Yen Theng (Alicia) Cheng

PhD student

Alicia graduated from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), with a Bachelor of Medicinal Chemistry (Hons) in 2017. During her Honours year, she undertook a research project under the supervisor of Dr Robert Chapman, with a focus on enzyme  stabilisation in glycopolymer-based polyion complex micelles. In July 2018, Alicia returned to Sydney and joined the PNG group as a PhD candidate to develop functional polymer systems that can be used to structure electrode materials in lithium-ion batteries. Alicia's studies are supported by a postgraduate scholarship from the University of Sydney.

Dr Neelam Gogoi

Postdoctoral Researcher

Neelam is a postdoctoral research associate at the School of Life and Environmental Sciences (SOLES) and a research affiliate at the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry for her thesis entitled “Hybrid Functional Biopolymers as Advanced Nanocomposite for Catalytic, Drug Delivery and Sensing Applications” from the University of Gauhati, India in 2017. She worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for 11 months before joining the University of Sydney.

Karen Hakobyan

PhD student

Karen completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney in 2017 with Honours and a double major in chemistry and maths. After initially researching purely in synthetic organic chemistry, he added polymer chemistry to his research interests. Karen is currently working towards the synthesis of well-defined polymers using photoredox chemistry. Underlying this is a passion for reactions and reactivity.

Dr Markus Müllner

Group leader

Markus started the Polymer Nanostructures Group (@PolymerNano on Twitter) within the Key Centre for Polymers and Colloids after joining the  School  of  Chemistry  in 2015. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and an ARC Future Fellow (2021-2025).

Markus studied polymer and colloid chemistry at  the  University  of  Bayreuth,  Germany.  He had research  visits  to  the  University of Lund (Sweden) and The University of Melbourne (Australia), before receiving  his  PhD in  polymer  chemistry  (2012) under  the  supervision  of  Prof.  Axel  H.E.  Müller.  Subsequently, he joined  the University of Melbourne as a postdoctoral researcher, where he was awarded a McKenzie Postdoctoral  Fellowship, and worked within Prof. Frank Caruso's group. Markus serves on the Advisory boards for Polymer Chemistry, Macromolecular Rapid Communications and Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics . Since 2019, he is the Chair of the RACI NSW Polymer group.

Antoine Niederberger

PhD student

Antoine received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry (2014) and his Master of Science in Polymer Sciences (2017) at the Université du Maine, France. He has also spent 1 year at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada, as part of the CREPUQ exchange program. His Master thesis focused on polymer brushes using living radical polymerisation and was performed in the PNG. He has since rejoined the group as a PhD candidate working on molecular polymer brushes for biomedical applications.

Parathan Ramamurthi

PhD student

Parathan began his undergraduate degree in a Bachelor of Medical Science at University of Sydney in 2015, but transferred to a Bachelor of Science in 2016 to pursue a major in chemistry. He decided to continue ongoing investigations as part of his Honours project into the synthesis of polymer structures capable of penetrating cancer tissues for the purpose of drug delivery. Parathan is a PhD student researching the role of amphiphilicity in drug carrier design. He is supported by an RTP stipend.

Dr Max Worthington

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Max received his PhD from Flinders University in 2020 (with A/Prof. Justin Chalker). Max developed a new polymer from abundant renewable and waste materials and showed its capacity to remediate mercury from water, air and soil, and crude oil from the surface of seawater. The IP for this polymer has been purchased by Clean Earth Technology whom Max has worked with to develop and commercialise new techniques and devices for environmental remediation, controlled-release fertilisers, and green mining. Max is now working to realise nanoscale polymer discs via directing the self-assembly of molecular polymer brushes.

Xinyi (Sophia) Zhang

Masters student

Xinyi graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China with a Bachelor of Engineering in Applied Chemistry in 2018. During her senior year she studied the synthesis and properties of polyethylene glycol-b-polybenzyl threonine polymers under the supervision of Prof. Jianyuan Hao. Having an interest in organic and polymer chemistry, she joined the PNG as a Master of Philosophy student to work on new carborane-containing polymers. Her project is in collaboration with Prof. Lou Rendina's group.