Meet the Team
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​Tom Penfold 

Tom Penfold was appointed Lecturer in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at Newcastle University in September 2015. This followed a 2-year Research Scientist position within the SwissFEL project at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland. Tom's research focuses upon developing and exploiting methods for simulating and understanding excited state dynamics. Further Information can be found at Google Scholar or ResearchGate.
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Postdoctoral Researchers

​Julien Eng (2017-
Julien obtained his PhD in theoretical chemistry in 2015 at the Laboratoire de Chimie Quantique at the University of Strasbourg. He then spent a year as research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion studying spin dynamics of single molecule magnets. Since 2017, he has been a research assistant at Newcastle University in the Penfold group. His current interests are the photoexcited mechanism of thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters from both the quantum chemical and quantum dynamical perspectives.

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Yvelin Giret (2018-
Yvelin became a research associate in the Penfold group in 2018, after having obtained a PhD in theoretical Physics at the Rennes 1 University (France), a first joint postdoc between University College London (UK) and Osaka University (Japan), and a second postdoc at Xiamen University (China). His broad research interests lie on the theoretical description of charge transfers at different kind of interfaces and at different time and length scales. His researches are part of the NECEM project (North East Centre for Energy Materials).

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Conor Rankine (2019-
Conor was appointed as an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Research Fellow at Newcastle University in 2019. He joined the Penfold Group following his postgraduate studies in the Wann Group at the University of York (UK), and brings his experience of working at the interface of experiment and theory to his new appointment. Conor is leading the development and application of machine-learning methods for predicting X-ray spectra, and he is interested in the wider applications of artificial intelligence across the physical sciences and beyond. He continues his own independent research into ultrafast photochemistry using quantum chemical calculations and mixed quantum-classical molecular dynamics.  

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Postgraduate Students

​Stuart Thompson (2015-
Stuart studied for an MChem in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry between 2005-2009 at Newcastle University, then later studied for an MPhil in Computational Chemistry at the University of Sheffield between 2011-2013. Upon returning to Newcastle University, Stuart's  PhD research has involved the theoretical study of transition metal complexes and their excited state properties for potential use in OLED based devices.
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​Jamie Gibson (2015-
Jamie obtained his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Newcastle University and started his PhD in the Penfold group in 2015. His research is focused on Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescent (TADF) molecules for use in OLEDs. Specifically, on the mechanism of reverse intersystem crossing that is responsible for the triplet to singlet exciton transformation, and how its rate can be influenced. This includes substitutional, regio, conformational and coupling effects.

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​Josh Littlefair (2016-
Josh joined the Penfold Group in 2016 after graduating in BSc Physics with Astrophysics from Northumbria University. His main research areas are theoretical quantum chemistry and molecular mechanics (MM). Josh's quantum chemistry research focuses upon analysing the performance of Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods in capturing the physical properties of molecules relative to ab initio and experimental methods. His research concurrently focuses on the use of MM software to simulate ultrafast X-ray scattering profiles of solutions, on timescales comparable with X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) measurements.

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​Beth Laidlaw (2017-
Beth graduated with her MChem from Newcastle University in 2017 and is now studying for her PhD in the Penfold group. Her current research uses molecular dynamics and quantum mechanics and is in collaboration with CYNORA GmbH. The focus of this work is improving the efficiency of thermally activated delayed fluorescence for applications in OLEDs.

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​Yang Cao (2018-
Yang Cao joined the Penfold group as a PhD student in 2018 after obtaining his MSc in Drug Chemistry from Newcastle University in 2017. Yang's research is focused upon developing a proton transfer mechanism for achieving efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence.

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Emanuele Falbo (2018-
Emanuele received his BSc and MSc in chemistry at Università di Napoli Federico II in 2017, studying renewable catalysts by means of DFT methods. In January 2018 he joined the Newcastle University as PhD student. His current research focusses on new a generation of Redox Flow Batteries, based on Polyoxometalates (POMs). His present work uses Coupled Cluster (CC) methods in order to shed light on the interfacial electron transfers.  
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Marwah Madkahli (2018-
Marwah graduated with her MChem from Western Iliinois University in 2016. She joined the Penfold group as a PhD student in September 2018. Marwah is researching the theory of X ray absorption spectroscopy. This focuses on the applications of X-ray spectroscopy to battery materials.

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Past Group Members
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​Thomas Northey (2016-2019) Postdoctoral Researcher
Theo Keane (2018-2019) Postdoctoral Researcher
Joash Alonso (2017-2018) MChem Project Student
Joseph Duffield (2017-2018) MChem Project Student
Connor Shield (2017-2018) MChem Project Student
​Helen Duckworth (2015-2016) MChem Project Student
Beth Laidlaw (2016-2017) MChem Project Student
Jess Stacey (2016-2017) MChem Project Student