Author Archive

The new and expanded Materials Horizons Community Board

Last year, we launched the first early career researcher Board for Materials Horizons, the Community Board. Since then, these Board members have provided invaluable feedback regarding journal activities, as well as being ambassadors for the journal. Based on this success, we have expanded the Community Board, through requesting nominations from our Board members, as well as the wider academic community.

We are now delighted to announce the new and expanded Materials Horizons Community Board. Many of our original Board members from last year are continuing to serve for a second term, and now the Board consists of an international set of 33 researchers at different stages of their early careers, ranging from PhD candidates to Associate Professors.

Read more about our Board members below. We have also introduced the Nanoscale Horizons Community Board, find out more here.

Sarit Agasti
Sarit received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Calcutta, in 2003 and then his Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2005. Sarit went on to receive his PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst under the supervision of Professor Vincent M. Rotello. Since his PhD, he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at both the Massachusetts General hospital-Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University working with Professor Ralph Weissleder and Professor Peng Yin, respectively. Sarit has now returned to India and is working as a Faculty fellow at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. His lab is interested in engineering small molecules and programmable molecular materials to address challenges in bioimaging, specifically in super-resolution microscopy.
Athina Anastasaki
Athina received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She then undertook a PhD in Polymer Chemistry at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Professor David Haddleton. She then undertook the position of a Monash-Warwick Alliance Research Fellow in the research groups of Professor David Haddleton and Professor Thomas Davis, focusing on controlled living radical polymerization methods, mechanistic studies, photochemistry and sequence-controlled polymers. Currently, she is an Elings Fellow working alongside Professor Hawker at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Maartje Bastings
Maartje Bastings studied Biomedical Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and graduated Cum Laude in the group of Prof. E. W. (Bert) Meijer, where she continued her Ph.D. program funded by a Toptalent Fellowship from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO). Her research focused on the understanding of multivalent binding mechanisms for directed targeting and the development of supramolecular biomaterials. She was awarded the University Academic Award in 2013 for best Ph.D. thesis at the TU/e. She moved to the Wyss Institute of Harvard University in Boston as a NWO Rubicon and Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. William M. Shih. She studies DNA as a programmable biomaterial to design immune responses and assemble into multimodal nanoparticles. In January 2017 she will start as tenure track Assistant Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at EPFL, Switzerland.
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Top 10 Reviewers for Materials Horizons

In celebration of Peer Review Week, with the theme of Recognition for Review – we would like to highlight the top 10 reviewers for Materials Horizons in 2016, as selected by the editor for their significant contribution to the journal.

Professor Markus Antonietti, University of Potsdam
Dr Michael Bozlar, Princeton University
Professor Bruno Chaudret, INSA
Dr Albert Scenning, Eindhoven University
Dr Xavier Moya, University of Cambridge
Dr Renato Bozio, University of Padua
Dr Jinping Li, Taiyuan University of Technology
Dr Alessandro Troisi, University of Warwick
Dr Seung Hwan Ko, Seoul National University
Professor Christine Luscombe, University of Washington

We would like to say a massive thank you to these reviewers as well as the Materials Horizon board and all of the materials science community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.


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HOT article: Thermally reversible full color selective reflection in a self-organized helical superstructure enabled by a bent-core oligomesogen exhibiting a twist-bend nematic phase

Fig. 1 Chemical structure of the bent-core oligomesogen 1 exhibiting different phases

A new helical superstructure that reflects light across the whole visible system has been reported in a new HOT article. The structure can be tuned to reflect light from ultraviolet through to near infra-red, in a wide temperature range. 

Liquid crystals are intriguing materials which have properties of both liquids and crystals. They have found uses in many day-to-day applications, such as flat-screen televisions, but much about them, and the many phases they can exhibit, remain unknown.

Quan Li’s group, at State Kent University, had previously designed a new achiral liquid crystal trimer with a twist-bend nematic phase. In this experiment they doped it into a chiral liquid crystal (CLC) to see what effect it would have. As expected, adding the trimer increased the CLC’s chirality, forming a helical structure. More surprisingly, it also increased the temperature range of the liquid crystal phase, proportionally with the concentration of trimer added. What’s more, the resulting superstructure reflected light across the whole visible spectrum. The specific wavelength reflected could be reversibly tuned by adjusting the temperature, meaning the structure could reflect different colours of light at different temperatures.

The group think that strong molecular interactions between the CLC molecule and rod-like units of the trimer cause the effect. In future the superstructure could be used to make colour-display thermometers, and demonstrates the potential of doped liquid crystal systems in obtaining new fascinating properties.

Read the full article here:
Thermally reversible full color selective reflection in a self-organized helical superstructure enabled by a bent-core oligomesogen exhibiting a twist-bend nematic phase
Yuan Wang, Zhi-gang Zheng, Hari Krishna Bisoyi, Karla G. Gutierrez-Cuevas, Ling Wang, Rafael S. Zola and Quan Li
Mater. Horiz., 2016, DOI: 10.1039/C6MH00101G

Susannah May is a guest web writer for the RSC Journal blogs. She currently works in the Publishing Department of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and has a keen interest in biology and biomedicine, and the frontiers of their intersection with chemistry. She can be found on Twitter using @SusannahCIMay.

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Nominations to Materials Horizons Community Board now open!

Last year, we announced the first ever early career researcher advisory board for Materials Horizons. This Board is unique in that it is made up of early career researchers, such as PhD students and postdocs, who are fundamental in the future development of the materials field.

Since then, the members of the Community Board have provided invaluable feedback and advice to the Editorial Office.

Based on its success so far, we are now looking to expand the Community Board.

Are you interested in helping shape a journal publishing cutting-edge research of exceptional significance? Do you have ideas on how high impact journals can engage and support early career researchers? If so, please get in touch!

Simply ask your Principal Investigator to submit your nomination with the information outlined in the documents below to materialshorizons-rsc@rsc.org.

If you have any questions at all, please contact materialshorizons-rsc@rsc.org. We look forward to hearing from you!

Materials Horizons Community Board – Call for Nominations



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Up close and personal with the Materials Horizons Community Board

Sarit Agasti Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India
Sarit received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Calcutta, in 2003 and then his Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2005. Sarit went on to receive his PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst under the supervision of Professor Vincent M. Rotello. Since his PhD, he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at both the Massachusetts General hospital-Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University working with Professor Ralph Weissleder and Professor Peng Yin, respectively. Sarit has now returned to India and is working as a Faculty fellow at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. His lab is interested in engineering small molecules and programmable molecular materials to address challenges in bioimaging, specifically in super-resolution microscopy. Some of his previously published work in Royal Society of Chemistry journals is below.

A photoactivatable drug–caged fluorophore conjugate allows direct quantification of intracellular drug transport
Sarit S. Agasti, Ashley M. Laughney, Rainer H. Kohler and Ralph Weissleder
Chem. Commun., 2013,49, 11050-11052, DOI: 10.1039/C3CC46089D

Direct photopatterning of light-activated gold nanoparticles
Chandramouleeswaran Subramani, Xi Yu, Sarit. S. Agasti, Bradley Duncan, Serkan Eymur, Murat Tonga and Vincent M. Rotello
J. Mater. Chem., 2011,21, 14156-14158, DOI: 10.1039/C1JM11035G

Athina Anastasaki Warwick University, UK
Athina received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She then undertook a PhD in Polymer Chemistry at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Professor David Haddleton. Athina is currently a Monash-Warwick Alliance Research Fellow in the research groups of Professor David Haddleton and Professor Thomas Davis, focusing on controlled living radical polymerization methods, mechanistic studies, photochemistry and sequence-controlled polymers. Some of her recently published work in Royal Society of Chemistry journals is below.

Photo-induced living radical polymerization of acrylates utilizing a discrete copper(II)–formate complex
Athina Anastasaki, Vasiliki Nikolaou, Francesca Brandford-Adams, Gabit Nurumbetov, Qiang Zhang, Guy J. Clarkson, David J. Fox, Paul Wilson, Kristian Kempe and David M. Haddleton
Chem. Commun., 2015,51, 5626-5629, DOI: 10.1039/C4CC09916H

Photoinduced sequence-control via one pot living radical polymerization of acrylates
Athina Anastasaki, Vasiliki Nikolaou, George S. Pappas, Qiang Zhang, Chaoying Wan, Paul Wilson, Thomas P. Davis, Michael R. Whittaker and David M. Haddleton
Chem. Sci., 2014,5, 3536-3542, DOI: 10.1039/C4SC01374C

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Introducing the Materials Horizons Community Board

Materials Horizons is thrilled to announce that the first researchers have joined our Materials Horizons Community Board. This board is unique in that it is made up of early career researchers, such as PhD students and postdocs, that are fundamental in the future development of the materials field.

This board will help build relationships with the young researcher community, providing the editorial office with not only essential feedback and advice on the perception of the journal in their community but also education-focused initiatives that will benefit the materials community as a whole.

These engaged and enthusiastic researchers have been nominated by the Materials Horizons and Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B & C Editorial and Advisory Board. We received several excellent nominations and the successful candidates are:

  • Sarit Agasti – Jawarhal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research, India
  • Athina Anastasaki – Warwick University, UK
  • Robert Chapman – Imperial College London, UK
  • Chaohua Cui – Soochow University, China
  • Rebecca Gieseking – Northwestern University, USA
  • Peter Korevaar – Harvard University, USA
  • John Labram – University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
  • Tian-Yi Ma – University of Adelaide, Australia
  • Jaime Martín Pérez – Imperial College London, UK
  • Troy Townsend – St Mary’s College of Maryland, USA
  • Daiki Umeyama – Stanford University, USA
  • Mengye Wang – Xiamen University, China

Please join us in congratulating the new members of the Materials Horizons Community Board.

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