Our third year CSCT student Jessica Bristow undertook a six week internship at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Here’s what she had to say about her experience:
Developing computational methods to resolve structural and materials properties of MOFs (Metal-Organic Frameworks) is not an easy task! The primary focus of my PhD is to develop a transferable forcefield to model MOFs. A forcefield is a cheap and powerful method to accurately resolve mechanical materials properties if they are parameterised correctly.
Professor Julian Gale at Curtin University (Perth, Australia) is the developer of a forcefield program that I use called GULP (General Utility Lattice Program) and an expert in many computational methods. As a named international supervisor of my PhD project the opportunity arose for me to gain experience and knowledge in his research group. This was an incredible opportunity that could not be refused!
The work conducted at Curtin focused on improving work already done at Bath. Most importantly, was to transfer our current forcefield into GULP and increase the transferability of our approach for the analysis of the properties of MOFs. Thanks to the support of Professor Gale and the kindness of all the staff in the department the entire 6 weeks at Curtin were not only productive but also amazing fun!
The outcomes of the 6 weeks at Curtin are numerous and work conducted there has initiated many projects now I am back at Bath. Whilst in Australia I also travelled both around Perth and in New Zealand and taking a well-deserved holiday! Locations travelled include the outback to see limestone formations in Perth, Rottnest island; an island with 65 beaches just off the coast of Perth and the entire of the north island of New Zealand. I miss everything about the other side of the world including all of the people I have met on my travels – I can only promise that I will be back!
Jess is in cohort '12 of the CSCT and is currently working on her PhD project with Prof Aron Walsh (Chemistry) and Dr Valeska Ting (Chemical Engineering).
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