Research Group

Edmund graduated with a BSc from the University of Liverpool spending a year at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University during which he worked on an undergraduate summer research project on the surface properties and modification of trititanate nanotubes under the supervision of Dr Graham Dawson. He gained further experience in solid-state chemistry during his MSc project at the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Dr James Cumby. The project focused on characterising wolframite structures through topology and using automation to discover further possible wolframite materials in the ISCD database. His PhD, commenced in 2020, looks at determining the structure of nitrocellulose and identifying structure-property relationships in double-base propellants. He is co-supervised by Prof. Colin Pulham.

Heather is from St Helens, England. She graduated with a BA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2021 then moved to the University of Edinburgh to study for an MSc in Materials Chemistry. Her Master’s project was in gas-phase computational modelling of energetic materials with Prof. Morrison. After completing this in 2022, she stayed to study for a PhD focussing on rationalising structure-property relationships of energetic materials.

Harvey, from Essex, joined the group as an an MChem student, undertaking his final year research project with Prof. Morrison after taking an interest in computational chemistry throughout his undergraduate degree. His project involved the use of computational methods to investigate small metal oxide clusters as potential ballistic modifiers for double base propellants. He is continuing this work as a PhD student, starting his project in 2023.

Zixuan grew up in Jilin, China and obtained her Postgraduate Taught (PGT) Master’s degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2020, during which time she worked on her Master's project with Prof. Carole Morrison and Dr. Lisette Warren regarding catalytic effects of lead-based ballistic modifiers for double base propellants. Her PhD project commenced in January 2021, predicting phase-changing material nucleating agents by machine learning approaches. Her project is co-supervised by Prof. Colin Pulham and sponsored by Sunamp Ltd, a company that designs and manufactures space-saving and energy-efficient thermal storage systems while reducing carbon emissions and optimising renewables. She lives with her two cats and one dog called Dobby.

Alice grew up in South Manchester and completed her MChem at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2024. She joined the group for a PhD the same year, jointly supervised by Prof. Jason Love and funded by Johnson Matthey. Her project is attempting to close the loop on the recycling of homogeneous catalysts with a focus on finding sustainable way to recover the ligands as well as the metals.

Born to an American father, an Austrian mother and raised in the south of France, Christopher obtained his MChem degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2024. Under the supervision of Prof. Jason Love, his MChem project studied the possibility of forming uranium complexes to reduce small molecules such as N₂. Following this, he joined the Morrison group as a PhD student, co-supervised by Prof. Love and funded by Johnson Matthey. His goal is to study the behaviour of iridium chlorides in HCl, to allow for more effective and sustainable recovery of one of Earth’s rarest metals.

Lisette joined the Morrison group for a PhD in 2018 following an MChem in Chemistry at the University of Sheffield. She obtained her PhD in 2022 and continued as a PostDoc with Professor Morrison and Professor Pulham. She left the group in 2023 to pursue teacher training in Manchester.

Andrew joined the group in 2019 for a PhD with Prof. Morrison and Prof. Jason Love. His research project, focusing on using computational and experimental techniques to develop and understand new solvent extraction processes for the recovery of rhodium, was completed in 2023.

Jack grew up in the Ribble Valley and obtained his MChem from the University of Edinburgh in 2020. His 5^th year project was focused on predicting the impact sensitivity of energetic materials from first principles under the supervision of Prof. Morrison. He continued this work as a PhD student starting in 2020 focusing on developing structure/property relationships to inform design of materials with tailored energetic properties. Jack finished his PhD in 2023 and joined the Dawson group at the University of Newcastle as a Postdoc.

Joseph graduated from with an MSci in Chemistry from Imperial College London in 2020. His PhD research project at the University of Edinburgh, which was completed in 2024, focused on the design and development of supramolecular methods for the selective solvent extraction of rare earth elements and nuclear waste and was also supervised by Prof. Jason Love. 

Mateusz, originally from North-East Poland, joined The University of Edinburgh in 2018 to study for an MChem. His Master's research project in the group worked towards rationalising ligand action in metal recovery using density functional theory and the modelling of intermolecular interactions. He graduated with an MChem in 2023 and joined the group of Dr Adam Michalchuk at the University of Birmingham for his PhD.

Imogen grew up in Southport in Merseyside and completed her MChem in at the University of Edinburgh, where she carried out a year in industry at Sunamp in East Lothian. She completed her Masters project under the supervision of Prof. Simon Parsons. Her research, focusing on the development of a fully computational screening programme for energetic materials, was completed in 2024. Imogen is now teaching science in the north of Scotland.