Johnson Matthey Poster Competition 2026

News

Posted on Friday 1 May 2026

The annual poster competition for our Yr 3 PhD students has taken place, with kind sponsorship once again by Johnson Matthey. This year we were joined by Dr Paul O’Shaughnessy from JM who took time to view posters, chat with participants about their work, and give a talk on recycling platinum group metals.

The three poster winners (Amy Farmer, Jack Heaton, Madeleine Marnell), Dr Paul O’Shaughnessy (JM) and Professor Gideon Grogan (Chemistry)

Over thirty posters were displayed at the event, showcasing the wide-variety of PhD research work taking place across the Department from our six research themes. As part of the competition, a panel of judges assessed overall presentation, scientific content and discussion with the presenter, and were especially keen in asking participants to think about how to communicate their work to someone who was not necessarily an expert in their field.

All the posters were of an incredibly high standard, but the judges felt that three stood out in particular, and were awarded a cash prize courtesy of Johnson Matthey:

Madeleine Marnell (Alyssa Avestro, Keith McKenna, Richard Douthwaite groups) Beyond Distance: Enhancing Metal–Organic Framework Conductivity Using an Orbital Registry Approach

Amy Farmer (Neil Hunt group) Dynamic Protein Structures in Solution: Decoding the Amide I band with 2D-IR Spectral Libraries and Machine Learning

Jack Heaton (Andy Weller group) Opening the Shell on Solid-State Molecular Organometallic (SMOM) Chemistry: Catalysis with a Site-Isolated Iridium(II) Hydride in Crystallo

The day ended with a seminar from Paul O’Shaughnessy who presented an engaging and informative talk on The Science Challenges of PGM Metal Recycling.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all who made the event a success including participants and judges.