Members

Group Leader

Dr Felix Plasser

Felix completed his PhD in 2012 in Vienna with Prof. Hans Lischka. Subsequently, he spent two years in Heidelberg with Prof. Andreas Dreuw. He returned to Vienna in 2015 for his second postdoc with Prof. Leticia González. In 2018 he was appointed as Lecturer in Physical and Computational Chemistry at Loughborough University. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2023.

When not at work he enjoys running, hiking, and paddle boarding.

Staff pageORCIDWoSGoogle Scholar

Postdocs

Dr Patrick Kimber

Patrick joined the group as a PhD student in October 2019, studying how novel computational approaches can aid our understanding of molecular excited states beyond the frontier molecular orbital picture. Following the completion of his PhD in November 2022, he accepted a postdoctoral position in the group to work on the modelling of energetic materials.

Outside computational chemistry, Patrick enjoys playing tennis and darts, and supports Liverpool FC.

ORCID

PhD students

Dong Xing

Dong obtained his BSc from the University of Reading, where he studied a novel Rhenium quinone complex with Prof. Frantisek Hartl in 2021. In 2022, he finished his MSc project, a computational study on a flavin-based enzymatic uracil monooxygenation, under the supervision of Prof. Sam Hay in Manchester. In April 2023 he joined the group as a PhD student.

Outside chemistry, he enjoys cooking, raising dogs and watching animation.

Project Students

James Turner

James’ project is related to EPSRC grant EP/V048686/1. He is using computations to determine the plausibility of a double electron transfer from a photosensitizer to a series of macrocycles. These complexes will be used as photo-redox catalysts for the splitting of water and hydrogen production, if suitable.

Project: Computational optimisation of photo-redox catalyst based on globally aromatic macrocycles.

Hugh Powell

Project: In-silico design of luminescent molecules.

Previous Members

Josiah Riley MChem
Project: Computational Analysis of Pd-catalysed reactions.

Luke Russell MChem
Project: Computational Optimisation of Antenna Triplet State Energy for lanthanide probes.

Issie Watt MChem
Project: Detailed insight into excited-state electronic wavefunctions.

Tianhui Yu MSc
Project: Computational Investigation of Aromaticity in Macrocycles.

Dylan Morgan MChem
Project: Visualisation of aromaticity in macrocycles.
View his computer code on github

Hamid Matari MSc
Project: Computational modelling of the synthesis of the antibiotic basidalin.

Xinyi Wang MSc
Project: Modelling of anion binding to Europium complexes.

Kathryn M. Stell MChem
Project: Computational investigation of the electronic structure of aggregation induced emitters.

Lewis E. Freeman MChem
Project: Photodynamics simulations of nucleobase analogues.

Rhys Francis MSc
Joint Masters’ supervision with Dr. Stephen Butler

Previous Mentees

Dr Maximillian F. S. J. Menger
Supervisors: Prof. B. Mennucci (Pisa), Prof. L. González (Vienna)

Dr Stefanie A. Mewes
Supervisor: Prof. A. Dreuw (Heidelberg)