PhD Scrapbook

I'm currently working towards a PhD in computational materials science with the (perhaps rather ambitious!) aim of enabling the development of cost-effective technologies for solar power generation using atomic scale simulations to provide insights into the properties of materials. Bit of a mouth full. It's quite hard to make a PhD not sound that way really but I often feel that the people who do a better job of not trying to sound clever, are very clever. The first half of my PhD was carried out at the University of Bath as part of the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies and for the second half I've been based at Imperial College London. On top of that, I've been fortunate enough to do two research placements during my PhD, one at Duke University in North Carolina in the U.S. and one at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado, also in the U.S.

I feel like I have had some incredible experiences during the course of my PhD (both educational and recreational!), so I thought I should start keeping some kind of record of the details and thoughts about this very interesting time in my life... before the details begin to slip into the abyss at the back of my mind! So below is a collection of blogs, photos and general scraps from my time as a student... on a PhD mission to overcome efficiency bottlenecks in new solar cell materials... and also to generally run around and climb as many mountains as possible while I'm at it!

Disclaimer: This scrapbook is not necessarily representative of how the majority of time of time is spent whilst working towards a PhD! I think I've been particularly fortunate with the opportunities I have had, but even in my case I would say a considerably larger portion of my time is spent looking for bugs in codes I've written, grappling with concepts in scientific literature and getting lost looking for lectures in central London. Of course, these experiences are certainly valuable in themselves, just a little less interesting to read about for the most part.

• Misc. photos on Flickr
• Climbing in Bukhansan National Park, Oct. 2015
• Munich with Markus and Mitch, June 2016
• 3 months in North Carolina: collaborations, climbing and a little southern culture!, Sept-Dec 2016
• London bits & bobs, Jan 2017 - ...
• Stopping over in the land of renewable energy en route to the National Renewable Energy Lab, Sept. 2017

Blogs written for my doctoral training centre's website

• Fall MRS Meeting: Mentoring and Solar Cell Minerals in Boston
• Volunteering at The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2017
• European Materials Research Society Spring Meeting - Two years on!
• Science by the Sea: APS Meeting 2016 and Visiting Duke University
• IUMRS-ICAM 2015 - Culture, Climbing and Conferences
• European Materials Research Society 2015 Spring Meeting
• Research placement at the National Renewable Energy Lab: Solar cells, snow and sunshine in Colorado!