MacDiarmid Independent Postdoctoral Fellowships - Annual Report 2023

13 April, 2024

We're delighted to announce the recipients of the MacDiarmid Institute Independent Postdoctoral Fellowships. We welcome Dr Caitlin Casey-Stevens, Dr Amy Yewdall, and Dr Bicheng Zhu. Their independent projects will be in alignment with our Reconfigurable Systems and Hardware for Future Computing Research Programmes.

Amy Yewdall

Fascinated by protein self-assembly, Dr Amy Yewdall organises nano-scale proteins in space and time to better understand these systems within disease contexts, and to enhance protein function and innovate new technologies. The Independent Fellowship supports her research with Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury-based Associate Investigator Professor Renwick Dobson on combining enzymes networks into droplets to capture carbon into useful precursor molecules.

Caitlin Casey-Stevens

Dr Caitlin Casey-Stevens worked with Principal Investigator Associate Professor Anna Garden, using computational chemistry to understand the electrocatalytic reduction of nitrate on copper palladium nanoparticles. The Fellowship enables her to work with Principal Investigator Associate Professor Franck Natali at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, to investigate the formation of ammonia on rare earth species.

Bicheng (Amy) Zhu

Dr Bicheng (Amy) Zhu is a research fellow at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland's School of Chemical Sciences, having received her PhD under the supervision of Principal Investigator Professor Jadranka Travas-Sejdic. Before she joined the University as a research fellow in 2019, she worked in a New Zealand start-up company for 1.5 years. She received her Postgraduate Certificate in Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship funded by one of our Alumni Business Scholarships at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland in 2020. With the support of the Fellowship, Amy aims to develop metal-free, eco-friendly and cost-effective heterogeneous graphene-based catalysts for the electroreduction of CO₂.

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