Background

Charlie attained a First Degree from the University of Sussex (2015) studying for an undergraduate Masters in Chemistry with an industrial placement year. His industry placement of 12 months was spent in the Netherlands working to formulate ecologically-friendly wash detergents for the institutional marketplace (eg. retail, healthcare, hospitality, catering etc.). Roles included wash and stability testing, finalisation and characterisation of product formulae and initial scale-up processing trails. Upon arriving back at Sussex for his final year, Charlie began a Masters project in Astrochemistry. His focus was on studying and quantifying the processes that occur when relatively complex organic molecules are exposed to thermal and ultra-violet energies in an ultra-high vacuum.

Upon completion of his degree Charlie spent a year out of study to focus on his own personal development (2016). Charlie then joined the Centre for Doctoral Training in Ultra Precision Engineering where he attained a Masters (2017) and progressed onto the first year of his PhD candidacy, where he is currently.

His PhD is a collaboration between the Nanomanufacturing group (IfM) and Bio-inspired Photonics group (Melville Lab) working towards the production and application of biocompatible photonic materials. A “project overview” can be found here:

https://www.cdt-up.eng.cam.ac.uk/course-information/PhD/project-pages/smart-cellulose-photonic-materials