Spring has certainly arrived in Bristol! Great to have an opportunity to go for a walk on Bristol’s famous “Downs” early this morning! What a privilege to live in such a beautiful place!
Stay safe!
Beautiful spring lockdown morning!
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Lockdown update
It has been a while since we closed our labs down, and all of us went into lockdown! We are grateful that everyone in the group (and their families) are safe and well.
Zoom (and bluejeans and skype and WeChat!) has become our lifeblood for group meetings, coffee catch-ups, recipe exchanges, small-group meetings, writing papers, working together, exchanging very lame jokes and much more!
Royal Fort Gardens – Taken on the morning after the lab was shut down!
Keep well, and stay safe!
Final year project presentations!
We enjoyed an exciting day of science earlier this week when all of our Final Year MSci Undergraduate students presented the results from their efforts of the past 5 months!
It was a great opportunity to learn about their research, but also to celebrate their success – EJ was one of the prize winners! Well done to all – fantastic job!
And, in true Faul Research Group style, we ended the day of science with a group meal!!
Luke’s paper appeared online!
A paper on switchable azobenzene-based liquid crystals by Luke, who visited in July 2019, and supervised by collaborator Rico Tabor (and co-supervised by Charl!), just appeared online in the RSC’s PCCP.
The study, entitled “Structural relationships for the design of responsive azobenzene-based lyotropic liquid crystals” explored light-responsive binary (azobenzene + solvent) lyotropic liquid crystals (LCs), and investigated their phase behaviour by structural modification of simple azobenzene molecules. A range of scattering and microscopy techniques were employed to explore the influence of structure and light-switchable nature on phase behaviour in these very interesting systems. Well done to Luke and all collaborators!
Postdoc fellowship scheme – Newton International Fellowships
The Newton International Fellowship scheme is now open for applications. These fellowships are for non-UK scientists who are at an early stage of their research career and wish to conduct research in the UK.
If you are interested to apply for such a fellowship with the support of Professor Faul, please contact him and attach a relevant one-page research outline and two letters of support before Monday, 17th of February. Please note that the University of Bristol has an internal deadline of at least one week before the close of the applications (i.e., by Thursday, 19th of March).
Please see the detailed guidance notes from the Royal Society here.
Excellent start to 2020!
The Faul Research Group has had an excellent start to 2020 – Neha joined the group as a long-term visitor from VISCTEC, Thailand (from the group of Prof Valerio D’Elia), and Charl (after a great break in South Africa) is visiting IIT Kharagpur again as part of his Indian-government funded SPARC programme.
As part of the SPARC project, project partners Professors Patra and Mishra are the convenors and organisers of the “Functional Smart & Supramolecular Materials 2020” workshop, which will take place later this week (29 & 30 January) in Kharagpur. This is bound to be an outstanding event, looking at the list of speakers!
Christmas parties!
As the end of the year is approaching rapidly, it is a good time to slow down and enjoy all the benefits of a traditional Christmas season in the UK – mince pies, Secret Santa presents, mulled drinks and much more! Wishing all a wonderful Christmas!
