2012 Achievements

The School congratulates the following staff and students on their achievements:

• Congratulations to Professor Max Crossley who was awarded the 2012 David Craig Medal by the Australian Academy of Science in recognition of his outstanding research contributions in chemistry.
  
  

• Congratulations to Dr Siegbert Schmid who was recognised for Outstanding Teaching in this year’s Vice Chancellor’s Awards. The selection panel commented on the very high standard of the applications and strong competition in the category. Engaged enquiry was a feature of the winning applications. Siggi’s enthusiasm about his teaching is reflected in a comment from the Head of the School of Chemistry, stating that he is a "distinguished chemical education researcher who applies his research to introducing new and original teaching developments". The Selection Panel was impressed by evidence of his respect for students and his influence on the teaching of Chemistry beyond the university.

  
  

• Congratulations to Mr Stephen Ogilvie and Ms Antia Das who received commendations for the 2012 RACI Western Sydney Section Honours prize.  They will receive their Highly Commended certificates later this month.
  
  

• Congratulations to PhD student, Mr Robert O'Reilly for his award for the Best Student Talk at the 5^th Asia-Pacific Conference of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (APCTCC-5), 9–13 December 2011, Rotorua, New Zealand.
  
  

• Congratulations to Associate Professor Tim Schmidt and Professor Max Crossley, together with the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy, who have developed a "turbo for solar cells", called photochemical upconversion that allows energy, normally lost in solar cells, to be turned into electricity. Find out more here. 
  
  
• Congratulations to Professor Thomas Maschmeyer and Dr Toby Hudson, who with two other collaborators in Italy, were successful in receiving a "Cooperlink" grant from the Italian Ministry of Education and University Research.  This grant provides funds for four PhD students to jointly study at the Universities of Sydney and Venice, two each way, during 2012-2013.   In July this year, PhD students, Mr Patrick O’Toole and Ms Jessica Stanley will be leaving for Venice to take up studies at the University of Venice.
  
  
• Congratulations to Mr Derrick Roberts, who has recently been awarded a Gates Scholarship to complete his PhD at Cambridge, starting in 2013. As many of you would know, Derrick graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science (Hons 1 & Medal) majoring in physical and organic chemistry, and he plans to continue his fascination of synthetic chemistry under the supervision of Dr Jonathan Nitschke at the University of Cambridge.
  
  
• Congratulations to Professor Kate Jolliffe who has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
  
  

• Congratulations to Mr Tom Whittle, Mr Alex Diwa, Mr Sam Liu, Mr Steve Ogilvie, Mr Gajan Santhakumar, Mr Manuel Ghezzi, Ms Josie Auckett, Mr Jacob Fenton and Mr Jim Ge. All 9 PhD candidates have been awarded a Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship position.
  
  

• Congratulations to PhD candidate, Ms Karen Yuen Ka Ying, who has been awarded the Henry Bertie and Florence Mabel Gritton Research Scholarship for 2012.
  
  

• Congratulations to Postgraduate Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate, Mr Murad Tayebjee, who was recently awarded a DAAD Short-term research grant which will fund travel for a short project in Berlin at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie.
  
  

• Congratulations to Emeritus Professor Noel Hush, who was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales on 24 February 2012. The Fellowship is limited to 14 members, most recently previously elected were Lord May and Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn.
  
  

• Congratulations to Mr Manuel Ghezzi, PhD candidate, who was awarded Best Poster presentation at the 28th Australian Colloid and Surface Science Student Conference, Riverwood Downs, Newcastle NSW. Manuel was also awarded a Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship.
  
  

• Congratulations to Dr Deanna D’Alessandro, who was awarded “The Distinguished Lectureship Award” from the Chemical Society of Japan for 2012.  This involves talks at Osaka University and the annual meeting of the Chemical Society of Japan, Tokyo in late March.

  
  

• Congratulations to Ms Wei Zhao, PhD candidate, who has received the Treloar Prize for Best Poster at the recent 33rd Australasian Polymer Symposium, held in Hobart from 12 to 15 February 2012. Wei is the fourth student from KCPC to win this annual award in the last four years!
  

  
  
• Congratulations to Professor John Canning, who was elected to SPIE Fellow for his contributions in photonic materials, devices and technologies. SPIE is the worlds largest cross-disciplinary photonics society.
  
  
• Congratulations to Professor Thomas Maschmeyer, who was voted by the readers of Biofuels Digest and the Digest’s editorial board, as one of the Top 100 People in Bioenergy for 2011-12.
  
  

• Congratulations to Professor Thomas Maschmeyer, who has been awarded the 2011 Applied Research Medal by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI). This medal is awarded annually to an RACI member who has contributed significantly towards applied research or industrial fields. Thomas receives the award for his work on catalysis and sustainable processes. He has developed hydrothermal methods to generate either advanced lignocellulosic “drop-in” biofuels, or VGO-type oils (vacuum gas oil) and low-mineral black coal slurries as heavy fuel oil substitutes from brown coal. Both processes are in the commercial demonstration phase.
  
  

• Congratulations to Dr Asaph Widmer-Cooper who has just been awarded an International Short Visit fellowship by the Swiss National Science Foundation to collaborate with Professor Emanuela Del Gado at the ETH Zurich for 2 months. They will study the connection between amorphous ‘structure’, soft modes and the microscopic dynamical processes underlying stress relaxation, in order to determine the consequences of these relationships for the mechanical properties of materials such as metallic glasses and cement. Further, one of Asaph's papers is the current cover article in Nature Materials http://www.nature.com/nmat/index.html
  
  

• Congratulations to Professor Leo Radom, who has been elected President of the Asia-Pacific Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists.
  
  

• Congratulations to Dr Lars Goerigk, Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Jeff Reimers, who was awarded a prize for his PhD thesis entitled "Density Functional Theory Approximations: Development and Evaluation for Electronic Ground and Excited States" from the University of Muenster, Germany.  Part of this prize includes about $10,000 to pursue his own research interests here in the School of Chemistry.
  
  
• Congratulations to Associate Professor Louis Rendina and Professor Michael Kassiou, who have been awarded a two year Novel Concept Grant by the National Breast Cancer Foundation of Australia to undertake research into the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. For further information, please visit our Latest News page.
  
  
• Congratulations to Professor Peter Harrowell, Dr Meredith Jordan, Associate Professor Chris Ling and Professor Greg Warr on their recent success with University of Sydney Bridging Support Grants. For further information, please visit our Latest News page.
  
  
• Congratulations to Ms Lara Malins, Postgraduate Teaching Fellow, for the award of the best oral presentation at the 2011 NSW Royal Australian Chemical Institute Organic Division One Day Symposium at UNSW in December 2011.
  
  
• Congratulations to Mr Robert Thompson, PhD Candidate, for the award of the best oral presentation at the 2011 NSW Royal Australian Chemical Institute Organic Division One Day Symposium at UNSW in December 2011.
  
  

• Congratulations to Ms Alexandra Manos-Turvey, Postgraduate Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate, for the award of best poster prize at the 2011 Royal Australian Chemical Institute Biomolecular Division Conference, Torquay in December 2011.
  
  

• Congratulations to Dr Richard Payne, in collaboration with Associate Professor Paul Gorry from the Burnet Institute, who has secured funding from the Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Virology Research Centre to undertake research into HIV inhibitors. For further information, please visit our Latest News page.

  
  

• Congratulations to Sebastien Perrier who has been promoted to Professor of Chemistry. For further information, please visit our Latest News page.
  
  

• Congratulations to Chris Ling who was recently promoted to Associate Professor. For further information, please visit our Latest News page.