Michael Harris, Freya Cleasby, Courtney Thompson, Ellen Moscrop and Bradley Westwater partic in running a stall at Birley spa Primary Academy on 15 November 2022.  In preparation, on 28 October 2021, Year 6 Teacher Christina Harper gave an informal talk on pedagogy and interacting with year 5 and 6 students, alongside the benefits of the outreach day and the specific experiments undertaken at the school. The set up for the experiments were tested and refined with each stall being set up to introduce the experiment with a short demonstration, allow the students to undertake their own inves ..read more

On the 24 th of September 2021, I attended the prestigious Young Muslim Leadership Programme (YMLP) run by the University of Oxford Centre for Islamic studies (OXCIS). I didn’t really know what to expect, I wasn’t given much information before arriving at my residential place of stay, all I was told was to pack some smart/evening wear (dress/trouser suits for women) as there would be formal dinners every other evening with prominent figures such as diplomats and politicians. Once I arrived, I was shown to my room and told to meet later that evening for an informal dinner with my cohort. So whe ..read more

Sadly, after being postponed last summer, the long awaited annual summer school and cohort building events took place from 6-8 July, 2021. Many thanks to Farapack Polymers for sponsoring this event. An almost impossible task, but here are the awards for the best student presentations. 1st place Freya Cleasby 2nd place Joshua Hayles 3rd place Courtney Thompson After a great day of presentations, an al fresco networking dinner took place. The 2nd day saw returning students give us an update on the careers Post-Phd followed by a Careers Workshop led by Mindset Method ..read more

Former CDT student, Sarah Byard was awarded one of the four Turner prizes for the best PhD theses in the Chemistry Department last year. Final year CDT student James Cosby and his supervisor Tony Ryan have recently secured a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) grant for James to work with his CDT sponsor, Unilever, in a continuation of his PhD studies. Collaborative research with industrial partner, Dermtreat, who sponsors second year CDT student, Jake Edmans and former CDT student Katharina Clitherow, has led to a new medical device which had positive results in phase 2 clinical trials and w ..read more

This past academic year (2019-2020) has seen our students produce a number of high quality publications: 1. “Probing the mechanism for hydrogel-based stasis induction in human pluripotent stem cells: is the chemical functionality of the hydrogel important?” M. Sponchioni, C. T. O’Brien, C. Borchers, E. Wang, M. N. Rivolta, N. J. W. Penfold, I. Canton, and S. P. Armes Chemical Science, 11, 232-240 (2020). 2. “How do charged end-groups on the steric stabilizer block influence the formation and long-term stability of Pickering nanoemulsions prepared using sterically-stabilized diblock copolymer n ..read more

A collaborative report on the first metallated hypercrosslinked polymers (HCPs) authored by the SNUCER group at the University of Sheffield and led by Dr Mark D. Ogden, the Robert Dawson group, along with CDT student, Thomas Robshaw, has been featured on the back cover of the Journal of Materials Chemistry! Thomas J. Robshaw et al., J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020, 8, 7130 ..read more

2nd year CDT student, Hasina Begum took part in the Rochdale Summer School Extravaganza, in her hometown of Rochdale, Greater Manchester on Sunday 25th August. The event was a huge success aimed to showcase science to the BME community. The Mayor, Institute of Physics and the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester (MOSI) were just a few that also attended, they were very impressed with the community spirit and large turnout. Introductory Speech Demonstration ..read more

This year’s CDT Summer School was a huge hit with external speakers, internal speakers, 1st year student talks and 2nd year student posters! Congratulations to the 1st year presentation prize winners: Michael Harris - 1st Prize Winner Freya Cleasby - Runner Up Kate Tatin ..read more

Publications:Thomas Robshaw, Sudhir Tukra, Deborah B. Hammond, Graham J. Leggett, Mark D. Ogden, Highly efficient fluoride extraction from simulant leachate of spent potlining via La-loaded chelating resin. An equilibrium study, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2019, 361, 200-209 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.07.036)Robshaw, T., Dawson, R. , Bonser, K. et al.,  Towards the implementation of an ion-exchange system for recovery of fluoride commodity chemicals. Kinetic and dynamic studies, Chemical Engineering Journal, 2019, 367, 149-159 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2019.02.135)K.V. Ho ..read more

I took part in a Manchester outreach event on Sunday 10th March 2019 as part of British Science week. The aim of this event was to showcase science to the general public in my hometown which consist of mostly a minority ethnic asian background (Bangladeshis).The event was a huge success and I could not have done it without CDT funding and the help of Joe Gaunt and Rob Dawson from the Chemistry Department at the University of Sheffield.Please see attached, a few pictures and videos of the event, and media links below which were featured.https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-head ..read more