New Associate Investigators - Annual Report 2018

8 April, 2019

Dr Renee Goreham

Dr Renee Goreham's research niche focuses on the characterisation and synthesis of nanomaterials for biomedical application. For example, the synthesis of ultra-small metal nanoclusters for improved medical imaging or using nano-vesicles released by living cells for detection of disease or as a safe drug delivery system.

Dr Viji Sarojini

Dr Viji Sarojini's research is particularly interested in the structure and function of proteins and peptides and studies both designed and natural peptides using a range of analytical techniques which has led to the development of novel antimicrobial peptides, surface coatings and antifreeze peptides for use in frozen food.

Dr Saurabh Bose

Inspired by the enormous power of the human brain, Dr Saurabh Bose's research focuses on development of unconventional architectures for computer chips. Using novel techniques, the nanomaterials network resembling structures in the brain are being harnessed for pattern- recognition tasks. The potential future applications include self-driving cars, automated agriculture technologies, medical imaging and care, among others.

Associate Professor David Barker

Associate Professor David Barker's research focuses on the synthesis of organic molecules and whilst doing so exploring fundamental chemical principles to aid the development of efficient synthetic methods, the preparation of new molecular structures and to answer complex scientific questions. He is currently working to develop new treatments for cancer and other diseases. He also develops new polymers for various applications, including disease detection, antibacterial materials and selective extraction processes.

Dr Matthew Cowan

Dr Matthew Cowan's research revolves around improving the methods and technologies we use to purify all the building blocks of society. His overall goal is to reduce the amount of energy we need to use every day—so we have some spare for the things we want to do!

Associate Professor Renwick Dobson

Proteins are biopolymers that do (almost) everything in a cell. Just as life is diverse, so too is the functional repertoire that proteins accomplish. Associate Professor Renwick Dobson's research focuses on how the structure and motion of a protein is linked to its function as well as proteins that interact with lipid membranes.

Associate Professor Robin Fulton

Associate Professor Robin Fulton's research interests includes synthesis and reactivity of unusual low coordinate main-group and transition metal complexes as well as the generation of new materials for environmental remediation, with a particular focus on highly reactive iron-nanoparticles.

Dr Emilia Nowak

Dr Emilia Nowak's research is revolving around experimental interface physics, bridging hydrodynamics with surface chemistry and fundamental interfacial properties aided by theory and computations. Currently, the most exciting for her are the Marangoni flows at the fluids interfaces, and her research aims at exploiting these phenomena to form unique films and structures.

Associate Professor Tilo Söhnel

Associate Professor Tilo Söhnel's research is focused on theoretical and experimental inorganic materials chemistry. That involves studying the crystal structures and electronic states of a broad range of main group and transition metal compounds, preparation and physical characterization of potential application materials, and density functional theory calculations of electronic structure of solid materials.