NZIC

On 23 July we held the NZIC Canterbury Branch Trivia Quiz with 12 teams taking part. It was a lively event,with some real head-scratcher questions that got the grey matter working hard. We all enjoyed pizza to keep us full whilst trying hard to remember some undergraduate chemistry!! Many congratulations to Jade Court Crew (Tristan Francis, Oscar Henderson-Walshe, Ethan Jones, Kathryn Thatcher and Justine Cottam) taking out the win by a small margin from Meet with Feet and Internship Please? with the latter team comprising some of our 300 level students. Well done to everyone who took part, including our Head of School who put up a good show knowing how Macgyver stopped a sulfuric acid leak with chocolate bars.....

PhD completions

Congratulations to Daniel Chong who gave an excellent defence of his PhD thesis on, “Radical reactions of unprotected sugars in water.” Daniel was supervised by Antony Fairbanks and examined by Professor Vito Ferro from the University of Queensland and Professor Ming Joo Koh from the National University of Singapore. Daniel gave an excellent short presentation about his work followed by an animated and engaging discussion of the chemistry that he has done.

Congratulations to Sydnee Koia on the successful defence of her PhD thesis on, “Development of anion-pillared MOFs towards critical gas separations”, work that was supervised by Paul Kruger. Well done to Sydnee on such a polished performance and wishing her all the best for a bright future! Thanks also to Professor Deanna D'Alessandro of Sydney University for conducting an absorbing oral exam and for producing a comprehensive, thoughtful examiner’s report.