Message from the Chair

Dear all,

I hope you are surviving well in these unusual circumstances and that you have not been affected too badly yourselves, apart from the inevitable video calls and disruption to all our lives.

UK Colloids (inc. the Rideal lecture by Prof. Colin Bain) is not happening this July, the plan is to move to 19-21 July 2021, still at ACC Liverpool.

We will however have the UK Colloids 2020 Online Flash Presentations on 21st July, right after the online AGM at 1 PM that day. We have had a lot of interest in both events and the organisers are now busy putting together the programme for the flash presentations. I hope you can join us for these events.

The Early Career Colloid Network committee are planning a webinar in the afternoon of 10th September.

Congratulations to our McBain medal winner Dr Jerry Heng (Imperial College) – the plan is to celebrate this with a symposium on Monday 8th December 2020, which will hopefully take place with real (not virtual) delegates at the usual venue, SCI London.

Congratulations also to the next winners of the Rideal lecture, Prof. Steven Armes (University of Sheffield), and Graham lecture, Dr Malcolm Faers (Bayer CropScience)! We look forward to celebrating their achievements in 2021.

Stay well.

Jeroen van Duijneveldt

Chair of the Joint Colloids Group

NEWS

2020 Katharine Burr Blodgett award for excellence in PhD research winner: Dr James Wilkinson Hindley.

Dr James Wilkinson Hindley is the first recipient of the newly introduced Katharine Burr Blodgett Award for his research into engineering artificial cells capable of sensing and responding to their environment during his PhD study at Imperial College, London. The Katharine Burr Blodgett Award is given annually to honour the achievements of a researcher, who was awarded a PhD degree within the past year working in the field of Colloid and Interface Science. Congratulations to Dr Hindley!

The deadline for applications for the 2021 award will be 15th April 2021.

Prof. Steven Armes awarded the 2021 Rideal Award and Lecture

Following nominations from the membership of our group and amongst a strong field of established colloid and interface scientists, Prof. Steven Armes from the University of Sheffield has been voted winner of the Rideal Award and Lecture for 2021. Many congratulations from all of us to Steve!

Our committee will be organising an event in 2021, where Prof. Armes will deliver his lecture alongside other invited speakers.

Dr Claudia Contini reports on her experience in Australia as a

Brian Vincent UK/Australia

exchange bursary awardee.

The second awardee of our Brian Vincent UK/Australia exchange bursary, Dr Claudia Contini from Imperial College London, describes below her experience in Australia linked to the award.

"The Brian Vincent UK/Australian Exchange Bursary was a brilliant opportunity to attend the 32nd Australasian Colloid and Surface Science 2020 conference and establish new potential collaborations with outstanding researchers in the nanomaterials research field working in several Australian Universities. At the conference, I also had the opportunity to showcase my work on the interaction of nanomaterials with model membranes carried out at Imperial College London and discuss the latest discoveries in the field. As part of my award, I also visited the University of Melbourne hosted by Prof. Frances Separovic, a world-leading expert in the interaction between peptides and model biological membranes. Moreover, I had the chance to add an extra visit to my stay at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) hosted by Dr. Aaron Elbourne, a brilliant early career researcher with the shared interest in nano/biointerfaces. My visit represented an extremely valuable opportunity for me, and I returned to Imperial College London with insightful ideas and motivation for new exciting projects. I thoroughly enjoyed this experience, not only for the research-related aspects but also for the chance to explore other Universities and Melbourne. Quite simply, I strongly recommend the Brian Vincent UK/Australian Exchange Bursary to other early career researchers! "

As part of this award, Dr Contini received a £2,000 bursary to contribute towards the cost of her flights, accommodation, attendance to the conference and her research lab visits.

Call for nominations for the next McBain medal.

Deadline - 15th November 2020

The McBain medal is our annual award to honour an early career researcher or technologist who has made a meritorious contribution to Colloid and Interface Science. The award, named after James William McBain (celebrated by the SCI amongst other notable scientists here), is intended to recognise both achievement and evidence of future promise.

Recent winners, including the 2020 McBain medal awardee, Dr Jerry Heng from Imperial College London, for whom a celebration will take place at SCI in December 2020 (more details to be published soon), and a full description of the award can be found on our website.

Nomination for next year medal will open on 1st August on the SCI website with a deadline of 15th November 2020.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

Joint Colloids Group AGM

21st July 2020  -  13:00-14:00

Our joint RSC Colloid and Interface Science Group and SCI Colloid and Surface Chemistry Group are holding their joint 2020 Annual General Meeting via webinar on 21st July at 1pm. All members should have received a sign-up link for this event already. Please do get in touch with us via our website or via email if you have any queries about this event.

UK Colloids Online Flash Presentations

21st July 2020  -  14:00-16:00

This virtual poster session will feature 5 minute presentations with a Q&A session and also 'enhanced posters' including animations/videos in which early career researchers will present recent work in topics matching the UK Colloids themes. 

Deadline for submitting an abstract is now passed and presenters are being selected but FREE registration is available until 20th July at the following link:

https://www.rsc.org/events/detail/44705/.

We look forward to welcoming many of you to this event.

ECCo LIVE 2020

Early Career Colloid Network Webinar

10th September 2020  -  13:00-16:00

The Early Career Colloid Network aims to bring together early career colloid scientists from industry and academia and provide a forum for discussion, networking and facilitate knowledge exchange.

#ECCo2020 has moved online. The meeting planned for mid-September will now be hosted online and comprise presentations from a keynote speaker and delegates in addition to a panel discussion.

All details for submitting abstracts and for registration can be found here.