Old Members’ Trust Graduate Conference and Academic Travel Fund Report – Alex Mapp (2021, Inorganic Chemistry for Future Manufacturing)

This summer I travelled to Fort Collins in Colorado to attend the 45^th International Conference on Coordination Chemistry. This is without doubt one of the biggest conferences in the chemistry world, with talks across multiple disciplines, from Biology and Medicine to Lanthanide chemistry as well as my own area, Organometallic Chemistry.

The week-long conference featured many keynote presentations from some of the biggest academics in coordination chemistry. One particular highlight was Josep Cornellà’s talk on his bismuth chemistry, where he has unlocked a whole host of new reactivity and catalysis at an earth abundant main group element. Another outstanding talk was by Makoto Fujita, who has designed a “crystal sponge” that uses host-guest chemistry to form supramolecular structures around small organic compounds, allowing their structure to be crystallographically determined which otherwise would not be possible. Paul Walton gave a really interesting talk on Gender Equity in academia, an incredibly important issue in the field of research where he highlighted some of the key pieces of evidence and some ideas on how gender equity can be achieved.

On the Monday, there was a Main-Group Coordination Chemistry for Bond Activation and Catalysis session, which helped me keep up to date with the latest research in my field. There have been many new breakthroughs in this field in the past year, many of which remain unpublished so it was hugely beneficial to learn about this. I was fortunate enough to present some of my own research in the evening poster session on what I have recently achieved in the isolation of a gold-cyaphide containing rotaxane. This led to really useful discussion with other academics, which gave me some inspiration and ideas going into the final year of my PhD.

After the conference, myself and a friend from my CDT programme who was also attending the conference went on a road-trip to Utah and back. We did a lot of driving and saw so much of Colorado, ticking off four national parks and stopping in some beautiful areas to hike.

I am incredibly grateful to University College and the Old Members’ Trust Fund for their financial assistance in making this trip possible. It was very interesting and hugely beneficial to learn about the current state of research in chemistry, which inspired new ideas going into the final year of PhD. It was also great socially to catch up with old friends and meet new people. Finally, it was a fantastic opportunity to travel and see new places that I otherwise would not be able to travel to.

Published: 25 November 2024

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