Dr. Virgil Andre (University of Cambridge)

Best Talk Prize

Dr. Virgil Andrei was born in Bucharest, Romania. He obtained his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in chemistry from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where he studied thermoelectric polymer pastes and films in the group of Prof. Klaus Rademann (2014–2016). He then pursued a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Cambridge (2016–2020), where he developed perovskite-based artificial leaves in the group of Prof. Erwin Reisner, working closely with the optoelectronics group of Prof. Richard Friend at the Cavendish Laboratory. He was a visiting Winton Fellow in the group of Prof. Peidong Yang at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently a Title A Research Fellow at St. John’s College, Cambridge. His work places a strong focus on material design and practical applications, introducing modern fabrication techniques towards low-cost, large-scale solar fuel production.

George Creasey (Imperial College London)

Best Collaboration and Best Talk Runner up Prize

George is a third year PhD student at Imperial College London, based in the Electrochemical Systems Laboratory in the Department of Chemical Engineering and supervised by Dr Anna Hankin and Dr Andreas Kafizas. His research addresses the engineering challenges of up-scaling solar hydrogen production. Through photoelectrochemical reactor design, scalable photoelectrode fabrication and outdoor field testing under operational conditions, George’s research is the cutting edge of future deployment of photoelectrochemical systems. Prior to his PhD, George completed a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Bath, with a year in industry at the UK government.

Dr Amit Sil (University of Liverpool) 

Collaboration prize

Amit obtained his M.Sc in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 2012. He was awarded a PhD (2018) from the same institution focusing on developing mixed-valence compounds and emissive polymers for near infrared (NIR) absorbing materials, sensors and optoelectronics. In 2019, he moved to Durham University (UK) with a postdoctoral (PDRA) position in Prof J. A. Gareth Williams group where he worked on developing functional luminescent Pt(II) and Ir(III) complexes for the application in NIR–OLEDs. In 2021, he joined as a PDRA in Prof. Andrea Vezzoli’s group at University of Liverpool (UK) and worked in the field of single molecular electronics and to investigate the piezoresistive properties of molecular devices. In 2024, he was promoted to Research Coordinator of the group and now his research interest is developing stable organic diradicaloids for single molecular electronics.

Eliott Studholme (University of Cambridge)

Best poster prize

Eliott received his master’s degree in chemistry from Swansea University in 2023, where he was supervised by Dr Emrys Evans in his final year project. His project focussed on the spin dynamics of chromium complexes for their application to photon upconversion systems. Inspired by the potential of photophysical processes like upconversion to contribute to green technologies, he is now a 2^nd year physics PhD student at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. Under the supervision of Professor Neil Greenham, his research focuses on the synthesis, and structural and spectroscopic characterisation of silver chalcogenide quantum dots. His goal is to develop a hybrid inorganic-organic material capable of boosting the efficiency of silicon solar cells via the photophysical process of singlet fission.

Yuchen Liu (University of Manchester, UK)

Poster Prize Winner

Poster Title: “Novel Hetroatom-rich 2D Covalent Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Characterization”

As a 3rd year undergraduate from the University of Manchester, Yuchen Liu has been working as a Henry-Royce intern in Keerthi’s group from summer of 2023. He designed his own project and successfully synthesized two-dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks (2D-COFs) with full proof from morphological and topological characterizations. His current interests include applications in heteroatom-based supercapacitors and designs of crystalline cyclohexanone-based materials. He is also particularly interested in computational simulations, which can be a versatile tool for electrochemical methodologies. Throughout his bachelor studies, Yuchen has demonstrated both research aptitude and exceptional academic performance, earning the “Best Chemist” award in both his first and second years. He also holds the positions of student representative and ambassador for the Department of Chemistry.

Aidan Graham (University of St Andrews, Scotland)

Poster Prize Runner Up

Poster Title: “Systematic Solvent Optimisation for the Synthesis of Dynamic Covalent Nanoparticles”

Aidan Graham received his MChem degree from the University of St Andrews in 2023. He is currently in the second year of his PhD studies under the supervision of Dr. Euan Kay and Prof. Russell Morris. His current research focuses on combining dynamic covalent gold nanoparticles with metal-organic frameworks towards the design and synthesis of remote-controlled hybrid nanomaterials. His focus is on the use of dynamic covalent chemistry for the design and synthesis of hybrid nanomaterials using a bottom-up approach

Poster Prize Runner Up

Poster Title: “Engineering Silica-Coated Gold Nanorods for Photothermal Therapy Applications.”

Sarah Alshehri is a PhD student in Physics at the Molecular and Nanoscale Physics (MNP) group at the University of Leeds, where she also obtained an MSc in Physics. She completed her BSc in Physics at the University of Bisha in Saudi Arabia. Her research focuses on the engineering and application of silica-coated gold nanorods for photothermal therapy and advanced sensing applications. She investigates their tunable structural and optical responses to laser irradiation, aiming to enhance their performance in biomedical and optical techniques.