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03/11/22  Barocalorics symposium

On the 3rd November 2022, I attended my first conference with the group, titled “Physics and Chemistry of Barocaloric Materials” at Cosener’s House, Abingdon. It was here that Philly presented her poster on her calorimetric studies of plastic crystals under different pressures. As I had just begun my PhD, I did not have any results to share but I went in with sheer determination to learn as much as I could.

The conference was very relevant as our group’s main focus is also on barocaloric materials, so hearing other peoples work on plastic crystals like Philly’s work or the talks on metal-organic frameworks for me gave very good insight and ideas on how we can take our work forward. Furthermore, the attendance included leading researchers in the field whose names are on the papers that we often reference so meeting them in person and learning about their current research was really cool!

I particularly enjoyed listening to the thought process of how people reacted and solved problems when confronted with unpredicted results or trends. Following each presentation, there was plenty of time to dive into different aspects of the work through questions from us, the audience. Here, their confident and understanding in the field and theory really showed through which served as very good motivation for me to attain more knowledge in my field.

The highlight of the conference for me was definitely the discussions. Dr Anthony Phillips had prepared a series of discussion points on a myriad of topics ranging from potentials working devices to conventional nomenclatures. I had a lot of fun listening to peoples ideas and occasionally chiming in with my inputs when I understood the topic well enough. It also sparked some curiosity in me when the discussion points were on things that I had never considered. For example, what are requirements for barocaloric materials to make it into the market and replace the current refrigerants and how can we get the attention from people to start investing into them. From a pure academic point of view, it seemed like finding novel materials with interesting properties were sufficient but I now believe knowing where funding may come from and getting more interest in the field is just as important.

All in all, I believe it was a amazing opportunity and I definitely got a lot from the experience from knowledge to learning how to process ideas. I look forward to future conferences and hopefully I will be able to present my work then as well!

Cecilia Hong, November 2022

13/05/22 We are hiring PDRAs!

As part of Claire's UKRI FLF, the group is hiring 2 PDRAs. 

The first advert is out is for our project looking at plastic crystals under pressure via crystallography. 

If you are interested in phase transitions, twinning, scattering methods and high-pressure instrumentation, then this could be a position for you! 

Please see the ad here: job advert  

If you are interested, please email Claire for informal inquiries. 

Keep your eyes out for a 2nd PDRA position opening soon in computational exploration of high-pressure phase transitions.

01/05/22 The Group goes to the BCA!

This blog post was written by Philly Partridge, a 1st year PhD student in the group on her experience of attending the BCA Spring Meeting. 

"In April of this year, I attended my first ever conference, the British Crystallographic Association spring meeting held in Leeds. I’ll be honest, I was anxious leading up to the event and had many questions about what to expect. 

Having submitted an abstract for a poster presentation, I felt trepidation about presenting my own research and daunted by the thought of networking with established researchers and even other graduate students. With our current research group consisting of only Claire and myself, I was lacking the safety blanket of other group members to socialise with. All of this to say, I was well out of my comfort zone.

Throughout the week, students and academics both were extremely welcoming. I immediately felt accepted into the crystallographic community and I’m glad to report that my fears were unfounded. 

For me, the poster sessions were one of the highlights. It was encouraging to see work from fellow postgrads, all at different stages within their projects. I was glad for the opportunity to share my research over a glass of wine and get to know some of my peers from other institutions.   

The conference consisted of five very busy days, the majority of which were spent attending scientific presentations. To summarise my thoughts, intimidating and inspirational are just some words that come to mind. As you may know, they often split up the talks into categories and run some sessions in parallel. Some of these sessions I chose to attend out of sheer interest, going into the talks knowing little of the topic but gaining a quick-fire summary of the research and learning a lot about what it takes to be an engaging presenter. Others, I attended for their relevance to my PhD topic. I found myself jotting down techniques and new ideas that could be applied to my own project later down the line. It was a genuine joy to hear everyone present their work. I found people’s enthusiasm for their research infectious and overall, I left Leeds feeling motivated to continue with my project and excited for the future. "

Philly Partridge, May 2022

01/05/22 Philly wins a prize at the BCA!

This blog post was written by Philly Partridge, a 1st year PhD student in the group on her experience of attending the BCA Spring Meeting. 

Philly won the YCG BCA poster prize for her work on plastic crystals under pressure!

Congratulations to Philly!