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.
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 now a PhD student researching the role of amphiphilicity in drug carrier design.
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.
Former group members:
Dr Emma
Brisson (Postdoctoral Researcher,
2018-20)
Dr Thomas
Gegenhuber (DFG Postdoctoral Fellow,
2018-20)
Gabrielle Shiels (Honours student,
2020)
Cheryl
Chan (Honours student,
2019/20)
Moritz Koehler (visiting PhD student,
2020)
Stefanie
Tjaberings (visiting PhD student,
2020)
Jasmine Todoroska (Denison Scholar, 2019/20)
David Cantwell (Honours student, 2019)
Dr Théophile Pelras (PhD Student #1, 2016-2019)
Marius
Schöttle (visiting Master student, 2019)
Parathan Ramamurthi (Honours student,
2018/19)
Amanda Gunawan (Honours student, 2018/19)
Carly Baker (Honours student, 2018/19)
Chenyou Zhang (Denison Scholar, 2018/19)
Lorena Zheng (Denison Scholar, 2018/19)
Dr Clare Mahon (Marie Curie Fellow,
2016-2018)
Cindy Tran (Honours student, 2018)
Jiaxin Wang (visiting undergraduate student, 2018)
Eamonn Burke (Honours student, 2017/18)
Peter Truran (visiting Master student, 2017/18)
Celia Chen (Denison Scholar, 2017/18, supervised by Dr Clare Mahon)
Alison Campbell (Denison Scholar, 2017/18)
Olivia McRae (Honours student, 2017)
Vivian Shang (Honours student, 2017)
Stone Woo (TSP student, 2017)
Antoine Niederberger (visiting Master student, 2017)
Saeel Momin (Graduate Diploma student, 2016/17)
Edie Griffith (TSP student, 2017, supervised by Dr Clare Mahon)
Eamonn Burke (Volunteer, 2017)
Lauren Minne (Summer Scholar, 2017)
Dominik Seeberger (visiting Master student, 2016)
Maria Morits (visiting PhD student, 2016)
Vivian Shang (Summer Scholar, 2016)
Eamonn Burke (Summer Scholar, 2016)
Saeel Momin (volunteer, 2015)
Leo Jiang (TSP student, 2015)