All Department of Chemistry courses

A session on the preparing for your first year viva covering key topics regarding what to expect during your viva and how to prepare for it.

Cambridge Enterprise can help you turn your ideas into reality!

This introductory session is designed for academics, researchers and PhD students who are seeking guidance on how to transform their research into viable commercial ventures. During this session, you’ll learn about the commercialisation pathways available to you, including working as a consultant, forming a spin-out company and licensing research tools and intellectual property. Delve into the intricacies of protecting your intellectual property and gain valuable insights on disclosing your inventions to the University.

A session on the preparing for your MPhil and/or PhD viva covering key topics regarding what to expect during your viva and how to prepare for it.

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Pre-course

Participants may find it helpful to undertake an online implicit association assessment before the session which will provide insight into Unconscious Bias. This is not a prerequisite for attending.

Project Implicit – Project Implicit was founded in the United States as a multi-university research collaboration in 1998. It continues to conduct applied research concerning thoughts and feelings that occur outside of conscious awareness or control.

Individuals are able to undertake short assessments on the demonstration website in about ten minutes at no cost.

Aim

The aim of the session is to provide participants with an understanding of the nature of Unconscious Bias and how it impacts on individual and group attitudes, behaviours and decision-making processes.

Objectives

By the end of the seminar participants will be able to:

1. Explain the source and function of unconscious bias

2. Recognise how unconscious bias impacts on decision-making and relationships in the institution

3. Develop strategies and techniques for reducing personal unconscious bias, as well as the unconscious bias that manifests in teams and across the organisation

4. Develop a strategy for individual action

TBC

Many academic researchers define how they see themselves by their research. This workshop will help you to understand the value of what you have to offer to employers as a researcher and how to communicate it to them. Find out how to use your PhD programme or research career as a lens to view the skills you have developed and embed this information in your CV.

Use these insights to explore your career options and inform your job search, whether you want to stay in academia or not. This session will help you to introduce yourself in person, online and in applications so that you don’t undersell yourself or your skills.

Dr Robert Bowles MRSC

After completing a PhD in marine biotechnology, and a Knowledge Transfer Partnership post doc, Robert moved out of the lab, gaining five years’ experience in sales and marketing of educational software to schools. He joined the Royal Society of Chemistry eighteen years ago and has managed a programme of their successful education and careers projects.

As a qualified careers adviser, he now works in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Career Management team; offering careers and professional development advice to their membership and the wider chemistry community. This has allowed him to gain fantastic insights into the career paths that chemists follow.

As part of our Characterisation Facilities training, Electron Microscopy Staff will be running small-group lab tours throughout the year on a sign-up basis. These sessions will include a live demonstration of the equipment using pre-prepared samples, covering essential theory and basic sample preparation techniques. The tours are designed to give you a practical introduction to the facility and provides an opportunity to ask questions specific to your own research needs. Materials Science department offer a comprehensive UG lecture series, covering in-depth theory of EM. To access, please contact postgraduate.education@ch.cam.ac.uk.

As part of our Characterisation Facilities training, Electron Microscopy Staff will be running small-group lab tours throughout the year on a sign-up basis. These sessions will include a live demonstration of the equipment using pre-prepared samples, covering essential theory and basic sample preparation techniques. The tours are designed to give you a practical introduction to the facility and provides an opportunity to ask questions specific to your own research needs. Materials Science department offer a comprehensive UG lecture series, covering in-depth theory of EM. To access, please contact postgraduate.education@ch.cam.ac.uk.

This session is compulsory for all experimentalists to attend and will provide useful information regarding analytical facilities at this Department including NMR, Mass Spectrometry, X-ray Crystallography, Microanalysis and Electron Microscopy. Short descriptions will be given of all available instruments, whilst the procedures for preparing/submitting samples for analysis will also be discussed.

The session will cover the use of electronic laboratory notebook which is a computer programme designed to replace laboratory notebooks. ELN will help the users to document research, experiments and procedures performed in a laboratory.

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7507381413 Meeting ID: 750 738 1413

PhD students have plenty of options once you graduate. In this interactive session we will look at the pros and cons of different career options. You will have a chance to think about what you want your work to do for you and what you can offer employers, and you will learn ways to find out more about jobs in which you are interested. It is recommended that you attend both sessions.

• Session 1 - What jobs are out there and deciding what is ‘right’ for me?

Chemistry PhD students have many options after graduation. In this 1-hour session we will explore the pros and cons of different career choices. We will also consider how to assess which options would work for you.

• Session 2 - Career options for PhDs in chemistry

In this second 1-hour session we will focus on generating specific job ideas, how you might structure your careers ‘research’, key questions to ask and timelines for starting your ‘search’ for your next step after Cambridge.

This session is compulsory for all experimentalists to attend and will provide useful information regarding analytical facilities at this Department including NMR, Mass Spectrometry, X-ray Crystallography, Microanalysis and Electron Microscopy. Short descriptions will be given of all available instruments, as well as explain the procedures for preparing/submitting samples for the analysis will also be discussed.

Once you book on to this course, you will receive a link to preregister for this course on Zoom.

This training will consist of two sessions, introducing you to use of both Water's MS software and MassLynx and Bruker and Thermo's MS software: MALDI and Orbitrap.

Once you book on the course you will receive a link to preregister on Zoom.

This course will provide an idea of what kind of scientific problems can be solved by solid state NMR. It will cover how NMR can be used to study molecular structure, nanostructure and dynamics in the solid state, including heterogeneous solids, such as polymers, MOFs, energy-storage and biological materials This course will build on a basic working knowledge of solution-state NMR for 1H and 13C, i.e. undergraduate level NMR. In order to highlight the utility of this technique, some materials based research using solid state NMR will also be covered.

This session will be delivered via Zoom.

These lectures will introduce the basics of crystallography and diffraction, assuming no prior knowledge. The aim is to provide an overview that will inspire and serve as a basis for researchers to use the Department’s single-crystal and/or powder X-ray diffraction facilities or to appreciate more effectively results obtained through the Department’s crystallographic services. The final lecture will be devoted to searching and visualising crystallographic data using the Cambridge Structural Database system.

Three workshops on aspects of writing for which the students would be expected to submit two pieces of written work that would be assessed by the instructor. The aim of the workshops will be for the students to improve both their scientific writing skills as well as their general academic literacy skills.

The specific areas of writing to be covered are:

• Literature Review
• Results section

Session One

Introduction to Academic Writing at PG Level

The aim of this session would be to prepare the foundations, as it were, covering the expectations of writing at PG level and covering some strategies for achieving what is the University’s only criterion when it comes to writing, namely that it is ‘clearly written’, before looking at writing in Chemistry specifically, and closing by looking at the two areas which will be the focus of the next two sessions – Literature Reviews and Results Sections.

Why writing at PG level is so hard

• Understanding the Writing Process
• How English works: Achieving Clarity
• Rhetorical Templates
• Paragraphs
• Editing: from the Macro to the Micro
• Discipline-specific Considerations
• Literature Review & Results Section

Sessions Two & Three

• Literature Reviews
• Results Sections

For both of these sessions the students who be expected to have submitted work a week beforehand – this could be either individually or as a group. Each piece of work should be ca. 5 pages in length.

The two areas, Literature Reviews and Results Sections, will have been introduced in the introductory section. Students will also be able to access additional support materials when preparing their written work for submission before the workshop.

Each workshop would then essentially be based on the submissions of the group – looking and the strengths and weaknesses of a selection of them, encouraging discussion amongst the group as to what would need to be done in order to strengthen the submissions. This would also include a range of hands-on exercises that the students would do during the workshop, either individually or in a small group.

An opportunity ask questions to the course trainer re Fortran 90/95.

• Please email training@ch.cam.ac.uk to book one 15 minute slot. You will be asked to confirm your attendance one day before.

This hands-on course teaches the basics of Latex including syntax, lists, maths equations, basic chemical equations, tables, graphical figures and internal and external referencing. We also learn how to link documents to help manage large projects. The course manual is presented in the style of a thesis and since you also receive the source code you also receive a template for a thesis.

Once booked you will receive a link to both sessions via Zoom.

Communicating your research in an engaging and easily understood manner is important for any audience and all the more so for non-academic audiences. This workshop will take you through the art and science of engaging communication, and outline the opportunities and support within the University for public engagement.

The first half of this session will cover an overview of Raytracing versus 3D Modelling, an introduction to the free Raytracing programme Povray, running Povray (command line options). Making and manipulating simple shapes, camera tricks (depth of field, angle of view) and using other software to generate Povray input (e.g. Jmol)

The second half of the session is an introduction to 3D modelling and animation using the open source programme Blender. This will cover the installation and customisation of the Blender interface for use with chemical models, how to import chemical structures from Jmol and the protein data base (PDB), the basics of 3D modelling, and an introduction to Key-frame animation.

No previous experience with either 3D modelling or animation is required.

You will receive a Zoom link when you register for this course

Submission of the PhD thesis can seem to be a daunting experience, from constructing it to submitting and then being examined, with one of those examiners coming from an external institution. In this session, Marie Dixon (Degree Committee Office, School of Physical Sciences), Rachel MacDonald and Deborah Longbottom will talk through all aspects of procedure regarding thesis submission and answer any questions students wish to pose. Students who were recently examined, as well as members of academic staff who carry out PhD vivas will also be there to talk about the reality of the process from all perspectives

Submission of an MPhil thesis can seem to be a daunting experience, from constructing it to submitting and then being examined, with one of those examiners coming from an external institution. In this session, Marie Dixon (Degree Committee Office, School of Physical Sciences), Rachel MacDonald and Deborah Longbottom will talk through all aspects of procedure regarding thesis submission and answer any questions students wish to pose. Students who were recently examined, as well as members of academic staff who carry out MPhil vivas will also be there to talk about the reality of the process from all perspectives.

FS1 - Successful Completion of a Research Degree An hour devoted to a discussion of how to plan your time effectively on a day to day basis, how to produce a dissertation/thesis (from first year report to MPhil to PhD) and the essential requirements of an experimental section.

FS2 - Dignity@Study The University of Cambridge is committed to protecting the dignity of staff, students, visitors to the University, and all members of the University community in their work and their interactions with others. The University expects all members of the University community to treat each other with respect, courtesy and consideration at all times. All members of the University community have the right to expect professional behaviour from others, and a corresponding responsibility to behave professionally towards others. Nick will explore what this means for graduate students in this Department with an opportunity to ask questions more informally.

This is a compulsory session for 1st year postgraduates.

You will be introduced to Fortran 90/95 and provided with materials which cover the basics of Fortran 90/95 with an emphasis on applications in the physical sciences. The key concepts of loops, functions, subroutines, modules, and other standard Fortran syntax will be introduced sequentially.

• This course will be made available on Moodle from 2 to 30 November