Lucy Carpenter, University of York, United Kingdom
Lucy Carpenter received her BSc (Hons) in Chemistry from the University of Bristol and studied for a PhD in the subject of radical chemistry of the lower atmosphere at the University of East Anglia (supervisor Prof. Stuart Penkett). After postdoctoral research at UEA with Prof. Peter Liss CBE FRS and Prof. Bill Sturges, and the University of Leeds with Prof. Mike Pilling and Prof. Dwayne Heard, she was appointed to a temporary lectureship at the Department of Chemistry, University of York in 2000 and was awarded a personal chair in 2009.
Lucy has remained at York since her first appointment and is now Deputy Head - Research of the Chemistry Department. Her research group mainly work on the atmospheric chemistry, emissions and impact of processes relevant to the marine "background" atmosphere. She has established the importance of reactive halogen-containing molecules to tropospheric chemistry, and studied their complex chemistry within and on the surface of the oceans.
Her group's research on the global biogeochemistry of halogens (iodine and bromine) has been incorporated into the conclusions of the World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme (WMO/UNEP) Scientific Assessments on Ozone Depletion, of which Lucy was a lead Chapter Author in 2014 and is currently for the next Assessment in 2018. Lucy is co-founder of the University of York atmospheric chemistry group, now the largest in the UK (Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories), and of the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVO), a WMO "Global" observing station. Her research has been recognised by the award of a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 'Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences' in 2006 and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award in 2015.
Graham Hutchings, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
Graham Hutchings is Regius Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Cardiff Catalysis Institute. He studied chemistry at University College London obtaining his PhD in biological chemistry in 1975. His early career was with ICI where he changed fields to work on heterogeneous catalysis and in 1981 he was seconded to AECI Ltd where he became interested in gold catalysis. In 1984 he moved to academia and has held chairs at the Universities of Witwatersrand, Liverpool and Cardiff. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2009, and he was awarded the ENI Award for Advanced Environmental Solutions in 2017 for his work on gold catalysis.
Anna Köhler, Universität Bayreuth, Germany
Anna Köhler is a full professor holding the chair for Soft Matter Optoelectronics at the University of Bayreuth. She studied physics and mathematics at the Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Germany, and University of Cambridge, UK. She received her PhD in 1996 from the University of Cambridge, UK, where she continued her research funded through Research Fellowships by Peterhouse and by the Royal Society. In 2003 she was appointed Professor at the University of Potsdam, Germany, from where she moved to the Department of Physics at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, in 2007.
Her research is concerned with the photophysics of organic semiconductors. These are macromolecules whose backbone are made up of alternating single and double carbon bonds, so that the p-orbitals overlap to form pi-orbitals which allow for semiconducting properties such as light absorption, light emission and charge transport. At the heart of her interest are questions regarding the formation of excited states in these compounds and how they dissociate to give rise to photocurrent used in solar cells, how they emit light through phosphorescence and fluorescence for applications in light-emitting diodes, and how the interactions between chromophores affect these processes.
Sam Stranks, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Sam Stranks is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He graduated from the University of Adelaide in 2007 with a BA (German and Applied Mathematics), BSc Hons (Physics and Physical Chemistry) and a University Medal. He completed his PhD as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University with Robin Nicholas, receiving the 2012 Institute of Physics Roy Thesis Prize for his work on carbon nanotubes for organic solar cell applications. From 2012-2014, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher in Henry Snaith's group at Oxford University where he was also a Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College. From 2014-2016, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working jointly with Vladimir Bulovic and Richard Friend (Cambridge).
Sam established his research group at the Cavendish Laboratory in 2017, which now consists of 12 PhD students and 8 post-doctoral researchers. His group focuses on the optical and electronic properties of emerging semiconductors including halide perovskites, carbon allotropes and other organic semiconductors. They are particularly interested in low-cost, transformative electronics applications including photovoltaics and lighting. The group uses time-resolved spectroscopy and microscopy to understand material and device photophysics on a range of length and time scales, and relates these characteristics directly to local chemical, structural and morphological properties.
Sam received the 2018 Henry Moseley Award and Medal from the Institute of Physics. He is a co-founder of Swift Solar, a startup developing lightweight perovskite PV panels, and in 2017 he was named by the MIT Technology Review as one of the 35 under 35 innovators in Europe.
