NH Schuster Award to Vinojini Nair

Congratulations to Vinojini Nair, PhD student with Prof John Wade and Prof Frances Separovic, who was awarded a 2013 Norma Hilda Schuster award.

Chemistry in Top 25 QS World Ranking

The 2013 QS World University Ranking for Chemistry <http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2013/chemistry> lists the best universities in the world to study chemistry. University of Melbourne comes in highest in Australia and at 23 in the world.

W Evans Visiting Fellowship to Mark Rizzacasa

Professor Mark Rizzacasa has been awarded the William Evans Visiting Fellowship from the University of Otago. Mark will take up the fellowship in Sep - Oct this year.

Learning & Teaching Initiatives: Round 2 grant outcome

Congratulations to Stephen Best, Colette Boskovic and Michelle Gee, who were successful in obtaining funding in the latest Learning & Teaching Initiative grant round  for their project: 'ChemBytes Back – LabDots: Empowering students in the Lab.' This will see the creation and on-demand delivery of skills-based video materials to support self-paced progress through the undergraduate laboratories.

Journal Cover for Caruso Group

Postdoctoral fellows Andreas Ide and Jon Choi from the Caruso group have had their research images featured on the cover of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Their article describes the preparation of webs of fibrous titanium zirconium oxide using an electrospinning technique; the fibres were studied for the adsorption of heavy metal ions in water.

Geoff Scollary - Assoc Ed, Aust Journal Grape Wine Research

Geoff Scollary (Honorary Principal Fellow) has been appointed as an Associate Editor with the Australian Journal of Grape & Wine Research, which is the highest impact factor journal in the wine science field. Geoff’s appointment is to provide expertise in grape and wine chemistry, areas which are expanding with increasing submissions to the Journal. Geoff left the School in 1997 to take up the dual roles of foundation professor of oenology and foundation director of the National Wine & Grape Industry Centre at Charles Sturt University. He returned to the School in honorary capacity in 2008 following his retirement from CSU. If you haven’t done so already, check out Geoff’s monthly wine column in Chemistry in Australia.

Industry Transformation Research Hub: two awarded

Prof. M. Ashokkumar is a chief investigator on two ITRH (Industry Transformation Research Hub) grants totaling more than $10M awarded to the University of Melbourne. The ARC introduced this new research grant scheme late last year in order to encourage collaborative R&D projects to address challenging industry issues. Dairy Innovation Hub: transformational research to underpin the future of the Australian dairy manufacturing industry is with industry partner, Dairy Innovation Australia Ltd; and Unlocking the food value chain: Australian food industry transformation for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) markets, is with Kraft Foods.

Kaye Merlin Brutton Bequest grant to Brett Paterson

Congratulations to Brett Paterson who was awarded funding from the Kaye Merlin Brutton Bequest for 'Metal complexes as molecular imaging agents of cancer'.

TW Healy Travel Award to PhD students

The T.W. Healy Travel Award 2013 (round 1) has been jointly awarded to PhD students: Quinn Besford from the Gray-Weale group, and Lu Cao from the Caruso group. Quinn will attend the 11th International Conference on Biology & Synchrotron Radiation in Germany, Sep 2013; and Lu will go to the 7th International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies in Singapore, Jul 2013.

School of Chemistry Student Prizes for 2012

The School of Chemistry congratulates the following students who have been awarded prizes based on 2012 results.

Dwights Prize: James Clift

Exhibition Prize: Cheung Tung Shing, Karen Steffi

CA Taylor Prize: Joses Grady Nathanael

Huntsman Australia Prize: Matthew Megans

JS Anderson Prize: Tomer Simovich

Fred Walker Scholarship: Stacey Rudd

James Cuming Memorial Scholarship Major: Sarah Mann

James Cuming Memorial Scholarship Minor: Cameron Ritchie

Agilent Award for Excellence: Stacey Rudd

Kernot Research Scholarship: Michael Leeming

The Stanley Harvey Prize: Michael Leeming

Dixon Research Scholarship: Maoyuan Liu

Ronald Riseborough Prize: Edward Nagul

Monica Elizabeth Reum Memorial Prize: Nicole J. Rijs

Advance Global Australian Award to Russell Howard

Science alumnus, Russell Howard, was awarded an Advance Global Australian Award and was the overall winner for his global impact on the biotechnology field and green chemistry. The 2013 Advance Global Australian Awards Forum and Ceremony was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney on 21 March 2013. Russell, Founder and CEO of Oakbio Inc., has selected Chemistry student, Peter Hall, to be his mentee as part of the Advance Mentoring Program.  

Journal Cover for Boskovic Group

Congratulations to Susanna Mandic, Merinda Healey, Jan Gotthardt, Kerwyn Alley, Robert Gable, Chris Ritchie and Colette Boskovic for their artwork featured on the cover of a special issue of the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry dedicated to Polyoxometalates.  The article communicates studies of an unusual polyoxometalate-based coordination polymer.

Science National Scholarships for Chemistry MSc students

Congratulations to Tessa Evans and Stacey Rudd each of whom has been awarded a Science National Scholarship in recognition of outstanding results. Both are undertaking MSc (Chemistry): Tessa with the Lamb group and Stacey with the Donnelly group.

Nature Scientific Reports Article

Congratulations to Michelle Gee and Matthew Burton of the Soft Matter & Cell Biophysics group for their paper published on 27 March in Nature Scientific Reports on imaging the action of antimicrobial peptides on living bacteria. The work shows the mechanism by which antimicrobial peptides disrupt the cell membrane of bacteria leading to cell death. 

Chemistry 'Ideas that could change your life’

The Age Melbourne Magazine (March issue) and online on 22 March - David Jones and the VICOSC team’s work to produce thin, flexible solar cells featured in the news last week – see http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/ideas-that-could-change-your-life-20130312-2fxo6.html under 'by 2013'. The Bio21 Institute was also included in The Age Melbourne Magazine's profile of institutes within the Parkville Precinct along with ‘Top Toys’, the OMX Blaze and 800 NMR.

2013 Hartung Youth Lecture series

Professor Paul Mulvaney and Dr Tich-Lam Nguyen presented the RACI 2013 Hartung Youth Lectures. The lectures were attended by ~ 350 students in years 9-12 and held at La Trobe University in Albury-Wodonga, Bendigo and Bundoora campuses.

Michael Leeming awarded 2013 E & V Puzey scholarship

The School of Chemistry congratulates PhD student Michael Leeming from the O'Hair research group on being the Faculty of Science recipient of the prestigious Elizabeth and Vernon Puzey Scholarship for 2013. The scholarship aims to 'retain the services of well qualified citizens of Australia from leaving Australia' and is in honour of the late Elizabeth and Vernon Puzey of Toorak.

Grimwade Prize in Industrial Chemistry

The Faculty of Science 2012 Grimwade Prize in Industrial Chemistry has been awarded to Professor Spas Kolev for his research on "The development of novel polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) and their application in chemical analysis, industrial separation and the manufacturing of monolayers of metallic nanoparticles". Congratulations Spas! 

Chemistry textbook co-written by Uta Wille now in Chinese

The market leading first year textbook "Chemistry", which was co-authored by Assoc Prof Uta Wille (Publisher Wiley Australia), has been translated into Chinese. The book is published through Wiley Asia and is 711 pages long (ISBN is 978-7-81099-988-5). It is certainly not as glossy and colourful as the English version, but it is nice to see that Australian-made teaching material is going onto the international market.

ASI Postdoctoral Fellowship to Vik Dryza

Congratulations to Dr Viktoras Dryza, who has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Australian Solar Institute. His research project, entitled 'Guiding the rational design of organic dye sensitisers for solar cell technologies', aims to isolate organic dye molecules in the gas phase and investigate their spectroscopy and photophysics using advanced laser-based techniques.