People

Principal Investigator – Dr Christian Nielsen

Christian received his PhD from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in 2004. He has since held academic and industrial research positions in the US and the UK.  He joined Queen Mary University of London in 2016 as a Materials Research Institute Fellow. He is currently Reader in Organic Materials in the Department of Chemistry within the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences.

Profile on Google Scholar

4th Year PhD Student – William Neal

William was born in Torquay, Devon. His formative years overlapped between Potters Bar in Hertfordshire and Paignton in Devon. In 2016, William graduated from Plymouth University with a BSc (Hons) Degree in Chemistry. William joined the Nielsen Research group in 2018, whilst undertaking a MSc in Chemical Research at QMUL. After completing his Masters, he decided to undertake a co-supervised PhD with the Nielsen and Palma Research groups. Currently, William is focusing on synthesising functionalised semiconducting polymers for flexible point of care devices.

3rd Year PhD Student – Simiao Yu

Simiao was born in Dalian, China. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in 2015. In 2018, she graduated from Nanjing Tech University with a master degree in materials engineering working on non-fullerene acceptors for organic solar cells. Now she is working on synthesising materials for bioelectronic applications.

2nd Year PhD Student – Dilara Güntürkün

Dilara was born in Istanbul, Türkiye. She received her BSc degree both in Chemistry and Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, and her MSc in Chemistry from Istanbul Technical University. During her MSc studies, she mainly focused on the synthesis and characterization of thiophene-based conjugated materials. In 2022, she joined the Nielsen Research Group as a PhD student. Currently, she is working on new conjugated polymers and polymerisation processes for organic bioelectronic applications.

2nd Year PhD Student – Rebecca Peake

1st Year PhD Student – Victoria Williams

Victoria is from the UK. She received her integrated Master’s degree (MChem) at the University of Bath. During this time, she spent a year abroad in Canada at Dalhousie University undertaking research in the synthesis of fully-conjugated fluorescent materials for bioimaging applications. Her previous work also involves investigation into chirality transfer from chiral substituents to large, extended pi-systems. Victoria joined Queen Mary in 2023 on a co-supervised project working in both the Nielsen and Livingston lab, with research focussing on the synthesis of sequence-defined pi-conjugated materials for organic electronics.

Past Group Members

Veronica Flores (MRes 2022-2023)
Roman Halaksa (PhD 03/2020-07/2023; Postdoc 04/2023-09/2023)
Raymundo Marcial Hernandez (Postdoc 08/2021-08/2023)
Mohammod Uddin (BSc 2022-2023)
Zeeshan Abid (PhD visiting IRSIP fellow 06/2022-12/2022)
Christina Kousseff (PhD 10/2017-11/2021; Postdoc 09/2021-12/2022)
Sofia Giacalone (MSc 2021-2022)
Catherine Cox (UG internship 2022)
Rikin Shah (BSc 2021-2022)
Efrem Tesfay (BSc 2021-2022)
Asad Moalin (BSc 2021-2022)
Thénina Oulouna (MSc internship 2021)
Matthew Rayner (RSC Undergraduate Research Bursary 2021)
Peter Finn (PhD 10/2017-03/2021; Postdoc 03/2021-07/2021)
Birannavi Thiyagarajah (MSci 2020-2021)
Simran Sohal (BSc 2020-2021)
Zachary Parr (PhD 10/2016-07/2020; Postdoc 08/2020-12/2020)
Wenxi Huang (MSc 2019-2020)
Philisha Reid-Kanon (MSci 2019-2020)
Muhammad Marouf (MSci 2019-2020)
Hannah Wood (BSc 2019-2020)
Josh Kiddey (BSc 2019-2020)
Lorena Alonso Marañón (Postdoc 09/2018-10/2019)
Jorge Borges González (Postdoc 01/2018-08/2019)
Frini Taifakou (MRes (Distinction) 2018-2019)
Yasser Zaffar (MSci 2018-2019)
Meng Wang (Postdoc 09/2017-11/2018)
Hussain Thoha (MSci 2017-2018)
Asha Hersi (MSci 2017-2018)
Benjamin Poggi (MSc internship 2017)
Ellasia Tan (MSci 2016-2017)
Folusho Balogun (MSci 2016-2017)