CECAM WORKSHOP on BIOCHAR

Members of our group (Audrey and Valentina) run the CECAM flagship workshop dedicated to Advancing Biochar Molecular Models in Lausanne in June 2025.

The workshop brought together both experimental and computational scientists to discuss the necessary future steps to ensure quality biochar material models are developed and delivered to our society.

This workshop was the first ever event focusing on biochar modelling, with this laying foundations to the establishment of this new and exciting field! We look forward to collaborative efforts resulting from this meeting and future developments of this research area.

New members of the group

This summer we are joined by five wonderful undergraduate students – Kacper, Sarah, Szymon, Ioana and Ben! They have secured different competitive funding schemes to pursue a topic of their interest, to learn a new skill and to gain experience of research.

In an order of starting dates only:

  • Kacper is funded by Carnegie Trust Vacation Scholarship for his project ‘In search of interstellar glycine – characterisation of spectroscopic properties under extreme conditions via computational simulation‘. He will be working between our group and In Silico Photochemistry Group at Durham University, bringing together molecular dynamics and quantum chemical calculations.
  • Sarah has won Afton Chemical Summer Internship and is working with PhD student Hannah, studying interactions between glycine molecules and Martian clays.
  • Szymon secured the EPSRC Vacation Scholarship and joined PhD student Rosie. Szymon is testing new modes of biochar for the adsorption of pharmaceutical pollutants.
  • Ioana was awarded Undergraduate Research Bursary of the Royal Society of Chemistry for her project ‘Prebiotic Molecules of Icy Moons: Molecular Modelling for Characterisation of Interactions in the Extreme Environments’.
  • Ben has joined us with E4 Research Experience Placement, coming from the computational phyics degree, his is now working with Hannah on the development of analysis tools for molecular simulations.

Warmest welcome to our newest group members. As always grateful to the funders for the opportunity they create by these schemes. I am looking forward to working with you, learning together about how things work and to the science your placements will surely inspire!

Found out more about current and past group members, as well as opportunities to join or visit us.