Charl was privileged to be invited to join the celebration of 100 years of materials science at Shanghai Jiaotong University‘s School of Materials Science and Engineering (SMSE), and contribute to their “Global Deans Forum on Materials Science”.

It was a pleasure to meet with the many colleagues from SJTU (including meeting President of SJTU, Prof Ding Kuiling (an organic chemist!), Vice-President Prof. Weidong Liu, who acted as host, Prof. Qing Dai, Dean of SMSE, Prof. Ke Chen (Vice Dean of SMSE), and many other colleagues from across the world.

Charl also hosted and opened the sub-forum on “International Partnerships”, discussing the opportunities across a world-wide network of top materials science institutions.

Many congratulations to Prof. Dai and colleagues!

Charl was very kindly invited by former group member, Dr Neha Yadav and the PDRA committee at the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham to give the opening plenary lecture of this ECR-led conference.

Quoting Charl: “It was a pleasure to engage with many PDRAs and PhD students on the day, and share the story of my career journey – and listening to some great talks as well! Thank you for the invite!” And, great to see Neha again!