News Archive

Dublin Chemistry - 3rd Year PhD Talks 2023

On Wednesday May 31st, UCD School of Chemistry hosted the Dublin Chemistry 3rd Year Talks with 37 PhD students from UCD, TCD School of Chemistry, and TUD School of Chemical and Biopharmaceutical Sciences each presenting their research in a 15 minute seminar.

Organised by Professor Declan Gilheany three parallel sessions ran throughout the day, with seminars grouped by type of chemistry. Further  information is available in the Seminar programme or the Abstract book. Each session was chaired by an academic staff member from UCD, TCD or TUD and a panel of judges comprised of academic staff also attended each session to undertake an assessment of each.  

We are very grateful to our long running sponsors Eli Lilly for their continued support for the Dublin Chemistry 3rd year talks. We were delighted that Dr. Michael Carroll, Senior Principal Scientist TS/MS Small Molecule from Eli Lilly Kinsale Limited, who gave a 3rd year talk during his own PhD studies with us, was able to be with us to present the prizes to the 6 winners. 

Dr Michael Carroll of Eli Lilly presented prizes to (clockwise from top left): Shekemi Denuga, Aoibheann O'Connor, Eva Naughton, Alby Benny, and Annael Sort-Montenegro. Our thanks to Vincent Hoban, UCD for the photographs.

Shekemi Denuga, Johnson Group, UCD "A Nanopore Sensor for the Detection of Sars-Cov2 Based on Ion Current Rectification"

Aoibheann O'Connor, Guiry Group, UCD "A New Paradigm for the Asymmetric Diels-Alder Reaction".

Eva Naughton, Sullivan Group, UCD "Development of Materials for Sustainable Artificial Photosynthesis".

Annael Sort-Montenegro,  Florea Group, TCD "Movement Generation Under the Application of an Electric Field: Electrotaxis and Electro-actuation".

Alby Benny, Scanlan group, TCD "Thioaspartic Acid Mediated Methods for Peptide Ligation and Macrocyclisation".

Justynne Joy Fabian, Warren group, TUD "Surface Modification of Titanium Alloys for Biomedical Applications".

School of Chemistry EDI Committee

Let’s Talk About Race: Bridging the Gap in Science

Wednesday, 19th April, UCD Village Auditorium

Let’s Talk About Race was the second EDI symposium of the Behind the Position series, organised by the PhD student members of the UCD School of Chemistry EDI committee. After the success of the first event in this series, which highlighted gender equality in STEM, this year we featured race and ethnicity in Irish STEM education. The Higher Education Authority (HEA) and the UCD EDI frameworks suggest that organising such events will highlight potential issues in this sphere to current students and encourage inclusivity across the University.

UCD’s statement on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion states “UCD believes in equality, diversity, and inclusion and embeds these fairness principles to all aspects of university life. UCD’s vision for EDI is to be a leader and role model in equality and diversity in the higher education sector nationally and internationally, and for EDI to be at the heart of all we do.”

Professor AP De Silva

Shekemi Denuga

On Wednesday, 19 April, over one hundred attendees listened to our speakers as they shared their experiences as members of minority ethnic groups, in work, and in their lives. We are grateful to Dr Julia Bruno Colmenarez, Dr Prosper Anaedu, Dr Leila Negahdar,  Prof AP De Silva, Dr Weimu Xu, and Shekemi Denuga for their contributions, which we hope will begin important conversations about race and ethnicity in UCD College of Science, and the wider University.

Prof Jeremy Simpson

Thanks also to Dr Elaine O’Reilly and College Principal Prof Jeremy (Jez) Simpson for their remarks, to the Head of School Prof James Sullivan and to the School Office for their support. Thanks finally to Dr Rosana Lopez for taking photos at the event. 

Professor Kenneth Dawson receives prestigious ERC Advanced Grant

for nanoscale medicines

Professor Dawson, Chair of Physical Chemistry at UCD School of Chemistry and Director of the Centre for BioNano Interactions (CBNI), was awarded the prestigious funding for his project FunctionalNanoTher - which aims to develop much more efficient vaccines, and other treatments, by leveraging the body’s naturally occurring nanoscale communication network.

Full details are available on the UCD News & Opinion website. See also our Twitter feed (opens in a new window)@ucdchemistry!

UCD Ladies win their fourth Division 1 Hockey championship

UCD School of Chemistry is very proud of Niamh Carey and the (opens in a new window)UCD Ladies Hockey team who have claimed their fourth league championship, winning the EY Hockey League following a 3-0 victory over Pegasus.

Niamh is a final year BSc Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology Student (MCCB) and she is a holder of a UCDAd Astra Elite Sports Scholarship. She also plays hockey for Ireland(opens in a new window)https://hockey.ie/internationals-senior-womens-player-profiles/.

Check out the celebrations at (opens in a new window)UCD Ladies Hockey Club Instagram or follow us on (opens in a new window)Twitter.

Well done to Niamh & the team.

UCD-UCSF partnership wins NovaUCD Innovation Award for novel lung disease relief

Professor Stefan Oscarson, UCD School of Chemistry, and Professor Stephen Carrington, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine (retired), recipients of the 2023 NovaUCD Innovation Award

A research collaboration that developed a new drug to help those suffering with respiratory diseases to breathe more easily have won this year’s NovaUCD Innovation Award.

Professor (opens in a new window)Stefan Oscarson, UCD School of Chemistry, and Professor Stephen Carrington, who retired from the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine in 2016, have received the 2023 award in recognition of their successful and longstanding research collaboration with Professor John Fahy, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).  

A full account of the 2023 NovaUCD Awards is available on the  UCD News & Opinion website. Follow news from the School of Chemistry on  (opens in a new window)Twitter.

(From Left) Leila Negahdar, Aniello Palma, Joseph Byrne, and Nadia Elghobashi-Meinhardt

Assistant Professor Leila Negahdar

Before coming to UCD, Leila was Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow in University College London. Prior to this, she was research associate at Cardiff University UK, postdoctoral research fellow at RWTH Aachen University Germany, and postdoctoral research fellow at Utrecht University Netherlands. She received her master’s degree from University of Dortmund, Germany, and PhD degree in Chemistry from RWTH Aachen University in 2015. Her research interests include mainly catalytic surface reaction, kinetics and mechanism, chemical processes and in situ/operando spectroscopy in catalysis. Her current research focuses on applying dynamic catalysis and innovative approaches for tackling the grand global challenges - climate change, pollution, and sustainable energy.

Research highlight: Shining light on the solid–liquid interface: in situ/
operando monitoring of surface catalysis

Assistant Professor Aniello Palma

Aniello obtained a Master's degree in Chemistry at the Università di Napoli Federico II in 2005. In October 2010, he obtained his PhD in Organic Chemistry from UCD with a thesis entitled “Synthesis and Application of New Infra-Red Fluorophores”. In January 2011, he joined the group of Prof Anthony Barrett (FRS, FMEDSCI) in Imperial College London, as a postdoctoral researcher working on a medicinal chemistry project involving the synthesis of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors. In January 2015, he joined Prof Oren Scherman’s research group in the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis at the University of Cambridge focusing on the synthesis of supramolecular polymers, supramolecular sensors and on the development of supramolecular catalysts. In August 2017, Aniello started his independent career in the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Kent as a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry. He joined the School of Chemistry at UCD as an Assistant Professor in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry in January 2023. Aniello’s research focuses on the design of smart and responsive materials prepared via supramolecular approaches and inspired by biomolecules. These bioinspired materials have applications in the fields of green catalysis, chemical sensing and separation, drug delivery and novel therapeutics.

Example of a reversibly porous, crystalline, supramolecular peptide framework (SPF) developed in Palma’s group. Thermal activation, guest-induced dynamic porosity and enantioselective guest inclusion have been demonstrated for this novel system. Chem.Eur. J. DOI: 10.1002/chem.202202368

Assistant Professor Joseph Byrne

 Joe studied chemistry first at Maynooth University and then in Trinity College Dublin where he completed his PhD in the lab of Thorri Gunnlagusson, supported by the Irish Research Council. His research was in the field of supramolecular chemistry and luminescent lanthanide complexes. He won a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship to carry out research into carbohydrate-functionalised organometallic catalysts in Martin Albrecht's group at Universität Bern (Switzerland), where he stayed for 3 years. In 2019, Joe begin his independent research at University of Galway, funded by an SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant. His group have been investigating the ability of carbohydrate functionalised metal complexes to detect bacterial lectin proteins, as well as their potential antimicrobial properties. Joe joined UCD in January 2023 and is leading an IRC Laureate Award and a North-South Research Project (supported by the HEA and the Shared Island Fund). New diagnostic and therapeutic tools are needed in the fight against antimicrobial resistance, and through research at the interface of inorganic chemistry and carbohydrate chemistry, the Byrne Group aim to make discoveries which will contribute to this challenge. Joe is a committee member of the RSC Carbohydrate Interest Group and the Irish Biological Inorganic Chemistry Society and advisor to the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland's Young Chemists Network.

Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow) Nadia Elghobashi-Meinhardt

Nadia completed her PhD in Theoretical Chemistry in 2005 at the Free University Berlin, followed by two postdoctoral appointments (Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society in Berlin and Heidelberg University) to pursue research in the field of computational biophysics. In her research, Nadia uses a combination of computational techniques to study structure-function relationships in complex biological systems. Nadia also enjoys teaching and has taught a wide range of courses in chemistry and mathematics. In 2023, Nadia was awarded a UCD Ad Astra fellowship and appointed Assistant Prof. in the School of Chemistry at UCD.

Nadia’s group uses quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) methods to model and investigate the chemistry taking place in metalloenzymes. Here, the catalytic site of acetyl-Co-enzyme A synthase (ACS) contains an iron-sulfur cluster and two nickel atoms, a proximal nickel and a distal nickel. Only the proximal nickel atom is believed to be directly involved in the catalytic reaction.

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science (IDWGS) was celebrated with a breakfast event in the University Club on February 8^th 2023, organised by the postdocs from the EDI committees in the School of Chemistry and School of Mathematics and Statistics. The event included a role model awards ceremony for nine female role models, nominated by graduate students and postdocs from our two schools.

The role model awardees from the School of Chemistry are:

Prof Susan Quinn

Dr Gita Singh

Kathryn Yeow

Katie McGarry

Ioanna Bampouri

Olivia Breen

The Role Model awardees from the School of Mathematics and Statistics are:

Professor Claire Gormley

Dr Áine Byrne

Tiziana Comito

Congratulations to all the role model awardees!

        Left to right: Ioanna Bampouri, Kathryn Yeow, Katie McGarry, and Dr Gita Singh. 

        Professor Susan Quinn

Left to right: Award winners: Professor Claire Gormley, Dr Áine Byrne, Tiziana Comito, Kathryn Yeow, Olivia Breen.  Organising Committee: Dr Marianne Haarr, Dr Gabriel Piovano, Dr Karina Nigoghossian, and Dr Gita Singh, who also won an award.

BOC Gases Graduate Research Awards 2022/2023

On Tuesday the 16th of May 2023 the School was delighted to welcome Mr Dermot Browne, Sales Director at BOC Gases Ireland Limited, to present this year's awards. 

Thank you to all who entered. This year's winners were:

• Peter McDermott, and his project 'The Synthesis of Organophosphorus Compounds via the Functionalisation of α,β-Unsaturated Phosphonates and Phosphinates'
• Benjamin Owen, for 'The Synthesis of Bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane-Containing Aromatic Lipoxin Analogues'
• Clara Zehe, for her project entitled 'Advanced spectroscopy of carbon-based nanoparticles'.

From Left: Dermot Browne, BOC Gases Ireland, Clara Zehe, Benjamin Owen, Peter McDermott and James Sullivan (Head of School).

Peter, Benjamin and Clara each gave a fascinating presentation on their research which was attended by staff and postgraduate students. Dermot commended their research work and presented each student with a framed certificate to commemorate their award.

Our thanks to BOC Gases Ireland for supporting these awards since 1987, providing an annual bursary of €4000, which is split evenly amongst the winners. There have been 89 winners to date. You can view the full list on our Postgraduate Awards webpage.  

The 73^rd Irish Universities Chemistry Research Colloquium

The Irish Universities Chemistry Research Colloquium is run under the aegis of the(opens in a new window) Institute of Chemistry of Ireland.

Organised by Professor Declan Gilheany, UCD School of Chemistry hosted the 73^rd Colloquium on the 15-16^th June 2022, in UCD O'Brien Centre for Science. Contact us (opens in a new window)Chem.Colloquium@ucd.ie

 Well done and Congratulations to the following prize winners

Poster Prize Winners:

Niraj Nitish Patel - UL Department of Chemical Sciences

Clara Evans - MU Department of Chemistry

Vanessa Becker - UCD School of Chemistry 

Lauren Kearney - DCU School of Chemical Sciences

Farhad Mohammed - MU Department of Chemistry

Lorna Doyle - TCD School of Chemistry 

Aidan Cregan - UCC School of Chemistry

Gallery of Poster Prize Winners

Talks Prize Winners: 

Yiming Huang - QUB School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Karolina Wojtczak - NUIG School of Chemistry

Aoife Kearney - UCC School of Chemistry

Niamh Curtin - RCSI Department of Chemistry

Sheila Fitzgerald - RCSI Department of Chemistry

Sadbh Byrne - UCD School of Chemistry

Caytlin Boylan - MU Department of Chemistry

Gallery of Talks Prize Winners

We would like to thank our generous sponsors:

          

The Plenary Speaker will be Dr Matthew O. Kitching, Durham University.

He is presently Royal Society University Research Fellow at Durham, having been briefly at Dublin City University. He came to prominence last year with the first “Enantioselective Synthesis of Ammonium Cations” (Science, 2021), which was achieved via a supramolecular recognition process that allowed a thermodynamically driven adductive crystallization. This year, with his colleague Mark A, Walsh, he has in prospect a sensational publication on “A Potentially Limitless Chiral Pool via Conglomerate Crystallisation: Unidentified Spontaneous Resolution in the CSD” (ChemRxiv Preprint, 2022). By conducting a manual search of the CSD, they compiled and curated a list of over 1,700 chiral species capable of conglomerate crystallisation.

Change of Philosophy for the Colloquium 2022

Since this will be the first full face-to-face meeting of chemists on the Island since the Covid pandemic, we are changing the rules to celebrate. All final year PhD students are welcome to present their research. Thus there will be no upper limit on the number of speakers from any Institution. To achieve this there will be multiple parallel sessions and a poster session and combined reception.

All final year chemistry PhD students on the Island of Ireland are invited to give a 20-minute seminar (15 min talk + 5 min questions) on their research work. Additionally, any chemistry research student (1^st-4^th Yr PhD/MSc) may present a Poster (size A1). There will be Prizes for Talks and Posters. There will be multiple parallel seminars on both days and one Poster session with an associated hot food and drinks reception in the early evening of 15^th June (6-8 pm). Prior to A Plenary Lecture by Dr Matthew O. Kitching, Durham University. Outline program below (Final program will be published here as soon as it is available). 

 There is no upper limit on the number of speakers / posters from any Institution.

Email Abstracts as pdf to (opens in a new window)Chem.Colloquium@ucd.ie

Use the Word Template (click here) for the Abstract and then covert it to pdf. Abstracts must include, as well as the Supervisor / Principal Investigator, all other persons contributing to the work with the presenter’s name underlined.

Name the pdf for Talk as: Givenname_Surname_Talk.pdf

Name the pdf for Poster as: Givenname_Surname_Poster.pdf

Note: Accommodation is not included in the Registration Fee. Accommodation is available in the UCD Village Complex €85 per night. This must be booked separately by contacting the UCD Village Complex (opens in a new window)here Note that this is one-time booking link, make sure you really want the room because you cannot change it once the booking is made.  

https://www.ucd.ie/newsandopinion/news/2021/november/17/ucdresearchersamong2021globallistofmostinfluential/

The College of Science EDI Committee marked International Day of Women & Girls in Science on 11 February 2019 with an exhibition entitled "UCD Women in Science". The exhibition celebrated the diverse range of talents, knowledge and hard work as well as the contribution to teaching & mentoring of Asst. Prof. Marina Rubini, Technical Officer Sara Collins, Administrator Deirdre Murphy, PhD student Lorna Conway and Stage 4 student Dáiríne Morgan. Congrats to all who took part.

Congratulations to PhD Student Mark Reihill (Oscarson Group) on winning the 2019 JG Buchanan Prize for Best Early Stage Researcher Talk on evaluating Helicobacter Pylori Adhesion Binding at the Royal Society of Chemistry Carbohydrate Group Conference held at the University of Reading in April.  

UCD Chemistry academics awarded research funding                   

Congratulations to the following UCD Chemistry academics who were recently awarded Irish Research Council (opens in a new window)Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme Grants:

(opens in a new window)Professor Declan Gilheany & PhD student Sadbh Byrne who will be working on a project entitled "Use of Asymmetric Grignard Synthesis for Tertiary Alcohols of Pharmaceutical Interest: Design, Selectivity & some Pharmaceutical Applications".

(opens in a new window)Associate Professor Grace Morgan with PhD student Conor Kelly (and recent UCD graduate) who will be working on a project entitled "Manganese-Enhanced MRI (MEMRI) PARACEST and Thermally Responsive Contrast Agents".

(opens in a new window)Associate Professor James Sullivan with PhD student (and recent UCD graduate) Kristy Stanley who will be working on a project entitled "CO2 reforming of CH4 over novel Ni-based catalysts – the influence of preparation and plasma promotion".

(opens in a new window)Assistant Prof. Marina Rubini(opens in a new window) with PhD student Kirti Sharma who will be working on a project entitled "Towards understanding of post-translational modifications: rational engineering of therapeutic cytokines by means of non-natural amino acids".‌‌‌

(opens in a new window)Assistant Prof. Susan Kelleher who was awarded funding for a 4-year PhD student from the SFI Research Centre, CÚRAM. Niamh Geoghegan (a recent graduate of our school) has taken up the position. She will be studying the mechanical properties and degradation profiles of nanostructured polymeric materials and their use as medical device coatings.

Ass. Prof. Susan Kelleher was a guest on Newstalk's weekly show, Futureproof, 9 Feb 2019, discussing the discovery of a focal pathway in the brain that when electrically stimulated causes immediate laughter, even during awake brain surgery!

Congratulations to third year chemistry student Cillian O'Brien, who has won the competition to represent Ireland on this year's MIRAI Scholarship Program (Science & Technology) organised by the Japanese Government. Cillian will travel to Japan to experience various aspects of Japanese science, technology and society including traditional Japanese culture.

The Guiry Group has featured on the cover of the Journal of Organic Chemistry, January 2019 with their article "Development of and Recent Advances in Pd-Catalyzed Decarboxylative Asymmetric Protonation". Using the Irish sport of hurling as the inspiration for the cover, the UCD playing fields and water tower can be seen clearly. Congratulations to Dr. Cian Kingston & Dr. Jinju James.

December 2018: Congratulations to Prof. Patrick Guiry who received two Irish Research Council awards a for project entitled "Study on Biological Effects of Imidazole Substitution Pattern and BCP-containing LXA4 Analogues" with PhD student Benjamin Owen and for "Novel Axially Chiral P,N Ligands for Asymmetric Catalysis" with PhD student Cian Reid (BSc Chemistry UCD).

September 2018

UCD Chemistry academics were recently awarded Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme Grants & CÚRAM grants.

Brightspace VLE replaces Blackboard & Moodle from January 2019. Students will be able to access their Cohort 1 modules from 7th January and training for both staff and students is available. Go to https://www.ucd.ie/futurevle/#brightspace_student_orientation.

Congratulations to Katie McGarry and Edward Gannon who received the 2018 MSc Negotiated Learning Intel scholarship award. They are both graduates of our school (Katie from the BSc Med Chem/Chem Bio in 2017, Edward from the BSc Chem in 2018). The awards are worth €3,000 each and 16 in total were awarded in UCD this year across different MSc/MEng degrees. 

December 2018: Congratulations to Prof. Declan Gilheany who recently received a major Horizon2020 award for his project entitled "Animal and Human Nutrition Benefits of Nature Identical Vitamin E AnNuVitE".

November 2018: UCD Chemistry academics Prof. Declan Gilheany, Dr. James Sullivan, Dr. Grace Morgan & Dr. Marina Rubini have been awarded IRC Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme Grants and Dr. Susan Kelleher has been awarded an SFI grant.

Dermot joined the Electronics section of the Department of Chemistry in 1973, set up by Victor Moran some years previously. Dermot was involved in designing, building and modifying new and existing in-house systems for both teaching and research purposes and was promoted to Senior Technical Officer in 1980. Throughout his career he contributed invaluably and tirelessly to both teaching and research in the School of Chemistry and Physics. Enjoy your retirement Dermot!

Congratulations to UCD Chemistry's Professor Kenneth Dawson who has been included in a list of Highly Cited Researchers 2018, compiled by Clarivate Analytics. The list is a citation analysis of researchers who are among the top 1% most cited for their year of publication in one of 21 fields of study. The ranking includes 17 Nobel laureates.Highly Cited Researchers 2018, compiled by Clarivate Analytics.

Congratulations to PhD student James Barker (BSc 2017) who is the recipient of an NUI Travelling Studentship 2018. He is currently with the Guiry Research Group and will travel to Stockholm University as part of his award. 

 On the 26th of March 2018, David Mulrooney (President of ChemSoc 2017/18) and forty undergraduate and postgraduate students visited the new APC facility in Cherrywood for talks and insights into the work undertaken at APC.

Congratulations to PhD student Eduardo de Morais from the Sullivan Group who was awarded a prize for his rapid fire presentation at the MRS Fall Meeting 2018 in Boston. The presentation was part of a symposium on Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing for Sustainability.

Happy Retirement to our colleague Mr. Gerry Flynn, Senior Technical Officer with UCD Chemistry. He has been a friendly face in Chemistry Stores for many years and will be much missed by staff and students alike. Here seen holding his UCD Volunteers Oversees Certificate of Appreciation, presented by Caroline Mangan UCDVO Officer, for all his good works in fund raising during his 43 years in UCD Chemistry.

Congratulations to Dr. Samir Belhout (Quinn Group) and Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick (Guiry Group) who were awarded their Chemistry PhD's in September 2018, along with our eight Chemistry PhD students who were awarded their PhD Degrees in June 2018. We wish them every success in their future careers.

The Inorganic Chemistry community in Ireland has been successful in their bid to host the biennial International Conference on Coordination Chemistry (ICCC) in Dublin in 2026. This conference is one of the longest standing and most prestigious on the international Chemistry circuit.

UCD Chemistry's Class of 2018 were awarded their BSc degrees in September 2018. We wish them every success in their future careers and look forward to seeing some of them again as Postgrads!

The Irish company founded in Dublin in 2009 by Prof Gareth Redmond, now Head of Chemistry at University College Dublin, and Prof Gabriel Crean, formerly chief executive at Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, has been acquired by the US medical diagnostics firm Kypha for an undisclosed sum.

Staff from UCD Chemistry talked with students interested in studying science and discussed working opportunities at the 2018 RDS Higher Options fair.

On June 28th, 2018, Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) announced that UCD had been chosen to be a part of a joint research venture between Ireland and China on eight next-generation projects. A total sum of €3,326,771 has been made available to further research on campus in the areas of wireless communications, nano-materials and chemical engineering.

UCD Chemistry PhD student Vincent Duong (McGarrigle Group) won Best Overall Poster at the Irish Universities Chemistry Research Colloquium held in Queen's University Belfast in June 2018, with Vibe Jakobsen (Morgan Group) winning 2nd Place for his poster.

The School of Chemistry congratulates our PhD student Eduardo Morais who recently won an award at the recent 3rd EUCheMS Green & Sustainable Chemistry conference in York in September 2017.

The research of the NMR and Materials group, led by Associate Professor Dermot Brougham, featured as a cover article in Chemical Communications. The paper describes a novel method to prepare size selectable magnetic nanoparticle assemblies with magnetic anisotropy tunable across the superparamagnetic to ferromagnetic range.

Chemistry PhD student, Andrea Zanetti captured the SFI Research Image of the Year award for his image: ‘Organic ChemisTree, a Telescopic View’.

PhD student (Dawson Group) Emily Sheridan was presented with a judges special distinction award plus €500 for her entry to the 2019 Mary Mulvihill Award, 'A tale of a life lived for science from an unlikely narrator'. The award was presented by Ann O'Dea, CEO of Silicon Republic (pictured left). Emily is also the Dublin coordinator for Pint of Science Dublin. Congratulations Emily!

The APC Awards for Best Research Posters 2018 were presented by Dr. Mark Barrett, CEO APC Ltd. to Stage 4, PhD Year 1 - Year 4 students and Postdocs as part of our 2018 Research Day. View photos of the awardees in our APC Awards 2018 Photo Album.

 Ad Astra Elite Scholar and Stage 4 Chemistry student Shane Mulvaney was named ‘Sportsperson of the Year’ at the 2019 UCD Sport Awards along with fellow rower David O'Malley from Medicine. The pair made a big splash at the World U23 Rowing Championships in July winning gold in the men’s 2000m lightweight pair and were the first ever Irish team to win gold at the championships.

This year, Anna Vetter (Gilheany Group), Eduardo de Morais (Sullivan Group) and Stephen Devereux (Quinn Group) were the recipients of the BOC Gases Bursary Awards for best Postgraduate Project 2019, presented by Dr. Kieran Hennessy and Mr. Eamonn Bolton from BOC Gases Irl. Ltd.

Congratulations to our Stage 4 students who successfully displayed their research posters at the 2019 Research Day.

Congratulations to Stage 4 student Eimear Madden who was awarded 2nd place in the Earth Institute Undergraduate Environmental Researcher of the Year competition which took place in April 2019.

UCD Mass Spectrometry Community of Practice held a pre-event seminar as part of UCD’s Work Smarter Together event in March with Dr. Jimmy Muldoon representing Chemistry. Mass Spectrometry lab managers in UCD gave short presentations describing the instrumentation within their facilities and the range of techniques available. A recurring theme was the need for sustainable long-term investment in equipment, servicing support and training to achieve the utmost from such advanced techniques and instrumentation.

The Guiry Group has featured on the cover of the Journal of Organic Chemistry, January 2019 with their article "Development of and Recent Advances in Pd-Catalyzed Decarboxylative Asymmetric Protonation". Using the Irish sport of hurling as the inspiration for the cover, the UCD playing fields and water tower can be seen clearly. Congratulations to Dr. Cian Kingston & Dr. Jinju James.

Congratulations to Prof. Patrick Guiry who received two Irish Research Council awards a for project entitled "Study on Biological Effects of Imidazole Substitution Pattern and BCP-containing LXA4 Analogues" with PhD student Benjamin Owen and for "Novel Axially Chiral P,N Ligands for Asymmetric Catalysis" with PhD student Cian Reid (BSc Chemistry UCD).

Congratulations to PhD student Eduardo de Morais from the Sullivan Group who was awarded a prize for his rapid fire presentation at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston. The presentation was part of a symposium on Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing for Sustainability.

Congratulations and best wishes to all our MSc and PhD graduates who were conferred this week:

Owen Hickey, Clara Zehe, Huan Zhang and Zhengpengzi Chen were awarded MSc degrees and Cai Qi, Kevin Gahan, Brian Gaynor, Jinju James, Darren Lawlor and Alberto Romano Corrochano were awarded PhD degrees.

Congratulations to UCD Chemistry's Professor Kenneth Dawson who has been included in a list of Highly Cited Researchers 2018, compiled by Clarivate Analytics. The list is a citation analysis of researchers who are among the top 1% most cited for their year of publication in one of 21 fields of study. The ranking includes 17 Nobel laureates.Highly Cited Researchers 2018, compiled by Clarivate Analytics.

Congratulations to UCD Chemistry's Professor Kenneth Dawson who has been included in a list of Highly Cited Researchers 2018, compiled by Clarivate Analytics. The list is a citation analysis of researchers who are among the top 1% most cited for their year of publication in one of 21 fields of study. The ranking includes 17 Nobel laureates.Highly Cited Researchers 2018, compiled by Clarivate Analytics.

The UCD Chemistry teams led by Assistant Professors Susan Kelleher & Tony Quinn were the happy recipients of cash and goody bags from Henkel at the SCI Annual Science Week Table Quiz which took place in Doyle's pub. Smiles all round! Pictured from left Samir Belhout, Susan Kelleher, Lucia Podhorska, Colm Delaney & Jessica McFadden.

The NMR and Nanomaterials Group recently reported a novel method to prepare suspensions of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticle assemblies.The article was featured on the cover of the most recent edition of Small. The novelty lies in the mechanism which is driven by depletion of stabilising ligands onto a chloroform‐water interface, while the size distribution narrows over time.Congratulations to Jenny Merlin (and others) on the paper and thanks to Eoghan MacMahon and Patricia Monks for the excellent artwork. Read it here (opens in a new window)https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.201870205

Congratulations to Katie McGarry and Edward Gannon who received the 2018 MSc Negotiated Learning Intel scholarship award. They are both graduates of our school (Katie from the BSc Med Chem/Chem Bio in 2017, Edward from the BSc Chem in 2018). The awards are worth €3,000 each and 16 in total were awarded in UCD this year across different MSc/MEng degrees.

We were honoured to welcome Professor Dervilla Donnelly to present the award named in her honour, the Professor Dervilla Donnelly Medal for Stage 4 BSc Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology, to Cian Reid (pictured), Joseph Ruddy and Cathal Caulfield.

UCD Chemist, Dr. Susan Quinn has been recognised by the Royal Society of Chemistry for her work as part of an international research team investigating the relationship between the molecular origins of disease and the absorption of light energy by DNA. She was awarded the Rita & John Cornforth Award 2016 for collaborative research.