Dr Yen Theng (Alicia) Cheng

Postdoctoral Research Associate

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 joined the PNG group as a PhD student to develop functional polymer systems that can be used to structure anode materials in lithium-ion batteries. Alicia's studies were supported by a postgraduate scholarship from the University of Sydney. She is now working as a postdoc in PNG.

Manoël Gbaguidi

Visiting Masters student

Manoël graduated with a Bachelor of Chemistry at Sorbonne University in Paris and finished his first year of Master's degree with majors in Material Chemistry and Polymer science. In April 2023, he joined the Polymer Nanostructures Group and began an internship focusing on Designing Polymers through Light and Catalysis.

Ashim Kadariya

Honours student

Ashim completed his Major in Chemistry and Physics within the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology program at USyd. He has joined the Polymer Nanostructures Group for his Honours year working on polymerisation-induced self-assembly for templating metal oxides anode materials.

Simran Kerai

PhD student

Simran graduated with a Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science Advanced (Honours) from Monash University in 2021. During her Honours year, she worked under the supervision of Dr Kristian Kempe at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science (MIPS). Her project focused on novel functionalised poly(2-oxazolines) based nanoparticles for drug delivery. In 2022, she decided to continue in the field of polymer chemistry and joined the PNG group as a PhD candidate to work on the self-assembly of molecular polymer brushes into polymer nanodiscs.

Keziah Langdon

Visiting Masters student

Keziah is currently in her 4th year of an integrated masters chemistry degree at the University of Southampton and on placement at the University of Sydney. In July 2023, she joined the Polymer Nanostructures Group and began her research project focussing on nanostructuring titanium niobium oxides for the use as lithium ion battery anode materials.

Karun Mishra

PhD candidate

Karun Mishra completed Bachelor of Technology (Chemical Engineering) degree in 2017 from North Maharashtra University, India and completed his undergraduate research thesis in DIAT in India while working under the guidance of Prof. Prashant Kulkarni on Ionic Liquids. He has 4.5+ years of industrial research experience, with an emphasis on polymer chemistry, and his most recent position was as Scale-Up Engineer at Daramic LLC. His Research within the PNG group focus on the development of molecular polymer brushes for the imitation of proteoglycan aggregates.

Associate Professor 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 an Associate Professor 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. Markus is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (FRACI), and was the Chair of the RACI NSW Polymer group from 2019-2022. Markus currently is the Associate Head of School (Research) in the School of Chemistry.

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.

Hoaxiang Zeng

PhD student

Haoxiang received his B.Sc. in Polymer Materials and Engineering from Taiyuan University of Technology in 2016 and M.Sc. in Industrial Chemistry from the National University of Singapore (with Prof. Li Jun) in 2018. He then worked at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research as a research assistant (with Prof. Tanja Weil) in 2019. In 2021, he started his PhD at the University of Sydney supervised by A/Prof. Muellner, studying stimuli-responsive polymer self-assemblies.

Chenyou Zhang

PhD candidate

Chenyou graduated with a combined Bachelor of Engineering (Biomedical) (Hons I) and Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) from the University of Sydney in 2021. During his Honours year, he worked under the supervision of Prof. Marcela Bilek in a collaboration with Dr. Markus Muellner, and focussed on producing an antibiofouling surface combining an ion assisted plasma polymerised coating and molecular polymer brushes. He then joined the PNG as a PhD candidate to develop molecular polymer brushes as part of advanced functional materials. Chenyou’s studies are supported by a postgraduate scholarship from the University of Sydney.

Xinyi Zhang

PhD 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.