RSC Applied Polymers Blog

RSC Applied Polymers Prize

Dr Madasamy Thangamuthu

Dr Madasamy Thangamuthu is a Research Fellow in Electrocatalysis, currently working with Professor Andrei Khlobystov’s Nottingham Nanomaterials research group at the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham (Park campus) since July 2022. Prior to his move to Nottingham, he was part of Professor Junwang Tang’s Solar Energy and Advanced Materials Research Group at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University College London (UCL) from 2019 to 2022. He also conducted research at the Nanophotonics and Metrology Laboratory (NAM) in the Department of Microengineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, from 2015 to 2019. Dr. Thangamuthu earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from Madurai Kamaraj University, India, in 2010 and 2014, respectively, and received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, India, in 2008.

His research primarily focuses on sustainable fuel synthesis through Photocatalysis, Electrocatalysis, and Photoelectrocatalysis. Specifically, he is developing next-generation catalysts for green hydrogen production from water splitting and ammonia decomposition, CO2 reduction into liquid fuels and high-value chemicals, and green ammonia synthesis using earth-abundant materials.

RSC Advances

Dr Joseph Ogar

Dr Joseph Ogar began his academic career in 2013 as a graduate assistant at the Department of Chemistry, University of Calabar, following his First Degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2010. He earned his Master’s degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Calabar in 2016.

In 2017, Dr Ogar joined the research group of Professor Neil Champness at the University of Nottingham, where he completed his PhD in 2021, working on redox-active metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). He later served as a full-time lecturer at Nottingham Trent University during the 2023/2024 academic session and currently holds an hourly-paid lecturer position there. In addition to his teaching roles, he has completed two postdoctoral fellowships and is presently a lab manager and postdoctoral research associate (PDRA) in the Cliffe’s Group at the University of Nottingham.

Dr Ogar’s research interests span the synthesis of redox-active ligands, developing porous open framework materials, and electrosynthesis of BEDT-TTF salts and two-dimensional MOFs with interesting electronic and magnetic properties.

Dr Benjamin Weare

Dr Benjamin Weare is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre, where he works as an electron microscopist. He has a strong interest in the intersection of practical electron microscopy, software development, and data science. His current research involves adapting transmission electron microscopes to work as electron diffractometers, in order to solve crystal structure from nanomaterials not suitable for X-ray methods. His Masters and PhD blended synthetic chemistry and electron microscopy, studying the nanoscale properties of small molecules and framework polymers at the University of Nottingham. In his free time he enjoys reading literature and writing for his blog.