Welcome from the Chair

Upcoming Events

McBain Award

25th January 2024, Birmingham

The recipient of the 2023 McBain Medal is Prof. Jason Zhang from the University of Birmingham. An event to celebrate Jason’s achievements and present him with the McBain Medal will be held on the 25th of January 2024 at the Exchange, Birmingham.

Jason’s research programme focuses on Interfacial Interactions and Sustainable Formulated Products.

The McBain Medal is presented annually to an early career researcher (within 15 years of the award of a PhD) for outstanding achievement in colloid and interface science. This full day meeting will honour Professor Zhenyu Jason Zhang and at the same time the Medal will be presented.  

This event will be of interest to researchers working on colloid and polymer chemistry, fine chemicals, formulated products, tribology, materials science, and bio-interfaces. The meeting will focus on modulating interfacial interactions, with both physical and chemical means, for the development of sustainable chemical products and process. 

More details on the event can be found on the website.

Rideal Award

24th April 2024, London

The recipient of this year’s Rideal Award  is Dr. Andrew Howe from AQDOT Ltd . An event to celebrate Andrew’s achievements, ending with the Rideal lecture, will be held on the 24th of April 2024 at the SCI, London.

The Sir Eric Rideal Lecture honours an individual who has made a sustained and distinguished contribution to colloid and interface science in the UK and a one-day scientific meeting is organised around the winner.

This one-day symposium will feature invited lectures to describe exciting soft matter science and show how important quality research insights are in developing many industrial applications. The meeting will conclude with Dr Howe’s Rideal award lecture.

More details on the event can be found on the website.

Past Events

UK Colloids

July 2023, Liverpool

This three day conference attracted 345 delegates to the city of Liverpool in July. The conference got off to an excellent start in the Beatles Museum in the Albert Dock on the Sunday evening where a Paul McCartney look like / sound alike kept the delegates entertained with some classic Beatles tunes. The conference was then opened on the Monday morning by Prof Jayne Lawrence from Manchester University, with her lecture on Improved Nucleic Acid Delivery Vehicles and the parallel sessions started. The day came to a close with a RSC Women in Editorial positions panel meeting and a well attended poster session.  On the second day, Dr Malcolm Faers from Bayer, Germany gave the plenary lecture on the Art of Applying Colloid Science to the Design of Formulations. In the afternoon Prof Nguyen Thanh from UCL gave the Thomas Graham Award lecture on Plasmonic and Magnetic Nanoparticles for biomedical applications and the delegates had tours of the MIF at the Unilever of Liverpool. This was followed by the conference dinner in the basement of the Metropolitan Cathedral. The plenary speaker for the final day was Prof Norman Wagner from the University of Delaware with his talk on the Micromechanics of Shear Thickening Fluids and their Application as Protective Materials for Medical Professionals, First Responders, Athletes and Astronauts. Over lunch delegates were able to sample a local product, a bowl of Scouse before the poster prizes winner were announced at the close of the conference. Once again a massive thank you to all the exhibitors and sponsors especially Unilever for their generous support.

Welcome to our New Committe Members

In the Summer we have had three new Committee members join us.

Dr. Emma Shore (Innospec)

Emma obtained her MChem degree in Medicinal Chemistry with Pharmacology from the University of Liverpool in 2012 and remained there for her PhD with Professor Paul O’Neill. Her thesis entitled ‘Selective inhibitors of Cyclophilin D to treat Pancreatitis’ involved the synthesis and characterisation of small molecules as well as biophysical techniques such as isothermal titration calorimetry and surface plasmon resonance.

Emma undertook a short Postdoctoral research position at the University of Liverpool before moving to industry into the role of Research Chemist at Innospec. She has since progressed to the position of Platform Leader – Surface Science where her research focus is on the fundamental understanding of surfactants in both aqueous and non-aqueous media on a range of surfaces from Personal Care to Fuel Technology applications.

Dr. Guido Bolognesi (University College London)

Dr Guido Bolognesi is Associate Professor in Physical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry of University College London. He earned an international joint PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1. From 2012 to 2016, he worked as a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Chemistry of Imperial College London, implementing the microfluidic engineering work stream for the synthesis, characterisation and optical manipulation of functional emulsion droplets and particles. From 2016 to 2022, he was Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in Bioengineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering of Loughborough University. His research aims to investigate transport processes and interfacial phenomena in soft matter systems (including colloids and fluid/soft interfaces), and engineer them to develop new technologies for bio-sensing, synthetic biology, therapeutics and drug-delivery.

Dr. Marijana Dragosavac (Loughborough University)

Dr Marijana Dragosavac obtained her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Loughborough University under the supervision of Prof Richard Holdich in 2011. During her industry funded PhD with Sellafield Ltd. (UK), she developed a membrane-based system for fast-screening and evaluation of porous materials as sorbents. She is using membranes to manufacture emulsions and drops as precursors for synthesis of solid and semisolid particles. Her principal research interests are in the field of soft particle engineering and encapsulation. Her projects span from manufacturing of bespoke microcarriers and chromatography resins to stimuli responsive micro-particles for controlled drug delivery and encapsulation of nutrients and cell/bacteria. More recently she started to explore and use membrane micro mixing to manufacture crystals and nanoparticles (cubosomes, liposomes and solid lipid nanoparticles). Marijana is a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering and Chief Scientific Officer at Micropore Technology Ltd. (Redcar, UK).

Your Committee