Charl was invited, as visiting professor, to spend a few days at the University of Rennes1 by former postdoc Dr Franck Camerel. Franck, who is in the MaCSE (Matière Condensée et Systèmes Electroactifs) group,
Several days of excellent and stimulating scientific discussions were closely accompanied by good food, and the pleasure of seeing old friends again! Thank you Franck!
It was great to be able to host (with fantastic support from the BCFN) 5 staff and 10 graduate students from the State Key Laboratory for Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry, Jilin University (Changchun, China)! The visit, to discuss new joint undergraduate programmes, and to further explore research interactions, was a fantastic success!
There was also a poster session, where Esther and Christian presented some of their latest results! More photos to follow!
Great to see old friends again (including Prof Kun Liu and Dayang Wang), but also to make many new friends and connections!
Charl joined an international panel of experts to help with the external evaluation of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at BIT (Beijing Institute of Technology). The evaluation ended with a series of scientific seminars by some panel members, including Prof. Donglin Jiang (now at NUS, Singapore), and Charl!
Here Donglin and Charl are in discussion after Donglin’s impressive talk!
Charl finally had the chance to visit an old friend, Prof Dan Wang, at the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Process Engineering. Prof Wang and his group focus on the production of functional hollow multi-shell particles for a wide range of energy applications – with some very impressive results!
After an exciting series of talks by PhD students from Prof Wang’s group, Charl gave a seminar and provided an overview of FRG research activities! Here he is being questioned by Prof Wang!
Charl visited the College of Chemistry, Jilin University, in Changchun, for a quick series of presentations and lectures last week! He had the privilege to speak to 300 freshman and a group of 2nd year students from the College of Chemistry about the School of Chemistry at Bristol, and future opportunities for exchange.
He also spoke to a large group of new PhD students (many from the very well-known State Key Laboratory for Supramolecular Structure and Materials) about planning your PhD project and writing scientific papers!
Charl gave a seminar at the Chinese Academy of Science’s National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) in Beijing very recently! Charl spent two months at the NCNST in 2012 as visiting professor, so great to visit again!
Even better was the fact that Charl was hosted by his former postdoc, and now very successful academic, Professor Zhixiang Wei. Charl found the following photo when Zhixiang, and fellow postdoc (and equally successful academic!) Tierui Zhang, were enjoying time out at a Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces weekend away 14 years ago!
Charl has just completed a short, but busy, trip: after visiting Shu-Hong’s labs, an additional visit to the Hefei University of Technology, the International Conference on Energy and Environmental Materials (all in Hefei), and then the International Seminar on Advanced Materials (in Shanghai)!
As the latter was held at Donghua University, Charl had the chance to catch up with former postdoc Yaozu (now professor at Donghua), who also attended the conference. Charl also managed to visit a small company in Anji, a smaller city close to Hangzhou – busy time indeed!
