Morphological Design of Unconventional Polymer Nanostructures and Their Implications in Nanomedicine

Valentin is a Research Fellow at The Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland. He obtained his PhD from The University of Queensland, followed by a postdoctoral training at The University of New South Wales. He is working in the fields of nanotechnology, soft matter, self-assembly, and polymer chemistry. His research efforts focus on developing new strategies to synthesise and process polymer- and polymer-based composite materials with precisely controlled structures at the molecular, nano, and macroscopic length scales.

Covalent capture of polymer nanoparticles, vesicles and nanoparticle-stabilised oil droplets on hydrophilic polymer brushes

Dr Edwin Johnson completed his PhD in 2021 at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where he studied the synthesis and characterisation of stimulus-responsive polymer brushes, work that earned him the Australasian Colloid and Interface Society Best Thesis Award. He then joined the University of Sheffield, UK, as a research associate on an EPSRC Programme Grant with Professors Graham J. Leggett and Steven P. Armes, exploring the use of polymer brushes as interfacial scaffolds for pigment molecules, polymer nanoparticles, and photosynthetic proteins. Ed is now a lecturer/researcher at the University of Newcastle, with research performed in the group of Prof. Erica Wanless. His research focuses on polymer physics in complex environments, including hypersaline media. He has expertise in polymer brush synthesis and surface characterisation methods such as ellipsometry, XPS, atomic force microscopy, surface zeta potential analysis, and neutron reflectometry.

Making and un-making poly(trisulfides) with light: precise regulation of radical concentrations via pulsed LED irradiation 

Tom completed his PhD at the University of Tasmania in 2019 supervised by Prof. Alex Bissember focusing on the development of new photocatalysts and their application in synthetic methodology. He then moved to the University of Leeds to work with A/Prof. Charlotte Willans as a post-doctoral research fellow investigating the electrochemical synthesis of organometallic complexes and the development of catalytic methodologies using high throughput experimentation. Tom returned to Australia in 2022 to take up a position with Prof. Justin Chalker at Flinders University with a focus on developing electrochemical and photochemical methods to produce high sulfur content polymers and their applications in recovering gold from electronic waste. In 2024, Tom was awarded an ARC DECRA fellowship to begin his independent career. His research focuses on developing new catalysts that harness electricity and visible light to enable new synthetic methodology.

Synthesis of Degradable Vinyl Copolymers Based on Lipoic Acid via Ab Initio Emulsion Polymerization 

Dr Yasemin Fadil is an associate lecturer with the Cluster for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD) in the School of Chemical Engineering. Her research interest involves synthesis and development of sustainable polymeric materials, radical polymerization, emulsions and nanocomposites.