14 Jan 2020

Congratulations to Claire Lamb who successfully defended her thesis on the 10th January 2020. Claire worked with Ai-Lan at Heriot-Watt developing novel oxidative Heck reactions (among other projects). We look forward to seeing where Claire decides to go next.

13 Jan 2020

Many congratulations to Chris Thomson who was awarded a poster prize at 48th Scottish Regional Organic Division Meeting ("The Perkin Meeting"). The event was held on the 9th January and showcased current research from across Scotland. Great work Chris!

01 Oct 2019

Many congratulations to Chris Thomson who was awarded a prize for his poster presentation at the Chemical Science Symposium in London (24th-25th September). The event was themed around functional organic materials and Chris presented his work on polymer-supported organophotocatalysts. Great work Chris!

27 Sep 2019

In late September, we delivered a large-scale outreach event in partnership with St Monans Primary School. The event was held at the Byre Theatre and allowed ~100 children to take part in a series of hands-on activities. A delegation of students also delivered an event at the school allowing P1-P2 students (aged between 4-5) to also take part in the experiments. The event was a huge success and the children were great at asking us difficult science questions :)

23 Sep 2019

Our first cohort of EaSI-CAT students started their PhDs this week and took part in a series of skills lectures including research software, presentation skills and how to critique posters and scientific manuscripts. We wish our students every success in their research and look forward to seeing how they progress!

01 Mar 2019

Congratulations to Stelios, Manos, Matt, Deppie and Damiano on their recent publication in Renewable Energy, which examines the production of biodiesel from fish oil. Stelios, Manos and Matthew worked on this project during the CDT mini-project and it is great to see the hard work from the whole team recognised with a publication. More details can be found HERE.

15 Feb 2019

Congratulations to Matthew Andrews on winning an EPSRC Innovation Placement grant to facilitate a 4-month industrial placement with Lubrizol. Matthew will investigate the efficiency of some existing processes and how catalysis (or other conditions) can be used to reduce their energy footprint.

15 Jan 2019

Many congratulations to Ramprasad for passing his viva! Ram has been able to extend his research stay at St Andrews a little longer as his research has led to a successful impact acceleration grant. Ram is looking to finish off his last bits of research before moving on to a new post-doctoral position

10 Dec 2018

Just before Christmas, CRITICAT students took part in an Advanced Workshop that introduced the basics of computer programming. The workshop was delivered by volunteers from an initiative called "software carpentry" and aimed to introduce students to Python and UNIX shell especially tailored for scientists. The event was very popular and we highly recommend looking at the software carpentry website (https://software-carpentry.org/) for more details. Thanks again to everyone involved.

28 Nov 2018

Well done to Liz and Claire who were selected to attend this years' J-NOST conference at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology. Liz and Claire will deliver presentations as part of the conference and also have a chance to meet with fellow PhD students from CSIR-IICT. We look forward to hearing all about the trip when they return later this month.

05 Oct 2018

Many congratulations to Chris Thomson who was recently awarded a prize by the SCI for his essay describing how his previous research aligns with the SCI tag-line: "Where Science Meets Business". The essay describes his work on heterogeneous photocatalysis in flow chemical reactors. Chris will continue to work in this area during his PhD under the supervision of Filipe Vilela and Ai-Lan Lee. You can access the essay HERE

28 Sep 2018

CRITICAT students from cohorts 2-5 took part in an outreach event for Leuchars Primary School this week. The event saw primary school children carry out a series of experiments and hear more about the day-to-day work of a scientist. The pupils learnt about glowsticks, batteries, indicators and chemical reactions. The day was a great success and enjoyed by both students, school children and teachers alike. Many thanks to Leuchars Primary School for their enthusiasm!

24 Sep 2018

Congratulations to Ryan Kerr, Polly Arnold and Andy Smith on their recent research paper in Chem Sci that has been highlighted as a pick of the week. The paper focuses on selective and catalytic carbon dioxide and heteroallene activation mediated by cerium N-heterocyclic carbene complexes and can be found HERE

10 Sep 2018

Many congratulations to Rebekah Jeans and Chiara Pischetola who each received awards for their poster presentations at the recent EPS conference at Heriot-Watt. Claire Lamb also picked up the ICS second year research prize. Well Done Everybody - Keep up the good work!

01 Aug 2018

Many Congratulations to Alex who successfully defended his thesis last week, making him the first CRITICAT student to be awarded their PhD. Alex worked with Mike Cowley and Stephen Thomas at Edinburgh examining aluminium catalysed hydroboration. Alex will be heading to ETH Zurich for postdoctoral work with Bill Morandi in September. Many congratulations again Dr Bismuto!!

02 Jul 2018

Congratulations to Ivalina for being awarded an SCI scholarship worth £5,000 over two years to support her Advanced Spectroscopic Studies of Zeolite Catalysts. Iva's work uses Operando IR Microspectroscopy at Diamond Light Source (B22, UK) to investigate the mechanism of zeolite catalysed processes. Well done Iva - keep up the good work.

22 Jun 2018

Congratulations to Stefania who received the People's choice award for best oral communication at the Corbella International Summer School on Organic Synthesis in Gargnano, Italy. Keep up the superb work Stef!

11 Jun 2018

After an eventful bus journey(!) we had an really enjoyable trip to Firbush this year. Great talks from all our first-year students and amazing weather to enjoy the Firbush activities (warm enough to even have a swim in Loch Tay). Looking forward to next year already. Well Done Everybody!

21 May 2018

Rebecca, Tony and Claire hit the road again for another public engagement activity. This time the event was STEM @ The Helix taking place in Falkirk. Over 5000 people attended the event for what proved to be a hectic day of colourful science (and slime for good measure). This was accompanied by the standard outreach photograph. Well Done Guys!

15 May 2018

Congratulations to Guy Lloyd-Jones, Polly Arnold and Andrew Smith who recently received awards from the RSC for their contributions to the scientific community. Full details can be found at our blog page or by following this LINK

20 Apr 2018

Many thanks to Kenneth Ling, Julia Comas-Barcelo and Sean Ng of Syngenta for delivering an excellent one-day event on modern agrochemistry. The workshop introduced modern agrochemical research through a mixture of talks and interactive workshops. The workshops included a mixture of retrosynthetic analysis and lead optimisation with a fun game based around structure-activity relationships for lead optimisation.

14 Apr 2018

Congratulations to Rebekah Jeans, Claire Lamb, Antony Chan and all other members of the Heriot-Watt outreach team for hosting activities at the Edinburgh International Science Festival. The event was aimed at families who would typically not have access to universities and provided children with an opportunity to gain hands-on experience of chemistry. Well Done Everybody!

14 Apr 2018

The 2018 Annual Conference was a resounding success with all 55 students presenting their most recent research. We were also joined by Timothy Noel from Eindhoven University of Technology who delivered a great talk that combined elements of photoredox catalysis, C-H activation and chemical  engineering. We extend a special thank you to our student organisers for making everything go so smoothly. Looking forward to next year at Heriot-Watt!

12 Feb 2018

The 2018 CDT Annual Conference will be held on
9th - 10th April at Edinburgh University (Joseph Black Building). The event will feature talks from students across cohorts 1-4 and showcase the diverse research being conducted across our centre. We are also delighted to announce that we will be joined by Timothy Noel from Eindhoven University of Technology. More details on Timothy's research can be found HERE

21 Dec 2017

Many congratulations to Samantha and Stefania who received prizes for their presentations at the St Andrews Postgraduate Symposium. Hannes also received a prize for his poster presentations - Great to see our students performing so well!

15 Nov 2017

Ivalina recently received a prize at the "Successful Scale-Up of Catalytic Processes" conference held at the Johnson Matthey Technology Centre. Many congratulations Iva!

25 Sep 2017

Students from cohort 1 & 2 recently visited AZ to take part in a process-chemistry workshop. The event involved lectures and interactive exercises relating to manufacturing pharmaceuticals on large scale. Our students also had a chance to learn about Design of Experiment (DoE) and how it is used in reaction optimisation. We appreciate all the hard work from our partners at AZ and look forward to our next visit

18 Sep 2017

Alessandro recently started his six-month capstone placement with John Hartwig at Berkeley. Alessandro was able to secure a prestigious RSC mobility grant to support his research placement examining Iridium-catalysed C-H activation. He is settling in well and already in the lab. Look forward to seeing what he discovers during his time in the US.

15 Sep 2017

Stefania Musolino was asked to write an article describing her experience of competing in the RSC / SCI National Retrosynthesis Competition. We are happy to announce it has been published in the St Leonard's College Newsletter.

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You can find more information by clicking HERE. Her article can be found on page 20.

21 Jul 2017

Rifa recently started his capstone placement with Prof. Miquel Pericàs at ICIQ, Spain. During his placement he will gain experience of using supported catalysts and flow processes.

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The collaboration is already yielding results and we look forward to hearing more about the experience when Rifa returns.

07 Jul 2017

Bryony Hockin, Will Hartley and Hannes Ludewig delivered a lecture as part of the Sutton Trust Summer School. Our focus this year was "The Chemistry of Nobel Prizes". Will introduced stereochemistry, Hannes discussed green fluorescent protein and  Bryony demonstrated how to make polymers. A really enjoyable interactive lecture - well done guys!

12 Jun 2017

Well done to Bec and Connor for organising this years trip to Firbush. Really nice talks from our first years and posters from our second years. There was drama in some of the activities with people regularly flying off mountain bikes, but no broken bones so everything worked out OK. We also took part in some outreach focused activities led by Anna-Maria. Looking forward to next year.

27 Jun 2017

Many congratulations to Hannes for receiving a poster prize at the 3rd Instruct Biennial Structural Biology Conference. The conference was held between the 24th - 26th of May 2017 in Brno (Czech Republic).

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Great Stuff Hannes - good to see all the hard work paying off

01 May 2017

Many congratulations to Stefania for winning the PhD photography competition sponsored by FindaPhD.com with her photograph entitled "Chemistry through the looking glass". To read more about the competition and see photos from other CDT students CLICK HERE

21 Mar 2017

Huge congratulations to our student speakers, student chairs and student organising commitee for delivering such a great conference last week. Two days packed full of wonderful science. Many thanks again to our invited speakers Prof. Karsten Meyer and Prof. Sir Martyn Poliakoff for accepting our invitation and sharing their research with us. Can't wait for next year.

20 Mar 2017

The second CRITICAT Annual Conference to be held on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st March 2017. The event will include oral and poster presentations from first-, second- and third-year students and showcase the diversity of catalysis research being carried out across the CRITICAT programme. Karsten Meyer and Martyn Poliakoff will also attend the conference and discuss their research with us.

14 Mar 2017

Congratulations to Liz (and the entire "dysfunctional group" team) for receiving second prize at the 5th annual Retrosynthesis Competition. We know how hard you worked on the route so really well done.

28 May 2023

Stephen Mansell, Jin Xuan and Claire Lamb attended the opening of Scottish Parliament in July. The group delivered a demonstration of 3D printing and showcased its use in chemical research. Great work guys.

12 Jun 2016

In June this year we took our second trip to Firbush Point Field Centre on the banks of Loch Tay. Our first and second cohorts delivered excellent presentations on their research and got to enjoy the amazing weather whilst taking part in some practical activities. Already looking forward to next year!

20 Mar 2016

A huge congratulations to James Taylor (CDT PI) and Stefania Musolino (CDT Student) whose team received 1st place at the 3rd National Retrosynthesis Competition (jointly organised by the RSC and SCI). Congratulations to all members of "totally disconnected with base". Fantastic work!

25 Jan 2016

Cohort #2 start work on their mini-projects today. Great to see everyone taking on a project outside their comfort zone and pushing themselves to try something different - Well done. Look forward to seeing all the results at the annual conference.

14 Dec 2015

Over the last two days CRITICAT students have been at Heriot-Watt learning the basics of computational chemistry with Alexandra Simperler from the EPSRC UK National Service for Computational Chemistry Software (Click here to be taken to their website). Amazing feeling when you model proton transfer in a formic acid dimer and it actually works.

28 Sep 2015

Our second CRITICAT cohort started this week. A warm welcome to all our new PhD students. The first five days concluded with some chemistry speed-dating, golf and a trip to a distillery (because this is what we do in Scotland). Hope you all had a good first week and enjoyed meeting students from cohort #1.

15 Jun 2015

Excellent trip to Firbush - Cohort #1 delivered talks on their maxi-project research and took part in group activities. The kayaking was amazing (with Alex and Kevin both going for a swim). Really well done to all our presenters - Looking forward to next year already.

21 May 2015

During the taught course, Gylen produced an excellent highlight article based on an original publication by Choi and co-workers. I am delighted to say that his manuscript has been accepted and published in ChemSusChem. The manuscript discusses TiO2 as a photocatalyst and examines the difference in activity between the two different polymorphs of TiO2. The article is very nicely written and provides an excellent introduction to this area of research. I highly recommend having a look (click here to be taken to the page)

30 Mar 2015

Congratulations to all of cohort #1 for completing the taught program and delivering presentations on the research they conducted as part of their mini-projects. Hope you all enjoy moving into your respective labs and look forward to catching up at Firbush in June. See you in the summer.

10 Feb 2015

Max has been included in an Organometallics paper based on the literature review he prepared. Many congratulations to Max, Polly and Jason! If you would like to read the paper - and I highly recommend you do - click here to be directed to the article.

02 Feb 2015

Our first cohort begin their CDT Mini-projects today. Best of luck guys! - looking forward to hearing about the research results.

29 Sep 2014

A big welcome to our very first cohort - We hope you enjoy the taught program we've put together for you and look forward to working closely with you all.