algorithms for correlated electron problems. After this, he was awarded a junior research fellowship at Trinity college, Cambridge, where his research branched into electronic problems in condensed matter. This JRF was intermitted for a postdoc at Princeton university in the US, before returning to Cambridge as a lecturer in 2013. On award of a Royal Society university research fellowship, he moved to King’s College London in 2014, and was promoted to the position of reader in 2019.
Rachel Evans
University of Cambridge, UK
Rachel Evans is Professor of Materials Chemistry at the Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge. She obtained her MChem (2002) and PhD in Physical Chemistry (2007) from Swansea University. She was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Université Paris-Sud, France and subsequently held an FCT research fellowship between the University of Coimbra and the University of Aveiro, Portugal. From 2009-2017, she was an Assistant Professor, and then an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin. Rachel’s research is highly multidisciplinary, involving polymer, colloidal and photochemistry, and the use of advanced scattering and spectroscopic characterization techniques. Current interests include the development of photoactive hybrid materials for luminescent solar devices, indoor photovoltaics, solar-thermal energy storage and nanodelivery. Rachel has been awarded a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council, the McBain Medal and MacroGroup UK Young Researcher’s Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)/ Society of Chemical Industry (SCI), and the Dillwyn Medal for STEMM from the Learned Society of Wales. She is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.
David Fermin
University of Bristol, UK
David J. Fermin studied Chemistry at the Universidad Simón Bolívar (Venezuela) and completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Bath. He held a post-doctoral and senior research fellowships at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, before joining the University of Berne as Swiss National Science Foundation Professor. He retuned to the UK in 2007, joining the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol where he was promoted to Professor of Electrochemistry in 2013. He has also held visiting academic posts at the Ecole Normale Superieure Cachan (2009), Caltech (2016-2017) and Universidad de Valparaiso (2017, 2020). He is a recipient of the Tajima Prize awarded by the International Society of Electrochemistry and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2018.
David’s Electrochemistry and Solar Research team explores fundamental aspects on semiconductor electrodes, photoelectrochemistry, photovoltaic solar cells and electrocatalysis. Their research activities bring together rational material design and in-depth analysis of structure-activity relationships incorporating advanced spectroscopy techniques, high resolution microscopy and first principle electronic structure calculations.
Dwayne Heard
University of Leeds
Dwayne Heard is Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds. He received his B.A. in Chemistry (1986) and D. Phil. in Physical Chemistry (1990) from the University of Oxford, undertook postdoctoral research at SRI International, California, and was a lecturer in the School of Chemistry at Macquarie University, Sydney. He moved to Leeds in 1994 where he held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and was Head of the School from 2009-2013. He was a Visiting Fellow at JILA, University of Colorado in 2000. His research interests include quantitative field measurements of the hydroxyl radical and other short-lived intermediates in the atmosphere, laboratory and chamber studies of the kinetics and photochemistry of gas phase and aerosol processes in the atmosphere, numerical modelling of atmospheric processes, and the use of a pulsed Laval nozzle apparatus to study the kinetics of reactions at very low temperatures relevant to the interstellar medium and planetary atmospheres. He is currently President of the Faraday Division.
David Lennon
University of Glasgow, UK
David Lennon (DL) obtained a B.Sc.(Hons) degree in Chemical Sciences (1985) and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics (1989) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He subsequently took up postdoctoral positions at the University of Texas (Austin) and the University of Western Australia (Perth), before returning to the UK for a further research stint at UEA. That latter period involved, firstly, the application of solid state NMR to investigate adsorption on supported metal catalysts and, secondly, investigations in adsorbate photochemistry. In 1996 DL moved to the University of Glasgow to take up an ICI Lectureship in Heterogeneous Catalysis. Remaining at Glasgow, DL is presently a Professor of Physical Chemistry and heads the School of Chemistry’s Heterogeneous Catalysis Section. DL’s main interests are in surface chemistry and heterogeneous catalysis, with the majority of his work undertaken in collaboration with industrial partners. DL is a strong supporter of the Faraday Discussions meetings; his first meeting being in Reading in 1996 (105: “Catalysis and Surface Science at High Resolution”); he still has the conference bag to prove it!
Angelos Michaelides
University College London, UK
Angelos Michaelides obtained a PhD in 2000 from The Queen's University of Belfast. Following this he did post-docs in Cambridge and Berlin. In 2006 he moved to University College London, where since 2009 he has been a full Professor. Research in his group aims at understanding important phenomena in surface- materials- and nano-science. Using concepts from quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, his team applies and develops methods and computer simulations to study processes of relevance to catalysis - such as the properties of metal surfaces and chemical reactions at surfaces - and processes of environmental relevance - such as the nucleation of ice or the dissolution of salts. Water and ice are major focuses of their work. For more information see www.chem.ucl.ac.uk/ice Michaelides has received a number of honours and awards including the Marlow Award and Corday-Morgan Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Since 2011 he has been a Director of the Thomas Young Centre: The London Centre for the Theory and Simulation of Materials and since 2013 he has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Chemical Physics.
Julia Weinstein
University of Sheffield, UK
Julia Weinstein is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, the University of Sheffield. Julia obtained her Diploma in Chemistry (with honours) from Moscow Lomonosov State University in 1990, followed by a PhD from the same institution in 1994, under supervision of Professor M Kuzmin and Professor N Sadovskii, on "The role of exciplexes in the mechanism of electron transfer in Marcus's kinetic region". She has been a member of the academic staff at the MSU since 1994. In 2000, she became a Royal Society/NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Nottingham, which was followed by a temporary lectureship at the same institution.
Julia was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship in 2004 on "Light-Switchable Molecular Devices". She joined the Department in Sheffield in 2005.
Julia's interests are in light-induced reactions, from fundamental ultrafast processes to applications of photoactive molecules in photocatalysis, photodynamic therapies, and antibacterial treatments. Her group applies diverse ultrafast laser spectroscopy methods electronic (absorption, emission, fluorescence upconversion) and vibrational spectroscopy (time-resolved infrared, TRIR, and Raman) to understanding ultrafast charge, spin, and structural dynamics in the condensed phase, with particular focus on the role of vibronic coupling and optical control of charge transfer. More recent interests include time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy and XFEL. She is currently a member of the science team for the UK XFEL project. Julia has a long-standing collaboration with the Central Laser Facility of the STFC.
Lomonosov Award in Science (2003), John Van Geuns Lecture (2004), and the RSC Chemical Dynamics Award (2017).
