15th International conference on materials chemistry (MC15)

12 - 15 July 2021


Introduction

The Royal Society of Chemistry is hosting this event online.


Welcome

You are warmly invited to join us online in July 2021. The international conference on materials chemistry has been a key meeting in the materials calendar for two decades. It's the flagship event for the RSC Materials Chemistry Division - and you can be a part of it.
 
Organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the 2021 conference will host some of the leading materials researchers from around the world. It promises to be a great forum for materials chemists to network with and build strong collaborations within their community and related disciplines.
 
We look forward to welcoming you in July 2021 on behalf of the Scientific Committee.
 
Cameron Alexander and Serena Corr
Co-Chairs

Themes

For MC15 we have a programme covering materials chemistry in all its breadth and diversity. There are four main themes, listed below, and underlying the whole conference is an emphasis on sustainability in chemistry throughout the materials lifecycle. Plenary lectures will highlight advances across the themes and keynote speakers will describe leading work within each theme, with sustainability and diversity of the materials chemistry community at the forefront. 

Materials for a changing future
Encompassing all aspects of materials chemistry relating to responsive / 'smart' systems, hybrid bio/organic/inorganic materials, electronic and magnetic materials, evolving properties and artificial intelligence/computational materials systems. 

Materials for design and development 
Encompassing all aspects of materials chemistry critical to the design and development of sustainable processes, foundation industries and environmental applications, including new magneto- solar and thermoelectrics, optics, nanostructures and polymers.

Materials for energy
Encompassing all aspects of materials chemistry related to energy generation, conversion and storage, including Li-ion batteries and beyond (Li-metal anodes, solid-state, Na-ion...); emerging solar cell technologies, photo/electrocatalysis and solar fuel generation, fuel cells. 

Materials for life
Encompassing all aspects of materials chemistry related to biological or medical applications, biomimetic and bioinspired materials, and new ‘biohybrid’ systems. 

While MC15 is organised into these four broad themes, we acknowledge that materials chemistry is a multidisciplinary field and some topics may fall into more than one theme. Abstracts are welcomed in all areas of materials chemistry – when submitting your abstract please choose the theme most relevant to you.
Speakers
Anna Blakney, University of British Columbia, Canada

Dr. Anna Blakney is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia in the Michael Smith Laboratories and School of Biomedical Engineering. She received a BSc in Chemical and Biological Engineering prior to pursuing her PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Washington. She then completed her postdoctoral training at Imperial College London, co-supervised by Prof. Robin Shattock and Prof. Molly Stevens. Her group is interested in molecular and formulation immunoengineering to develop the next generation of RNA vaccines and therapies.


Nirmalya Ballav, IISER Pune, India

Nirmalya Ballav is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, IISER Pune, India. He completed his MSc in Organic Chemistry (2000) and PhD in Physical Chemistry (2005) from University of Calcutta, India. Before joining IISER Pune as an Assistant Professor in 2011, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Applied Physical Chemistry, University of Heidelberg, Germany and at Laboratory for Micro and Nanotechnology, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland. His primary research focuses on interfacial materials chemistry – from fundamental to applications – and research platforms include coordination polymers, low-dimensional materials, and magnetic semiconductors.


Paula Colavita, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Paula Colavita received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Trieste. She completed her PhD in Physical Chemistry in 2005 at the University of South Carolina and carried out postdoctoral research work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2008 she joined the School of Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin where she is currently a Professor and a College Fellow. Her team focuses on understanding and achieving control of interfacial processes and reactions, as well as on the application of advanced functional surfaces to address important scientific and technological challenges in materials and biomaterials chemistry.


Elizabeth Gibson, Newcastle University, United Kingdom

Libby is a Reader in Energy Materials at Newcastle University. Research in her group focuses on solar cell and solar fuel devices that function at a molecular level and challenge the conventional solid-state photovoltaic technologies. This involves materials development, device assembly and characterization of the underpinning photophysics and electrochemistry.


Yurii Gun'ko, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Yurii Gun’ko has received his MSc and Ph.D degrees in Chemistry from Moscow State University (Russia) in 1987 and 1990 respectively. Then he worked as a lecturer in Chemistry in Belarus Institute of Technology and postdoctoral researcher in the University Sussex (UK) and the University of Magdeburg (Germany). In 1999 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry in Trinity College Dublin, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2005, becoming Associate Professor in 2017 and then appointed to the 1922 Chair in 2014.  His main research interest and activities are in the areas of: quantum dot based materials, nanophotonics, photovoltaics, plasmonic and magnetic nanostructures.


Kirsten Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Kirsten M. Ø. Jensen is an associate professor at Department of Chemistry at University of Copenhagen. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Aarhus University in 2013. Following a postdoc position at Columbia University, she started her research group in Copenhagen in 2015. The research in her group concerns nanomaterials, focusing especially on the use of X-ray and neutron scattering for materials chemistry.


Feng Jiao, University of Delaware, United States

Professor Feng Jiao received a BSc in Chemistry from Fudan University and a PhD degree in Chemistry from University of St Andrews. After receiving postdoctoral trainings at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Jiao joined the University of Delaware in 2010 and is now the Robert Grasselli Development Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Director of Center for Catalytic Science & Technology. Professor Jiao’s group focuses primarily on nanostructured materials, electrocatalysis, and carbon dioxide utilization.


Sohini Kar-Narayan, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Dr Sohini Kar-Narayan is a Reader in Device & Energy Materials at Cambridge University, leading a research group focused on functional nanomaterials and devices for energy, sensing and bio-medicine, and specialising in techniques ranging from scanning probe microscopy to additive manufacturing. She received her PhD (2009) in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science.


Susan Kelleher, Dublin City University, Ireland

Susan completed her degree in Medicinal Chemistry in Trinity College Dublin (2005), after which she carried out her PhD in Organic Chemistry (2009), as well as a short post-doc in biodegradable chewing gum, in University College Dublin (UCD). In 2010, she moved to the Technical University Berlin, where she worked on the nano- and micro- surface patterning of biomaterials and investigated the ability of these surfaces to influence cell behaviour. In 2012, Susan joined Dublin City University (DCU), where she worked for 2 years on the functionalisation of surfaces and nanoparticles for use in point-of-care devices, and in 2014, secured independent funding to begin her own research projects in the areas of bioresponsive materials, nanopatterning and biomimetic engineering. In October 2016, Susan was appointed Assistant Professor of Soft Materials in UCD School of Chemistry and set up the Nanostructured Biomaterials Group. In February 2021, the group moved to the School of Chemical Sciences in DCU.


LaShanda Korley, University of Delaware, United States

Prof. LaShanda T. J. Korley is a Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Materials Science & Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD). Previously, she held the Climo Associate Professorship of Macromolecular Science and Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, where she started her independent career in 2007. Prof. Korley is the Director of the recently awarded Energy Frontier Research Center – Center for Plastics Innovation (CPI) funded by the Department of Energy and also the Co-Director of the recently announced Materials Research Science and Center – UD Center for Hybrid, Active, and Responsive Materials (UD CHARM). She is also the Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE): Bio-inspired Materials and Systems and the co-director of the Center for Research in Soft matter & Polymers (CRiSP) at the University of Delaware.
 
She received a B.S. in both Chemistry & Engineering from Clark Atlanta University as well as a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999. Prof. Korley completed her doctoral studies at MIT in Chemical Engineering and the Program in Polymer Science and Technology in 2005, and she was the recipient of the Provost’s Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell University in 2005. She was named a DuPont Young Professor in 2011 and was selected for the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering symposium. She was a Kavli Fellow of Japanese/American Frontiers of Science Symposium from 2012-16. Recently, Prof. Korley was elected as Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and was awarded the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) Lloyd N. Ferguson Young Scientist Award for Excellence in Research. Her research focuses on bio-inspired polymeric materials, film and fiber manufacturing, plastics recycling and upcycling strategies, stimuli-responsive composites, peptide-polymer hybrids, fiber-reinforced hydrogels, and renewable materials derived from biomass.


Jon Major, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom

Dr Jon Major is an EPSRC research fellow at the Department of Physics and Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy at the University of Liverpool. He obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Durham in 2008 before joining the University of Liverpool in 2011. His research focuses on material science and device performance analysis of thin film solar cells and functional materials.


Abbie McLaughlin, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Abbie Mclaughlin is currently a Professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2002 and moved to the University of Aberdeen in 2003 where she was awarded a Royal Society of Edinburgh personal Fellowship. She followed this up with a Leverhulme Trust Early Career fellowship and secured a lectureship at the University of Aberdeen in 2009.
Her research interests include the synthesis and study of transition metal oxides and oxyarsenides with fascinating properties such as superconductivity, magnetoresistance, magnetism and ionic conductivity.


Peyman Moghadam, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Dr. Peyman Z. Moghadam (PZM) is an Assistant Professor in the Department Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Prior to joining Sheffield, PZM was the Head of the computational group at the Adsorption and Advanced Materials Lab at the University of Cambridge for three years. From 2013-2015, he did a postdoc at Northwestern University (USA) after completing his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. PZM group is leading the field of high-throughput simulations – including Monte Carlo, molecular dynamics and quantum mechanical calculations – and quantitative “big data'' methods for accelerated discovery of nanoporous materials. PZM has been leading the collaboration with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) to classify different types of crystalline materials, including the first publicly-available repository of all the MOFs synthesised to date.


Kasper Moth Poulson, Chalmers, Sweden

Professor Kasper Moth-Poulsen is a research leader in the field of nano-chemistry, energy storage materials and synthetic chemistry. His research activities focus on the development of methods to address single molecules and innovative technologies for solar thermal energy storage.
  KMP studied organic chemistry at the University of Copenhagen where he obtained the Cand. Scient. (2003) and Ph.D. (2007) degrees under the supervision of prof. Thomas Bjørnholm. After the Ph.D. degree, he worked as a postdoc. in the Bjørnholm lab. In 2009, he continued his career abroad as a postdoctoral associate at the College of Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley, where he worked with professors Rachel Segalman and Peter Vollhardt. In 2011 KMP was recruited to Chalmers University of Technology, as an assistant professor. In 2014 he was promoted to associate professor in 2017 to professor (bitr. prof.) and in 2019 full professor. Since 2020 KMP is the head of the division of applied chemistry at Chalmers.


Rosa Palacin, Barcelona, CSIC, Spain

Rosa studied chemistry and received her Ph.D. in materials science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.  In 1999 she became a permanent researcher at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona belonging to CSIC, the Spanish National Research Council and serves as deputy director since 2014. 
Her research career has been fully focused in rechargeable battery materials initially either nickel or lithium based and more recently covering alternative chemistries such as sodium-ion, magnesium and calcium.  Specific emphasis is set in tailoring structure and microstructure of electrode materials to maximise electrochemical performance for traditional technologies and in the development of new materials for emerging technologies. 
She has led diverse battery research projects with either public or industrial funding and is actively involved in the ALISTORE European virtual Research Institute devoted to battery research (co-director between 2010 and 2017).  She serves in the boards of the International Battery Association (IBA), IMLB and Batteries Europe ETIP, and is an associate editor for Chemistry of Materials since 2016.


Alexandra Porter, Imperial College London, United Kingdom

Prof. Alexandra Porter’s interest is in design, toxicology and advanced electron microscopy of bio and nanomaterials and mechanisms by which they interact with cells and tissues to improve their performance and safety. She held an ERC starting investigator grant on development of nanomaterials to cross the blood brain barrier and assessment of their degradation behaviour and neurotoxicology. Her PhD research generated underpinning mechanistic insight into how silicon increases the quality of bone around hydroxyapatite bone grafts in vivo.


Ram Seshadri, UC Santa Barbara, United States

Ram Seshadri has been on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara since 2002, where he holds the Fred and Linda R. Wudl Chair of Materials Science, and is Distinguished Professor in the Materials Department and in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Since 2017, he has directed the National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UC Santa Barbara. Seshadri obtained his BSc. (Hons.) in Chemistry from St. Stephens College (Delhi University) and a PhD in Solid State Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, where he carried out research under the supervision of Professor C. N. R. Rao FRS. Following postdoctoral research in Caen, France, and in Mainz in Germany, he started his independent career in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as a faculty member before moving to Santa Barbara. The research carried out in his group combines aspects of physics, chemistry, and materials science, within the broad theme of crystal chemistry, and crystal-structure–property relations in functional inorganic materials. Seshadri has over 350 publications associated with these topics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and serves as an Associate Editor of Chemistry of Materials, and Annual Reviews of Materials Research.


Metin Sitti, Max Planck, Germany

Metin Sitti is the director of Physical Intelligence Department at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany since 2014. He is also a professor at ETH Zurich and Koç University. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University (2002-2014) in USA. As selected awards, he received the Breakthrough of the Year Award in the Falling Walls World Science Summit 2020, ERC Advanced Grant in 2019, Rahmi Koç Science Medal in 2018, SPIE Nanoengineering Pioneer Award in 2011, and NSF CAREER Award in 2005.


Ilja Voets, Eindhoven Univeristy, Netherlands

Prof Voets heads the Laboratory of Self-organizing Soft Matter at the Department of Chemical Engineering & Chemistry and ICMS at Eindhoven University of Technology focused on self-assembly in man-made, biological, and biohybrid soft matter to gain fundamental insights for translation into rational design strategies to engineer novel functional soft materials.


Wolfgang Zeier, University of Münster, Germany

Wolfgang Zeier received his doctorate in Inorganic Chemistry in 2013 from the University of Mainz. After postdoctoral stays at the University of Southern California, the California Institute of Technology, and Northwestern University, he was appointed group leader at the University of Giessen, within the framework of an Emmy-Noether research group. Since 2020 he holds a professorship for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Münster. In addition, he heads a department at the Helmholtz-Institute Münster, Ionics in Energy Storage. His research interests encompass the fundamental structure-to-property relationships in solids, with a focus on thermoelectric and ion-conducting materials, as well as solid-solid interfacial chemistry for all-solid-state batteries.



Abstract Submission

Oral Abstracts

The oral abstract deadline has now passed. If you submitted an oral abstract, you should have received an email confirming the outcome. If you have not received this, please get in touch
 

Poster Abstracts

The poster abstract deadline has now passed. If you submitted an poster abstract, you should have received an email confirming the outcome. If you have not received this, please get in touch.
 
Registration

Registration is now closed

Registration includes:​
  • Attendance at the virtual sessions
  • Attendance at the poster sessions
  • Attendance at the networking sessions
Registration fees are as follows (subject to VAT at the prevailing rate):
 
Member £85
Non-member £115
Student member £35
Student non-member £55


* If you are an Royal Society of Chemistry member and wish to register for this meeting, please select the member option on the online registration page. You will need to enter your membership number.

**For non-member registrants, affiliate membership of the Royal Society of Chemistry until the end of 2021 is available, the affiliate membership application will be processed and commence once the registrant has attended the event. 

Attendance

The Royal Society of Chemistry is keen to encourage and enable as many people as possible to attend our events, to benefit from the networking opportunities and the chance to hear talks from leaders in the field. If you would like to discuss accessibility, or have childcare, caring responsibilities or other care needs, please contact us to discuss your requirements so that we can enable your attendance. Please refer also to our Grants for carers fund, for more information please see the ‘bursaries’ section on this page.

 

Terms and Conditions for Events run by the Royal Society of Chemistry

Bursaries

Researcher Development Grant

If you are an RSC member and a PhD student or postdoctoral researcher based at a higher education or research institution you are eligible to apply for a Researcher Development Grant.

This grant can provide up to £250 towards activities that will develop your skills and experience as a researcher, which includes registration fees for virtual conferences.

Applications are processed monthly, with the deadline for each round being the last day of the month, and decisions being sent out by the 21st of the following month. Researcher Development Grants can be applied for in addition to Grants for Carers and Assistance Grants.
 

Grants for Carers

Grants for carers have been introduced following the Royal Society of Chemistry Breaking the barriers report where 78% of chemists working in UK academia felt that managing parenting and/or caring responsibilities has an impact on women’s retention and progression. This fund is not limited to women scientists and welcomes applications from anyone with caring responsibilities. These grants have been supported by The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Chemists’ Community Fund.

You can apply for up to a maximum of £1000/year to assist with additional financial costs that you incur for care usually provided by you whilst you attend a chemistry related meeting, conference or workshop or a professional development event.

Caring responsibilities are wide and varied, and so each application will be individually assessed, examples of applications that we will consider include:
  • paying for extra home help or nursing care for a dependent whilst you will not be present
  • additional medical/respite care for a dependent whilst you will not be present
  • travel expenses for a relative to travel with you to care for dependents whilst you attend a meeting or event
  • paying for extended hours with a care worker/childminder/play scheme to cover time when you will arrive home later than normal.
You are eligible to apply if: 
  • you are a chemist
  • you will incur additional caring expenses whilst attending a chemistry-related meeting, conference, event or workshop or a professional development event
  • you will use these funds to cover the cost of care that you usually provide 
  • you are based in the UK or Ireland or if not, you will normally have held three years RSC membership (past or current).
Programme

Scientific programme

A PDF of the full scientific programme can be downloaded from the Downloads section at the top of the page.

Guidance on online networking

The Career and Professional Development team at the Royal Society of Chemistry have provided a webinar that gives an overview of the importance of networking for your career, and provides some top tips, alongside guidance on getting the best out of the online conference platform. We recommend watching this ahead of the event.

Facilitated networking

12 July at 12:00 (BST)
Complementing the webinar, there will be a facilitated networking session in the first break on Day 1. This will be an opportunity for you to socialise with other delegates and familiarise yourself with how the networking rooms work on InEvent. Please join this session, make new connections, and find out how to get the most out of the online platform.

Ask the plenary speakers

12 July at 13:55 (BST)
14 July at 14:15 (BST)

There will be two Ask the plenary speaker sessions in the afternoon breaks on Monday and Wednesday. In these informal sessions, our plenary speakers and members of the scientific committee will answer your questions and offer advice from their experience as established researchers. Topics will include (but are not limited to): achieving/maintaining a work/life balance; grant and paper writing tips; choosing and making the most of the right opportunities; starting and leading a research group; things they wish they’d known as an early career researcher; and moving to and working in a different research environment. Questions on these and other themes are welcome – come along to what should be an interesting discussion!

Panel discussion on “The role of materials chemistry in enabling sustainability”

12 July at 16:30 (BST)
Chair: Serena Corr, University of Sheffield
Panellists: Jenny Baker, Keri Goodwin, Elizabeth Rowsell and Tony Ryan
Panellists will be discussing what sustainability means to them. What are the greatest challenges where materials chemistry can make the most impact, and what one area would panel members focus research on to enable that impact?

The panel discusson is free to attend. Please sign up here: https://events.rsc.org/rsc/2281/register

Coffee session for researchers with caring responsibilities - Launching the Recharge Network

13 July at 10:30 (BST)
Become part of the Recharge Network - share a cuppa and build a network. An informal coffee session for materials chemists with caring responsibilities to come together, share experiences and support each other. 

Careers in chemistry

13 July at 13:40 (BST)
A presentation about career planning, what employers look for, tips to effectively manage your career, and ideas on what opportunities you might consider.

Poster sessions

13 July at 15:30 (BST)
14 July at 10:00 (BST)
14 July at 15:30 (BST)

 
Whether or not you are presenting a poster, we encourage you to attend these sessions as they are your opportunity to discover and discuss new work, network with your peers, create new connections and collaborations, and (if you are a presenter) answer questions from the poster judges. 

Transferable skills and how to market yourself effectively

14 July at 11:45 (BST)
Building on the Careers from Chemistry presentation, this session will provide an overview of ways to identify, develop and effectively sell your transferable skills.

Quiz and networking

14 July from 17:00 (BST)
Why not grab a drink of your choice, open a networking room with friends and colleagues old or new, and test yourself with our MC themed quiz. Questions will be available to download from the menu bar on the conference platform.

How to publish with impact

15 July at 12:30 (BST)
This presentation will give an overview of scientific publishing. As well as providing an introduction to the Royal Society of Chemistry we will cover: how to write your paper; submission checklist, peer-review, ethics and open access. There will be time for Q&A throughout the workshop.

Meet the RSC editors

15 July at 14:55 (BST)
Complementing the presentation on How to publish with impact, there will be the opportunity to meet some of our academic journal editors during this dedicated break. Come along and put your questions to our editors, or simply say hello!

Careers consultations

Slots will be available to book via the online platform.
MC15 delegates can also book a CV consultation with an RSC career and professional development adviser who will review your CV and provide one-to-one advice. 
If the slots are fully booked, please email careers@rsc.org including information that you are attending MC15 and the Careers Team will contact you directly to arrange an alternative slot. Please note these consultations are only available for RSC members.
Sponsorship & supporting organisations
A selection of sponsorship opportunities are available for companies who would like to promote their activities at the 15th International conference on materials chemistry (MC15).

As well as booking an exhibition space, there are opportunities to sponsor social events or advertise in the abstract book. A sponsorship menu document is available to download from this page with more details and prices.

If you would like more information about sponsoring the 15th International conference on materials chemistry (MC15), please contact the Commercial Sales Department at the Royal Society of Chemistry on solutions@rsc.org Sponsorship Menu
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