Welcome to the School of Chemistry

Crystallographers at the University of Melbourne received a boost following the installation of a state-of-the-art small molecule X-ray diffraction (XRD) machine.

Congratulations to Boskovic Group PhD student Gemma Gransbury, who has just received an Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Postgraduate Travel Bursary.

Professor Sue Thomas, CEO of the Australian Research Council, and representatives from major chemical companies, industry groups and partner universities joined University of Melbourne staff for a breakfast hosted by the ARC Training Centre for the Chemical Industries at the Woodward Conference Centre on Thursday.

Professor Frances Separovic was the featured guest of the most recent Eavesdrop on Experts podcast. Speaking with presenter Dr Andi Horvath, she reflects on the road she has travelled, from school in Broken Hill to Deputy Director of the Bio21 Institute.

A recent article featuring Professor Richard O'Hair has been published in ChemComm (Chemical Communications).

Congratulations to Lenka O’Connor Šraj, Dr Inês Almeida, Chelsea Bassett, Associate Professor Ian McKelvie, and Professor Spas Kolev for the publication of a news story on the their research on the Elsevier Chemistry page.

Congratulations to Boskovic Group MSc student Aiden Atkin on the award of an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) Honours Scholarship for his project “Inelastic Neutron Scattering of Lanthanoid Complexes”.

The School of Chemistry and the Chemistry Institute at Humboldt University of Berlin are offering third year students the opportunity to complete the research component of the Chemical Research Project CHEM30013 in Germany over 8 weeks between December 2018 and February 2019 whilst experiencing the German culture and a Winter lifestyle.

Congratulations to Dr Tessa Young, a recent PhD graduate from Tony Wedd’s lab, who has been awarded a Durham International Junior Research Fellowship (Durham University, UK).

In a long running collaboration with Prof. David Goldberg (Johns Hopkins University), the Jameson group, including PhD candidate Josh Prendergast, have published a new study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This investigation is part of a joint NIH grant.

The first female chemistry professor in Victoria, Frances Separovic forged her career against the odds, and has just been named a ‘trailblazer’ on the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.

Former University of Melbourne student, Professor Christine McKenzie (University of Southern Denmark), inspired women early career researchers at the School of Chemistry’s Inaugural International Women’s Day networking lunch.

A recent article published by Dr Chris Ritchie and PhD student Hedi Karoui detailing the microwave-assisted synthesis, characterization and post-synthetic modification of a series of polyoxometalates has been featured on the front cover of RSC journal New Journal of Chemistry.

In one of the largest studies ever published on the topic, Dr Lars Goerigk and his group have developed guidelines for the Density Functional Theory (DFT) methodology, which enables chemists and physicists to study chemical systems computationally.

Professor Spas Kolev has been awarded the 2017 Environmental Chemistry Medal of the Analytical and Environmental Chemistry Division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) at a ceremony in Hobart.

Chemistry students were ranked among the best in their field at the annual Royal Australian Chemical Institute Victorian Inorganic Chemistry Symposium that was held on Friday 04 November.

Andrew Holmes from the University of Melbourne has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

What have sound waves got to do with dairy fat content? It turns out it’s all in the mixing.

Dr Ines Almeida, Professor Robert Cattrall and Professor Spas Kolev published an article entitled “Polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) in chemical analysis - A review” in leading Analytical Chemistry journal Analytica Chimica Acta, selected as the feature article of its 987th volume.

During the International Union of Pure & Applied Biophysics (IUPAB) Congress in Edinburgh on Tuesday 18 July, Professor Frances Separovic was elected to the Council.

Not all mercury is the same, and a new automated technique has slashed the time needed to determine the bio-accessibility of different forms of toxic mercury in the environment.

Stacey Rudd, a PhD student in Dr Paul Donnelly’s research group, has won the 2017 Don Stranks Award for her oral presentation, titled "A Desferrioxamine Squaramide for the Incorporation of Zirconium-89 into Antibodies".

The development of a new technology that captures potentially damaging anaesthetics could lead to recycling the cleanest, rarest and safest anaesthetic gases known to medicine.

Wednesday 2 August, 4:15pm in the Masson Theatre.

University of Melbourne Professor Spas Kolev was awarded the 2017 Max O’Connor prize for Chemistry from the La Trobe Institute for  Molecular Sciences at their symposium celebrating 50 Years of Chemistry at La Trobe University.