What we can offer you:

Support in preparing your Fellowship applications – You will have a senior academic mentor in Chemistry as well as support in preparing your fellowship applications from the University’s dedicated Research and Enterprise Development Team, including advice on all technical aspects and costings and support in preparing for interviews.

The best in research infrastructure and career development – You and your growing research group will have access to the School’s outstanding laboratories, equipped with >£35M of cutting edge instrumentation. You’ll join a highly collegiate and interdisciplinary academic environment and be able to engage with the University’s Staff Development Team, who support all elements of career development from teaching and research, to leadership and industry engagement.

A track record of success – The School of Chemistry has an excellent track record in hosting Independent Research Fellows and in supporting promising early career researchers as they embark on their independent research careers. The School currently hosts 13 independent research fellows and you can read profiles on some of them and their career development below. 

Equality of Research Support - We pride ourselves on ensuring equal and inclusive research support to all our researchers in the SoC through all stages of academic progression, with a positive working environment, including flexible and part-time work. Home working is supported by line managers. We actively support staff through periods of parental leave by adjusting workloads and providing cover for those staff wishing to take advantage of paternity or maternity leave.

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Examples:

Dr Mélanie Roffet-Salque (Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow)

Dr Mélanie Roffet-Salque holds a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship in the School of Chemistry, which supports her research into the untapped potential of lipids extracted from archaeological pottery vessels to serve as a novel proxy for palaeoprecipitation and explores the link between climate change and human response in the past. Mélanie is based in the Organic Geochemistry Unit at the School of Chemistry and has collaborations with a number of Faculties and Schools within the University, as well as with archaeologists, zooarchaeologists, geneticists and modellers at institutions throughout Europe. Since 2018, Mélanie has received two Enhancement Awards from the Royal Society, a NERC New Investigator grant and is currently collaborating on five interdisciplinary ERC grants. Mélanie acts as an academic link for the postgraduate community and runs an MChem-level course on molecular and isotope approaches to investigating the past. In 2022 Melanie was appointed to a proleptic lectureship in the School of Chemistry.

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Dr Alastair Lennox (Royal Society University Research Fellow)

Dr Alastair Lennox was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2017. His research falls under the Synthesis and Catalysis Research Theme at the School of Chemistry, as it focusses on the development of novel synthetic organic methodologies. His group has a strong focus on sustainability and mechanism, and in particular, explores the use of electrochemistry as a tool for performing selective redox transformations in synthesis. The synthesis of fluorinated molecules and building blocks is a dominant application of his methods. Ali was awarded an EPSRC New Investigator Award in 2019 and a Starting Grant from the European Research Council in 2020. In addition to this support, his group works with several industrial partners, including GSK and Syngenta. Ali was appointed to a proleptic lectureship in 2020. Ali is ‘Careers Lead’ for the School of Chemistry, he is an active member of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion committee, and convenes the Synthesis and Catalysis Research Theme seminar series. Ali is also involved in undergraduate teaching for 2nd and 3rd year organic and inorganic chemistry.

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Dr Beatrice Collins (Royal Society University Research Fellow)

Dr Beatrice Collins was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2018. Her research is focused on the design and development of autonomously operating molecular motors. Her group uses modern synthetic methodologies (e.g. transition metal catalysis, photoredox catalysis, enzymatic biocatalysis) as a means of tackling the challenges posed by the development of out-of-equilibrium functional molecular systems. Since the award of her fellowship, Beatrice received further Enhancement Awards from the Royal Society, a Research Project Grant from The Leverhulme Trust for a project developed in collaboration with Professor Jonathan Clayden, and an EPSRC New Horizons Award which supports her research into the transport of molecular cargo. Beatrice sits on the School’s Research Committee as the Early Career Representative, has been involved in mentorship programmes at the University, both as a mentor and as a mentee, and is involved in undergraduate teaching for 2^nd and 3^rd year organic chemistry. Beatrice is also a supervisor on the EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Technology Enhanced Chemical Synthesis. Beatrice has recently returned from a period of maternity leave.

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Dr Bryan Bzdek (NERC Independent Research Fellow)

Dr Bryan Bzdek is a NERC Independent Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry. Bryan began his independent career at Bristol in 2017 having undertaken undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the US at Bucknell University and the University of Delaware, respectively. Bryan’s research spans the fields of analytical and physical chemistry and encompasses applications in environmental and aerosol science. In 2020, Bryan was awarded a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council, which supports his research group’s investigations into the surface properties of microscopic aerosols and their climate effects. Bryan is associated with the EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Aerosol Science, which is hosted in the School of Chemistry and includes seven UK institutions and more than 50 industrial partners. Bryan’s teaching responsibilities include a final year undergraduate course on aerosol chemistry as well as postgraduate units on nucleation and aerosol measurement. He is also the director of the Bristol Aerosols and Colloids Instrument Centre, a shared-use instrument resource within the School. Bryan’s research on COVID-19 has been highlighted in the media, and he has given interviews to explain aerosol-based disease transmission to BBC, US public radio shows, CBS News, and other major outlets. Bryan was appointed to a proleptic senior lectureship in 2021.

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Professor M. Carmen Galan (Lecturer) 

Professor M. Carmen Galan joined the University of Bristol in 2006 as a lecturer in the School of Chemistry following doctoral and postdoctoral studies in the USA (The University of Georgia, The Scripps Research Institute, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology). In 2008, Carmen was awarded a Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship from the Royal Society to support her independent research career and from 2012 to 2017 she held a five-year EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship. In 2015 she was awarded an ERC Consolidator Award and was promoted to Reader. Since 2017 she has held the position of Professor in the School of Chemistry. She is also the Editor-In-Chief of the journal Carbohydrate Research. The Galan group uses synthetic organic chemistry as a tool to probe and manipulate the structure and function of biologically relevant molecules to study biological problems and potentially discover treatments for diseases. The group’s work is highly interdisciplinary, and they collaborate with colleagues throughout the University and across the globe. In  2017, she was awarded the RSC Carbohydrate Chemistry Dextra prize for her contributions to carbohydrate chemistry. Carmen is involved in teaching organic chemistry at all undergraduate levels and is director of the MSci in Chemistry with Study Abroad.