Two UCL chemists, Sally Price and David Scanlon, have been recognised in this year's Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) awards. Meanwhile, UCL's Ivan Parkin has won the Griffith Medal of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3).
RSC Interdisciplinary Prize
UCL's Sally Price has been awarded one of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Interdisciplinary Prizes for 2015.
She has been recognised for her pioneering work at the interface between chemistry and other disciplines. She now specialises in Computational Chemistry, exploring how molecules interact with each other to form solids, solutions and act as drug molecules depends on their charge density, which can be calculated using the laws of quantum mechanics.
Sally has been developing computer programs to predict how organic molecules crystallise and the resulting properties. She explains: "These programs test our fundamental understanding of the process of crystallisation and could help with the design of new organic materials with specific properties, such as could be used in new electronic devices, safer explosives or pigments".
Recently, Sally has enjoyed working with scientists in the pharmaceutical industry, testing whether her program calculations can help discover new crystalline forms of drug molecules with the aim of improving the design of pharmaceutical products and their manufacture.
Dr Robert Parker, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry said: "It is always a pleasure to recognise excellence in the chemical sciences and I am pleased to acknowledge the illustrious achievements of our prize and award winners this year.
"Whether they work in research, industry or academia, our winners are the very best in their fields, and they can be very proud to follow in the footsteps of some of the most influential and important scientists around the world.
"In a complex and changing world, chemistry and the chemical sciences are vital in responding to some of humanity's biggest challenges and our prize and award winners are at the forefront of meeting that challenge."
Prize winners are evaluated for the originality and impact of their research, as well as the quality of the results which can be shown in publications, patents, or even software. The awards also recognise the importance of teamwork across the chemical sciences, and the abilities of individuals to develop successful collaborations.
Prof Price praised the contribution of her team to the award. She said: "The award is recognising strong interdisciplinary collaborations within UCL, as well as with different universities and industry through the CPOSS project. It started nearly 20 years ago when I formed the essential experimentalist/theory partnership with Prof Derek Tocher (Chemistry), and we expanded into projects with the late Prof Alan Jones (Chemical Engineering), benefitted from computational infrastructure development with Profs Anthony Finklestein and Wolfgang Emmerich (Computer Science) and Prof Richard Catlow. Our current EPSRC project is working with Prof Simon Gaisford in UCL Pharmacy. There are many other staff and students within UCL who are contributing to the interdisciplinary work on controlling and predicting the organic solid state which this prize recognises. Its been great teamwork, which I've really enjoyed."
RSC Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize
UCL's David O Scanlon has been recognised with the Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize 2015.
Scanlon is a Lecturer in Computational, Inorganic and Materials Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry in UCL, and at Diamond Light Source. The prize recognises his development and application of computational techniques to understanding and predicting the properties of functional semi-conductors for energy applications
He completed a PhD in Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin in 2011 and now leads the Materials Theory Group at UCL. The group comprises three PhD students and three Master students, who use Computational Chemistry techniques to understand and predict the behaviours of solid state materials, primarily for electronic and renewable energy applications.
The group works on understanding the fundamental properties of the materials used in the screens of smart phones, tablets and televisions and the materials used in solar cells, and how these materials can be tweaked to improve performance.
He says: "I am delighted and humbled to accept the Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize for 2015. This award recognizes work carried out with a myriad of excellent collaborators, in UCL, Diamond Light Source, nationally and internationally, as well as with a host of dedicated and talented students. This prize showcases the importance of predictive modelling of solid state materials and I am excited to watch the future development of this emerging field."
IOM3 Griffith Medal and Prize
The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining has awarded this year's Griffith Medal to Prof Ivan Parkin, who is Head of the Department of Chemistry at UCL. Ivan is a mid-career scientist whose whole career has been devoted to the development of new methods to make, characterise and functionally test materials. His work covers solid-state chemistry for bulk materials, thin film coatings through to antimicrobial polymers.
The work is characterised by innovative synthetic insight, the development of new classes of materials and the development of fundamental understanding. His work has already had an immediate commercial, societal and scientific impact. He is cited in the world's top 600 materials scientists, and in the world's top chemists lists based on ESI Thomson analysis. He has more publications in the Journal of Materials Chemistry than any other author.
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