Congratulations to Marcos who published his first-first author paper together with our former research student Michael Dardis. In Marcos’ paper we present two new time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) approaches that surpass others in accuracy and robustness and that can be used both for short- and long-range excitations, with the latter being particularly important for the application to new energy materials. The methods will soon be available for free in the upcoming ORCA 4.2 release and the paper got published in the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation; it can be accessed here.
We are pleased to have assisted collaborative work led by the Jones group that introduces a new motif for singlet-fission materials. Singlet fission is a process that has the potential to dramatically increase the efficiency of solar cells. The paper got published in Advanced Energy Materials and can be accessed here.
Congratulations to Nisha Mehta and Marcos Casanova-Páez who both won travel awards to attend DFT2019 in Alicante, Spain, in July. Nisha won a 2019 T.W. Healy Award and Marcos a 2019 Science Abroad Travelling Scholarship. The travel awards will allow them to meet with some of the biggest names in the field of Density Functional Theory, to learn about new developments in the area, and to present their own latest contributions.
Nisha Mehta has been awarded two prizes at the 2019 RSC Twitter Poster Conference.
The Royal Society of Chemistry awarded Nisha the best-poster prize in the Physical Chemistry category and the Royal Australian Institute of Chemistry awarded her the prize for the Australian audience favourite.
The 2019 RSC Twitter Poster Conference took place on 5 March 2019. In its fifth year, the #RSCPoster Conference was the largest to date, and drew the attention of more than 2 million people world wide. With over 500 registered poster delegates and over 3100 contributors, this conference is an efficient and unique way to engage both with other scientists and the general public with research.
A summary of Dr Lars Goerigk’s 2017 RACI PhysChem Division Lecture with a new analysis of popular DFT methods has been published as a short free-access account. We wrote it specifically for non-expert users and people new in the field. http://www.publish.csiro.au/CH/CH19023
Dr Lars Goerigk has been awarded a 2019 Le Fèvre Medal by the Australian Academy of Science for his contributions to the field of Density Functional Theory (DFT), a major computational-chemistry technique used routinely by chemists to support and predict experiments. Dr Goerigk’s work helped to provide more reliable computational strategies that have already been used for chemical research, the description of biomolecular structures, and the development of novel smart technologies.
The Le Fèvre medal recognises outstanding basic research in chemistry and as such it is one of the highest national awards in chemistry for scientists that are within their first ten years post PhD. The medal itself will be awarded at an event by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in late 2019. To see the citations for all 20 of the Academy of Science’s 2019 Honorific Awards, click here.
Dr Lars Goerigk was awarded the 2018 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research (ECR) for his recent contributions to the field of Density Functional Theory.
The Goerigk group celebrated the end of the year early to reward themselves for all their hard work and reflect upon their successes in 2018.
In particular congratulations are due to:
Domi and Dale, for finishing their Masters (we can’t wait to have you back next year for your PhD)
Asim, who published two first-author papers
Nisha and Marcos, for publishing their first paper of their PhD, which also was Nisha’s first first-author paper.
Marcos, whose first first-author paper will be submitted later today
Asim, Nisha and Marcos for meeting their confirmation requirements for their PhD.
Amy, for starting her Masters project and completing her Masters progress seminar
Julius for giving his completion seminar as part of our exchange program with Humboldt University
Zahra for making her first computational predictions before she will go back to the lab next year.
We also used the occasion for a last get-together with Julius and Nhan who will be leaving the group for their respective home institutions next year. All the best for your future projects!
While more exciting events will be coming up in December (Marcos, Asim and Dale will attend QUACCS), this is the last entry for this year, as the group leader will take some time off.
