Latest News

Andreas Bender taken by Nathan Pitt, ©University of Cambridge

Jul 15 2024

Professor Andreas Bender is a recipient of the 2024 Synergy Award by the Society of Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research.

15 July 2024

Many congratulations to Prof Judith Driscoll on being recognised by the Women’s Engineering Society in the “Top 50 Women in Engineering 2024” list.

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Soft, stretchable ‘jelly batteries’, courtesy the Schermann Group.

Jul 17 2024

Researchers from our department have developed soft, stretchable ‘jelly batteries’ that could be used for wearable devices or soft robotics, or even implanted in the brain to deliver drugs or treat conditions such as epilepsy.

09 July 2024

We'll be sharing information about postgraduate study at the Department of Materials Science on Thursday 7 November 2024 from 15:00 to 15:45 BST.  This session is part of the University of Cambridge Virtual Postgraduate Open Days 2024, which will be held in November.  If you can't join us on...

Microtubules highlighting the cell body (purple) with nucleus (yellow) and condensates (blue). Courtesy Andrew Seeber.

Jul 7 2024

Researchers at our department discover how proteins behave inside cells using AI, which has the potential to guide drug design.

Peter-Murray Rust and Gitanjali Yadav at the Garden of Five Senses.

Jul 17 2024

Dr Peter-Murray Rust and Dr Gitanjali Yadav spent two weeks touring northern India under a Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Fellowship to make climate science accessible to everyone.

03 July 2024

The Royal Microscopical Society Science Sectiona have announced the winners of their awards for 2025 and we are delighted to see that Professors Sohini Kar-Narayan and Emilie Ringe has both been selected as award-winners.

The RMS recognises outstanding achievements in microscopy, imaging...

Dr Rebecca Dell, with Prof. Ian Willis and Prof. Neil Arnold, from the Scott Polar Research Institute, have used machine learning to analyse hundreds of satellite images to map lakes and slush across 57 of Antarctica's largest ice shelves between 2013 and 2021. Their work is published in Nature Geoscience. Whereas previous work had only mapped lakes, they show that including slush doubles the ice shelf area covered by melt water in mid-summer. As the weight of water on ice shelves has the potential to fracture them, causing their collapse, the work has important implications for future sea level rise, as ice shelf loss causes Antarctica's massive glaciers to flow more rapidly from land to sea. The work is done together with Dr Alison Banwell, U. Colorado, Boulder, and PhD student Sophie de Roda Husman, Delft University of Technology.

Dr Martin Mays at a Downing alumni event in 2013, courtesy Downing College

Jun 27 2024

We are sad to share the news that our colleague Martin Mays died on Sunday 23 June 2024.

Jim Staunton in thoughtful mood at the Royal Society, all photos courtesy Alison HIll

Jun 26 2024

A symposium is being held in memory of Professor Jim Staunton on Friday 20 September 2024 here in the department. Register here to attend.

Deborah Longbottom, Simon Chapman and Stephanie Smith were all recognised, photo courtesy Chemistry photography

Jun 26 2024

Teachers from this department were recognised in three out of nine categories in the Student-Led Teaching Awards in June.

21 June 2024

We are delighted to be able to highlight the outstanding success of our academic colleagues in this year's Academic Career Pathways exercise, as published in the Reporter (12 June 2024). Many congratulations to the following on their promotions:

• Professor Rachel Evans (Professor,
...

Jun 19 2024

Unprecedented control over the inner workings of graphene.

13 June 2024

Chris Dobson, co-founder of one of the UK’s most successful semiconductor-fabrication-equipment companies, has been giving back to Cambridge for more than two decades. He was born in Wales shortly before the outbreak of World War 2 and, as a result, in his early years he remembers always  being...

13 June 2024

After a decade of innovative research, the Wolfson Electron Microscopy Suite (WEMS) continues to be at the forefront of materials science discovery through advanced electron microscopy, diffraction and microanalysis.

Thanks to the generosity of the Wolfson Foundation,...

Dr Pascal Mayer visiting the department in May, courtesy Chemistry Photography

Jun 20 2024

French scientist Dr Pascal Mayer shared in the 2022 Breakthrough Prize and the 2024 Canada Gairdner International Award with Professors Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman for the development of Next Generation DNA sequencing.

12 June 2024

Judith Driscoll, Professor of Materials Science at the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, has been named winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Interdisciplinary Prize 2024.  Professor Driscoll won the prize for interdisciplinary work to realise unprecedented properties in a...

Students in the teaching lab, courtesy Chemistry photography

Jun 12 2024

          We’ll be taking part in the Cambridge Open Days for potential undergraduates on 4 and 5 July.  

Professor Gonçalo Bernardes, courtesy Chemistry Photography

Jun 12 2024

Professor Gonçalo Bernardes has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry 2024 Corday-Morgan Mid-Career Prize for Chemistry.

Clockwise from top: Bill Nolan, Alex Forse, Robert Phipps and Chiara Giorio, courtesy Chemistry Photography

Jun 13 2024

We are delighted to announce that Robert Phipps, Chiara Giorio, Alex Forse and Bill Nolan have all received academic promotions, which were announced in the Cambridge University Reporter today.