Dr Karen Robertson wins CCDC Prize 2020
Congratulations to Dr Karen Robertson, from Nottingham University, for winning the CCDC Chemical Crystallography Prize for Younger Scientists 2020 (CCDC Prize).
Karen’s research is focused on developing ‘a range of crystallisers for specific materials self-assembly types such as cooling, pH, reactive and anti-solvent crystallisation. These crystallisers can either be directly used with online analytical techniques such as confocal Raman spectroscopy or the design adapted for techniques such as online X-Ray diffraction’. The materials focus on this research includes ‘encompassing pure phase polymorphic small molecule organics, co-crystals, coordination polymers, and MOFs’.
In 2018, Dr Karen Robertson become an Anne McLaren fellow in the Advanced Materials Research Group (AMRG), the research “primarily includes the development of milli-fluidic technologies with integrated inline analysis for the control and understanding of self-assembly systems. This includes whole-process control and understanding through synthesis and assembly of materials.”
In 2013 Karen joined the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing for Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation at the University of Bath, her research was focus on ‘crystal engineering techniques for agrochemical optimisation and the development of lab-based flow crystallisers’.
And the first step for an impressive career started in 2012 when Karen Robertson completed her PhD at Imperial College London ‘focusing on targeting interconnected metal-organic framework (MOF) architectures through multi-podal ligand design’. To learn more about Karen’s career and current work visit the University of Nottingham website here.
Dr Karen Robertson will present her Prize lecture on Wednesday 18th November during the Chemical Crystallography Group Autumn Meeting. This year it will be an online event due to the pandemic restrictions, to find out more about the program and to register click here.
The CCDC Prize was created by CCDC and the Chemical Crystallography Group (CCG) of the British Crystallographic Association (BCA) in 2000 with the aim to ‘inspire and recognise excellence in crystallographic research coming from early career scientists in the UK’. The CCG website provides full details of the CCDC Prize rules and for more information on how to nominate someone, see the CCG Website.