Staff Newsletter - summer 2019
Staff＠Cam
Catch up on who's coming - and going - in the department; meet the young researcher with a record deal; read about how we marked Mental Health Week here; and find out what our first-year PhD students were celebrating in the Cybercafé at the end of June. These are just some of the stories in this summer's Staff＠Chem - the newsletter for, and about, Department of Chemistry staff.
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Rain does NOT stop play...
Okay, so we didn't have the glorious sunshine of last year. But that didn't stop the department summer party from going ahead anyway.
Hello and Goodbye
Catch up on recent staff changes here, including new arrivals, promotions, and staff leaving and retiring.
Having fun in the sun
Our first-year PhD students met for a celebration in June after handing in their first-year reports.
Highlighting Mental Health
The Chemistry WellChem team thanks everyone who supported, contributed to and engaged with the Mental Health Awareness Week in May.
Vijay's long journey
Family poverty almost prevented Vijay Rana from getting an education. Now a postdoc here, thanks to bursaries that changed his life, he has been helping high-school students learn at a workshop in the Melville Lab.
Volunteering at Graduate Open Day
The organisers of the Graduate Open Day on 18th October would love to find some volunteers to assist with the Lab Tours - always a popular part of the event.
Jessy's business success
Congratulations to postdoc Jessy Iegre on being picked as a semi-finalist in the Cambridge Enterprise Postdoc Business Competition. Her project, Pept2Smart, is a start-up founded by her and colleagues in the Spring group.
Get Mike to the church
When Mike Todd-Jones got married in June, his congratulations card from the department was an unusual 'bootleg' edition of Chem＠Cam...
The student with a record deal
By day, Sanha Lee studies for a PhD in theoretical chemistry. By night, he mixes dance music professionally. His latest track, Take Me Higher, was released on the Strange Fruits label on Friday 2nd August.
Hunter Group scoops gold second year running
Many congratulations to the Hunter Group for picking up a Gold award in the University's Green Impact scheme for a second year running. This scheme recognises the efforts of staff and students who work to make the University more sustainable.
The Cricketing Chemists
The department has been fielding a cricket team this summer in a season almost as exciting as the Cricket World Cup. Read their season report here.
Helping pharmaceutical scientists
A new book by our colleague Dr Andrew Bond aims to help pharmaceutical scientists working on drug development understand an area of key importance to their work: solid-state structure and crystallography. The book, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, is titled Pharmaceutical Crystallography: A Guide to Structure and Analysis
Managing Research Data
Congratulations to our librarian Clair Castle who has just had her first peer-reviewed paper published in Libri (the International Journal of Libraries and Information Studies). It discusses the way universities and academic libraries help with the - increasingly complex - issue of research data management.
Talking about pensions
An informative talk about the University's Assistants’ Contributory Pension Scheme here in early July generated positive feedback from the staff who attended. Read more here.
The temperature's rising...
The University's Botanic Garden wasn't the only place in Cambridge to record the highest ever UK temperature on 25th July. The weather station on the roof of this department also recorded a peak temperature of 38.7 degree C, plus unusually high levels of ozone.