People
Principal Investigator
Martina Lessio
Email: martina.lessio@unsw.edu.au
Ph.D. in Chemistry, Princeton University (US) 2017
Master Degree in Chemistry, Universita' degli Studi di Torino (Italy) 2012
Bachelor Degree in Chemistry, Universita' degli Studi di Torino (Italy) 2010
Short Bio
Martina is originally from Torino (Italy), where she completed both her bachelor's and master's degrees in Chemistry. She then moved to Princeton University (United States) where she earned a PhD in Chemistry in 2017 under the mentorship of Professor Emily Carter. During her time at Princeton, Martina used computational chemistry to investigate catalysts for CO2 conversion. After the completion of her PhD, Martina joined Columbia University (United States) as a Columbia Science Fellow. In this role, Martina was part of a team of scientists teaching the first-year undergraduate course "Frontiers of Science" and conducted research on novel functional materials in the group of Professor David Reichman. Following this experience, Martina moved to Australia to continue her research and teaching career at the University of Sydney, where she was awarded a University of Sydney Fellowship to work on computational modelling of metal-organic frameworks. In 2020, Martina joined the School of Chemistry at UNSW as a Scientia Lecturer. In this role, she uses computational methods to investigate molecules and materials for sustainability applications. Martina was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2023.
Graduate Students
Claudia "Claude" Cox
2020-Present, PhD student
Project: Computational Design of New Materials for Water Purification
Bio: Claudia completed a Bachelors of Advanced Science (Hons) in Chemistry and Physics in UNSW in 2019, after having studied basis set design. Following this, she was inspired by sustainability research and is now studying water purification using novel materials such as metal-organic frameworks.
Fabio Colasuonno
2021- Present, PhD student
Project: Computational design of catalytic systems for the conversion of polymers to high quality liquids
Bio: Hi I am Fabio, an italian guy who graduated in Chemistry at the University of Turin in July 2020. I lived most of my life in Italy but I traveled a lot across Europe and spent some months studying in France. My main interests are in computational solid state chemistry for environmentally friendly catalysis and chemistry education. I am currently studying plastic waste upcycling at UNSW, Sydney.
Lisa Hua
2021-Present, PhD student with A/Prof. Alex Donald and Dr Shiva Prasad
Project: MOFs for lowering the detection limits of PFAS
Bio: Lisa recently completed her BAdvSci with Honours in Chemistry at UNSW. Currently, she is completing her PhD in Chemistry, focusing on using metal organic frameworks (MOFs) for capturing per and poly fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). She aims to understand the underlying processes of PFAS absorption in MOFs by computational methods and chemical crystallography, whilst testing MOFs for PFAS absorption using mass spectrometry.
William Huang
Master student (2021-2023), RA (2024)
Project: Enhancing the Efficiency of Homogeneous Transition Metal Catalyst for Carbon Dioxide Conversion
Bio: I have recently completed my Bachelors of Science - Nanotechnology at UNSW in 2020. I was inspired by Martina's research on energy sustainability via catalytic CO2 to fuels and decided to join the group to work on this project as a research assistant.
Jenny Zhang
2022- Present, PhD student
Project: Computational Investigation of MOFs for atmospheric water harvesting
Bio: I am currently pursuing my PhD in Chemistry at UNSW and have joined the Lessio group as an Honours student in 2021.
Ria Stephenson
2023-Present, PhD student
Project: Improving Marble Conservation Treatments Using Computational Modeling
In collaboration with Prof. Enrico Sassoni at University of Bologna (Italy)
Bio: Ria is currently pursuing her PhD in Chemistry after completing her Honours research in the group in 2022. Being passionate about art conservation, she is interested in the application of computational methods to better understand and improve conservation techniques, in particular the preservation of marble.
Sohaib Umer
2023-Present, PhD student
Project: Computational modelling of catalytic reactions on transition metal surfaces
Bio: Hi I am Sohaib from Pakistan. I completed my master’s at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in February 2023 and joined the Lessio group in September 2023 for my PhD. My research interests include the computational study of various catalytic reactions over the surface of transition metals and single atom catalysts.
Honours Students
Research Assistants
Undergraduate Students
Hannah Wah Day
2023-Present, TSP student
Project: Computational catalysis for plastic waste upcycling
Bio: Hannah is currently completely her Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (Chemical Product Engineering)/Science (Mathematics) with an interest in sustainability research. She has joined the group working on plastic waste upcycling as part of the Talented Students Program.
Egan Kumala
2024-Present
Project: Computational catalysis for plastic waste upcycling
Bio: I am an undergraduate student who's currently taking an honours program for biotechnology. I have an interest in sustainability research and how it can be implemented in the real world.
Student Research Collaborators
Merryn Baker
Graduate student in A/Prof. Alex Donald group at UNSW
2020-Present
Project: Development of Preconcentration Materials to Detect Cancer Biomarkers Via Breath Analysis
Bio: Merryn recently completed her BSc (Adv) with Honours in Chemistry, at UNSW. She is currently completing her PhD in Chemistry, researching the use of metal organic frameworks (MOFs) as preconcentration materials for the development of a cancer breath test, using computational methods and mass spectrometry. She is also a UNSW Teaching Fellow and enjoys teaching chemistry to undergraduate students.
Alumni
Qinyu Li
Undegraduate summer project student, Summer 2019/2020
Udaybir Chawla
CHEM 2999 student (Term 3 2020)
Project: Computational Study of Functional Groups for Water Purification
Aaron Tran
CHEM 3998 student (Summer Term 2020) and Research Assistant
Project: Computational Study of Metal Organic Frameworks for Water Purification
Ethan Abergas
2020
Project: Computational insights on the Effect of Conjugated Substituents and Substrates on Homogeneous Electrocatalysts for CO2 Reduction
Jenny Zhang
CHEM3998 student (Term 2 2021) and Honours student (2021-2022) - Now PhD student in the group
Project: Computational Study of MOFs for water purification and water harvesting
Valeria Cossich Galicia
Undergraduate student visiting from Columbia University, USA (2020-2021)
Project: Computational Design of New Materials for Water Purification
Vivien Li
Honours student (2021)
Project: Computational Surface Catalysis for Plastic Upcycling
Ria Stephenson
Summer Vacation Research Scholarship Student (2021/2022) and Honours student (2022) - Now PhD student in the group
Project: Improving Marble Conservation Treatments Using Computational Modeling
Antonia Papasergio
Research Assistant in the group (2020-2022)
Project: Improving Marble Conservation Treatments Using Computational Modeling
In collaboration with Prof. Enrico Sassoni at University of Bologna (Italy)
Andrea Ung
CHEM3998 student (Term 2 2023)
Project: Computational design of catalytic systems for the conversion of polymers to high quality liquids
Alicia Evans
PhD student with A/Prof. Jason Harper (2021-2023)
Project: Computational and Experimental Evaluation of Ionic Liquid Solvent Effects on Organic Processes
Simone Brown
CHEM3998 student (Term 3 2023)
Project: Computational chemistry applied to marble conservation treatments
Nomi Blom
2023, TSP student
Project: Computational investigation of MOFs for atmospheric water harvesting
Past group photos
