
Educational and Research Background
I am a PhD student (2021-present), focusing on understanding the oxidation of dimethyl sulfide, the largest natural source of sulfur, through mechanism development, uncertainty quantification, and mechanism reduction. This work is conducted with the Archibald and Giorio groups at the University of Cambridge and is funded by the Cambridge Australia Poynton International Scholarship.
For my Master of Science (Research), from 2020 to 2021, I studied the photochemical reactions of acetone with the Kable Group at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). I was funded through the Research Training Program scholarship and used Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to detect acetone photolysis products. The project also involved using resonance enhanced photoionisation and photofragment excitation, which was later published [Jacob et al., Chem. Phys., 2022, 156, 094303].
My embedded Honours year in 2019 introduced me to atmospheric chemistry and taught me how to run lasers through complex laboratory experiments. With the Kable group at UNSW, I studied the photochemical pathways of methacrolein and found that a new pathway, atmospheric photo-thermal oxidation, was possible and competitive in the atmosphere. I undertook most of the research at UNSW with velocity map imaging and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and spent two weeks at the University of Lille, France, using the fluorescence assay by gas expansion apparatus of the Fittschen Group. Thanks to the physics and chemistry training I obtained from my Bachelor of Advanced Science at UNSW (2016-2018), I found my interest in the cross-section between those two subjects, physical chemistry, and pursued two undergraduate projects. I worked as a research assistant in the Beves Group at UNSW, where I studied photoswitching donor-acceptor Stenhouse adducts (DASAs), part of which was published [Mallo et al., ChemPhotoChem, 2020, 4 (6), 407-412.]. Finally, as part of the UNSW Science Vacation Research Scholarship, I studied ketene formation from a photochemical pathway of acetone with the Kable Group.
Publications
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