Third-year PhD student Burhan Hussein has been awarded a prestigious NSERC Postgraduate Doctoral Scholarship (PSGD). The scholarship programme provides financial support to high-calibre Canadian scholars who are engaged in master’s or doctoral programs in the natural sciences or engineering. Well done Burhan!
Paul was nominated by group members for a Durham University Research Staff Association Award in the category of ‘Most Supportive PI’. After presenting the group’s research and achievements at the (virtual) ceremony held on November 24, he was selected as the award winner. The award announcement can be found here.
We’re delighted to welcome Will Maturi-Bailey, Rob Ives, and Ho Chi Wong to the group. Ho Chi has rejoined the team after completing her MChem project with us last year - she’ll be working jointly with Dr Aidan Hindmarch in Durham Physics throught the ReNU CDT. Will and Rob are both new to the group and the second and third Yorkshiremen on the team (taking us to just one short of a Monty Python sketch). Will completed his MChem at Durham with a project year at GSK, while Rob graduated from the Avestro Group at the University of York.
Congratulations to MSc student Yuzhen Wen who has been awarded a PhD Scholarship from the China Scholarship Council. Yuzhen successfully finished her MSc degree in September this year and the CSC Scholarship has allowed her to continue at Durham as a PhD student. Well done, Yuzhen :)
Dr Senthil Kabali has joined the group as a postdoctoral researcher from September. Senthil was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship from the European Commission to carry out 24-months of research in the McGonigal Group. Prior to joining Durham, Senthil was a postdoctoral researcher with Prof Marcin Stępień at the Univeristy of Wrocław, Poland, where he investogated strained aromatics. Welcome to the group, Senthil!
Recent graduate of the group Ho Chi Wong has taken part in the SCI National Undergraduate Poster Competition and has been selected as one of the four prize winners. She presented her MChem work on Stabilising Fluxional Carbon Cages during the two-weeklong twitter exhibition as one of the 32 entrants from around the UK’s Chemistry Departments. Congratulations Ho Chi!
Promeet Saha and Reece MacDiarmid have started PhD degrees as group members.
Promeet completed his MChem degree at Durham University in 2019, working with the McGonigal Group for his final-year reserach project. After a short stint travelling abroad, he started his PhD in January 2020.
Reece is a graduate of Heriot-Watt University, where he carried out research with Dr Gareth Lloyd and Dr Filipe Vilela during his MChem project year. He joined the SOFI2 CDT in October 2019, leading to a joint project between the McGonigal and Thompson Groups that started in April 2020.
Second-year PhD student Burhan Hussein has won a prestigious two-year Scholarship from from the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI). Congratulations Burhan! The SCI press release can be found here.
The SCI Scholars Fund was established in 1920 by the requests of Rudolph Messel and John Gray, both former presidents and founding members of SCI. SCI believes in nurturing the scientists of the future. Each year, SCI provides scholarships and bursaries to early career scientists including opportunities to attend or present at an international conference.
Burhan is a member of the Soft Matter and Functional Interfaces Centre for Doctoral Training (SOFI CDT), and a PhD Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute (DEI). Durham University, the SOFI CDT, and the DEI are pleased that Burhan Hussein has been offered this Scholarship and that his research into controlling intermolecular interactions at interfaces will benefit from the additional contacts and support he will gain from this valuable opportunity. In addition to the scholarship, he will benefit from publishing opportunities, access to a high-calibre network to help launch his career, and opportunities to present his work and raise his profile within the scientific community.
Read more on the SOFI and DEI news pages, as well as a blog post written by Burhan.
Our manuscript on ‘Modulation of Charge Transfer by N-Alkylation to Control Photoluminescence Energy and Quantum Yield’ has just been published in Chemical Science.
The research shows that emission color and the presence of charge-transfer excited states can becontrolled by N-alkylation of organic chromophores. In the paper, we demonstrate the concept by alkylatiing the two distinct nitrogen sites of quinine. The kinetic stabilities of the resulting salts allow selective quaternization at either site in a manner that is impossible using reversible protonation. This approach can be applied generally to tune the emissive states and physical properties of N-heterocyclic organic photoactive materials.
Congratulations to our PhD student who led the work along with our fantastic collaborators in the Curchod, Monkman, and Etherington groups.
The group’s second PhD student, Andrew Turley, successfully compeleted his PhD viva on January 28. Andrew’s thesis is titled ‘Functional Heptagon-Centred Polyaromatics‘. Andrew’s examiners were Michal Juricek, University of Zurich and AnnMarie O’Donoghue, Durham.
Congratulations to Dr Turley on a job very well done!
Paul has been selected as an N8 New Pioneer. The award celebrates ‘rising stars who are working on unique and pioneering research’. Full details and a list of all awardees can be found on the N8 New Pioneers website. The N8 Research Partnership is a collaboration of the eight most research intensive universities in the North of England - the Universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York.
First Year PhD Student Burhan Hussein has been selected to be a PhD Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute (DEI) at Durham University. The Durham Energy Institute takes an interdisciplinary approach to the broad questions surrounding the supply and demand of energy in a developing World. DEI supports and produces cutting-edge energy research which draws on the expertise of world-leading researchers across Durham University's departments in Science, Social Science and Humanities.
As a DEI Fellow, Burhan will benefit from the DEI’s exceptional academic, industrial and political links at local, national and international level. He will contribute to developing and promoting these links through his research activities.
Congratulations to Burhan for his successful fellowship application!
We have recently published three articles dealing with aggregation and resonance effects in luminescent organic materials. See our Publications page for links to the articles.
The group’s first PhD student defended her thesis entitled “Fluxional Carbon Cages and their ‘Shapeshifting’ Properties“ in on 19 July 2019.
Aisha’s incredible run of success with prizes and scholarships was capped off by the award of an extremely competitive All-Disciplines US–UK Fulbright Scholarship. From September, she will start as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Dartmouth College with the Aprahamian Group. Congratulations, Aisha!
Final-year PhD student Aisha Bismillah has been selected as a 2019 CAS Future Leader. The elite program looks for PhD students from around the world who they expect to ‘blaze a trail toward scientific leadership’.
Read the award annoncement (C&EN volume 97, issue 29) and Aisha’s profile on the CAS Future Leaders website, as well as excerpts from an interview with Aisha for an article on ‘The making of a PhD chemist’ (C&EN volume 96, issue 36).
Congratulations, Aisha!
The McGonigal Group has welcomed Burhan Hussein as a new PhD student through the EPSRC's Soft Matter and Functional Interfaces Centre for Doctoral Training (SOFI CDT). Burhan completed undergraduate and MSc degrees in Chemistry at Ryerson University, Toronto, before joining the SOFT CDT in October last year.
Paul has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Molecules Young Investigator Award! The international prize is awarded to an early career researcher who has made 'significant contributions to the advancement/research of the science of chemistry'. Read more about the award at this link or in the prize announcement below.
Our manuscript on the 'Shape-Selective Crystallisation of Fluxional Carbon Cages' has just been accepted for publication in Chemical Science. We found that overall molecular shape, rather than any specific noncovalent interactions, controls the preferential crystallisation of shapeshifting barbaralane isomers from dynamic mixtures.
The paper has been selected as Chem. Sci. Pick of the Week and included in the 2018 Chemical Science HOT Article Collection, as well as being featured on the cover of Chem. Sci. 2018, 9, issue 46.
Congratulations to Aisha, who led the team, working together with other members of the McGonigal Group and our colleagues at Durham.
Paul and Abhijit attended the UUKi Rutherford Strategic Partner Grant Reception yesterday along with a group of Rutherford Fellows and staff from Durham. The event, which was held in the Shard, London, brought together some of the ~100 Rutherford Fellows who are currently based in 24 Universities around the UK.
Durham's Rutherford Contingent at the UUKi Rutherford Reception in the Shard, London.
l-r: Prof Claire Warwick (PVC Research), Dr Abhijit Mallick (Rutherford Fellow) Dr Pavan Yerramsetti (Rutherford Fellow), Dr Alyssa-Jennifer Avestro (Rutherford Award Holder), Dr Paul McGonigal (Rutherford Award Holder), Dr Ali Huerta-Flores (Rutherford Fellow)
Earlier this year, Paul successfully led Durham's bid to bring four Rutherford Fellows to the University for research visits during 2018/19. The four Fellows, Dr Abhijit Mallick, Dr Pavan Yerramsetti, Dr Woon Kai Lin, and Dr Ali Huerta-Flores, are currently being hosted in the Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering Departments as part of the McGonigal, Avestro, Monkman, and Groves groups. The four Rutherford Fellows and their four Hosts are pictured below.
Two researchers have joined the team in the past month. Dr Abhijit Mallick, who completed a PhD at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Sciences, commenced a Rutherford Fellowship at the end of March. During the 12-month Fellowship, Abhijit will synthesise redox-active materials in the McGonigal Group, then assess their energy storage properties with collaborators in the Durham Energy Institute.
This week, Jack Williamson has joined the group as a PhD student through the EPSRC's Soft Matter and Functional Interfaces Centre for Doctoral Training (SOFI CDT). Prior to starting in the McGonigal Group, he completed six months of SOFI CDT training, having joined the programme after completing a MChem degree at Durham.
Welcome to Abhijit and Jack!
