Professor Susan Perkin (University of Oxford, UK) was presented the Soft Matter 2018 Lectureship award  at the Annual Meeting of the Statistical Mechanics & Thermodynamics Group by Dr Neil Hammond, Executive Editor for Soft Matter.

Professor Perkin (left) with Executive Editor Dr Hammond (right)

The meeting, which was held in Manchester on the 9th – 11th January, aimed to bring together experimental and modelling/theory groups to discuss industrial and academic challenges related to electrolytes solutions.

Please join us in congratulating Susan on winning this award!

Do you know an early-career researcher who deserves recognition for their contribution to the soft matter field?

Now is your chance to put them forward for the accolade they deserve!

Soft Matter is pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for its 2019 Lectureship award. This annual award was established in 2009 to honour an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to the soft matter field.

The recipient of the award will be asked to present a lecture in 2019, where they will also be presented with the award. The Soft Matter Editorial Office will provide financial support to the recipient for travel and accommodation costs.

The recipient will also be asked to contribute a lead article to the journal and will have their work showcased free of charge on the front cover of the issue in which their article is published.

Professor Perkin (left) being presented with the award by Dr Hammond, Executive Editor (right)

Previous winners

2018 – Susan Perkin, University of Oxford, UK

2017 – Daeyeon Lee, University of Pennsylvania, USA

2016 – Damien Baigl, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

2015 – Lucio Isa, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

2014 – Eric Dufresne, Yale Univeristy, USA

2013 – Eric Furst, University of Delaware, USA

2012 – Patrick Doyle, MIT, USA

2011 – Michael J. Solomon, University of Michigan, USA

2010 – Bartosz Grzybowski, UNIST, Republic of Korea

2009 – Emanuela Zaccarelli, University of Rome, Italy

Eligibility

To be eligible for the lectureship, candidates should meet the following criteria:

• Be an independent researcher, having completed PhD and postdoctoral studies
• Be actively pursuing research within the soft matter field, and have made a significant contribution to the field
• Be at an early stage of their independent career (this should be within 12 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree, but appropriate consideration will be given to those who have taken a career break or followed an alternative study path)

Although the Soft Matter Lectureship doesn’t explicitly reward support of or contributions to the journal, candidates with no history of either publishing in or refereeing for the journal would typically not be considered.

Selection

• Eligible nominated candidates will be notified of their nomination, and will be asked to provide 3 recent articles that they feel represent their current research.
• All eligible nominated candidates will be assessed by a shortlisting panel, made up of members of the Soft Matter Advisory Board and a previous lectureship winner.
• The shortlisting panel will consider the articles provided by the candidates as well as their CVs and letters of nomination.
• Shortlisted candidates will be further assessed by the Soft Matter Editorial Board, and a winner will be selected based on an anonymous poll.
• Selection is not based simply on quantitative measures. Consideration will be given to all information provided in the letter of recommendation and candidate CV, including research achievements and originality, contributions to the soft matter community, innovation, collaborations and teamwork, publication history, and engagement with Soft Matter.

Nominations

• Nominations must be made via email to softmatter-rsc@rsc.org, and should include a short CV and a brief letter of nomination.
• Self-nomination is not permitted.
• Nominators do not need to be senior researchers, and we encourage nominations from people at all career levels.
• As part of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we believe we have a responsibility to promote inclusivity and accessibility in order to improve diversity. Where possible, we encourage each nominator to consider nominating candidates of all genders, races, and backgrounds.
• Candidates outside of the stated eligibility criteria may still be considered.
• Nomination letters should be up to 1 page in length. They should particularly highlight contributions that the nominee has made to the field as an independent researcher, and any career breaks or alternative career paths that should be taken into consideration by the judging panel. Nomination of one candidate by multiple people in the same letter is accepted.

Nominations should be submitted no later than 15^th December 2018.

It is with great pleasure that we announce Prof. Susan Perkin (University of Oxford, UK) as the recipient of the 2018 Soft Matter Lectureship.

Susan Perkin graduated with a First in Chemistry from St. John’s College, Oxford (with a St. John’s College Academic Scholarship), then received her DPhil in 2006 studying with Jacob Klein. She moved to UCL in London in 2007 where she set up a laboratory and research group to work on ionic liquids and liquid interfaces. In 2012 she returned to the Faculty of Chemistry at Oxford and she is currently an Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Oxford.

Her current interests include electrostatics in concentrated electrolytes and ionic liquids, molecular mechanisms of friction and lubrication, field effects on confined liquids, graphene surface forces, and controlling surface properties through the design of switchable thin films.

In the past few years Susan has been awarded a Starting Grant from the ERC, the Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a Philip Leverhulme Prize from The Leverhulme Trust.

To learn more about Susan’s research read some of her publications in our sister journals:

Underscreening in concentrated electrolytes
Alpha A. Lee,  Carla S. Perez-Martinez,  Alexander M. Smith  and  Susan Perkin
Faraday Discuss., 2017, 119, 239-259

Ionic liquids in confined geometries
Susan Perkin
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2012,14, 5052-5062

Long range electrostatic forces in ionic liquids
Matthew A. Gebbie,  Alexander M. Smith,  Howard A. Dobbs,  Alpha A. Lee,  Gregory G. Warr,  Xavier Banquy,  Markus Valtiner,  Mark W. Rutland,  Jacob N. Israelachvili,  Susan Perkin  and  Rob Atkin
Chem. Commun., 2017,53, 1214-1224

Thank you to everyone who nominated a candidate for the Lectureship; we received many excellent nominations, and the Editorial Board had a difficult task in choosing between some outstanding candidates.

Please join us in congratulating Susan on her award!