Physical and Chemical Sciences research
UC's graduate research programme offers an exceptional opportunity to talented students who are preparing themselves for careers in Astronomy, Chemistry or Physics.
Graduate training at Canterbury is aimed toward developing within each student the ability to do creative scientific research. The most important facet of the programme for a research student is his or her own original research project.
The opportunities for research are favourable and a research environment is encouraged by all staff, most of whom dedicate a large portion of their time to research and are concerned to ensure that the standing of the School is recognised in the international scientific community.
Our teaching and research areas are diverse and we boast many international links, offering research students an extensive network and career opportunities.
- Sally Gaw- Aspects of environmental chemistry, including fate of contaminants in the environment and human exposure to contaminants.
- Brett Robinson- Biowaste research, trace elements in the environment, soil chemistry, environmental remediation, Rhizosphere research, Soil-plant interactions.
- Ian Shaw-Toxicology and environmental chemistry, including mechanisms of toxicity, particularly the impact of environmental contaminants on humans.
- Michael Albrow - stellar and galactic astrophysics.
- Karen Pollard - understanding the structure and evolution of stars and planetary systems, studying the pulsations of stars, variable and multiple star systems, discovering new planets and studying planetary systems.
- Michele Bannister-planetary astronomer. Understanding how planets formed, evolved and reached their present orbits.
- C. Clare Worley-Galactic Archaeology. Studies the formation and evolution history of the Milky Way.
Group Pages
- Antony Fairbanks- Organic synthesis, carbohydrate chemistry,
- Timothy Allison- Native mass spectrometry, membrane proteins, enzymes, structural biology
- Jodie Johnston-Understanding proteins from microbial pathogens, especially those involved in essential metabolic pathways or otherwise important for pathogenicity, bacterial survival and anti-microbial resistance.
- Rudi Marquez-Mazlin- Design and development of new compounds for human, animal and plant health.
- Steven Marsh- Improvements to radiation therapy, simulation of MRI, nuclear medicine and radiation dosimetry.
- Daniel Foley- Developing new synthetic methods and strategies for application in early-stage drug discovery efforts.
- Bryn Currie- Radiation Therapy.
- Simon Brown -Properties of nanometre scale particles (called 'atomic clusters') and in developing ways of building nano-electronic devices from these clusters.
- Roger Reeves - Semiconductor thin film growth and characterisation particularly transparent conducting oxides that have applications in new electronics.
- Mike Reid - electronic structure and transition intensities of visible and UV transitions within 4fN configurations and between the 4fN and 4fN-1 5d configurations of lanthanide (rare-earth) ions in various compounds.
- Jon Paul Wells -ring lasers, interferometry and applications, optoelectronic materials, and free electron laser spectroscopy.
- Daniel Sando - functional oxides including ferroelectrics, multiferroics, and (anti-)ferromagnets. These materials show great promise in next-generation low energy devices for computing and spintronics
- Laura Cobus - Waves in Complex Media. Using classical waves (e.g. sound and light) to study materials that can not be cut open. These materials range from the human body to food products and industrial materials
The field ofPhysicsencompasses the study of matter and energy, ranging from subatomic particles to the vast scale of the universe.
Cosmology investigates the large-scale properties of the universe, including its origin, evolution, and eventual fate.
Researchers at UC explore topics such as the expansion of the universe, dark matter, dark energy, and the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Astroparticle physics lies at the intersection of astronomy and particle physics.It involves using the universe as a laboratory to study high-energy phenomena.UC’s ProfessorJenni Adamsleads research in this area. Her group is part of the, which operates the IceCube neutrino observatory at the South Pole.
- - General relativity and gravitation; Cosmology; Black holes and Quantum gravity
- - Cosmology and astroparticle physics; High energy neutrino detection; Inflationary phase transition and related phenomena and Large scale structure formation in the Universe
- - Galactic Center; cosmic rays; dark matter; galaxy clusters; primordial power spectrum; cosmic microwave background; inflation and non-gaussianity.
Research Group Pages
- - processes relevant to the climate system, making fundamental atmospheric measurements and the evaluation of environmental models
- - chemistry-climate interactions, particularly involving stratospheric ozone, aerosols and airborne microplastics and working with Earth system models and global chemistry-climate models.
- -Policy-relevant climate modelling, cumulative emissions, weather and climate extremes, environmental public goods, global public goods.
Group Pages
- Owen Curnow- Ionic liquids based on amino-stabilised cyclopropenium cations: synthesis, properties and applications.
- Vladimir Golovko- Inorganic and materials chemistry for applications in catalysis and nanotechnology, including bio-nanotechnology.
- Konstantin Pavlov- a) developing novel deterministic X-ray phase contrast 2D, 3D and 4D imaging methods to study materials at micro- and nano-scale; b) high-resolution statistical diffraction as a characterisation method for materials of opto- and microelectronics
- Deborah Crittenden- Theoretical and computational chemistry.
- Sarah Masters -Gas-phase molecular structure.
- Greg Russell-Modelling of all aspects of free-radical polymerization kinetics; synthesis of novel emulsion polymers.
- Antony Fairbanks- Synthetic organic chemistry, carbohydrate chemistry, and applications of carbohydrates in biology and medicine (glycobiology). Research techniques primarily involve organic synthesis, together with biocatalysis and other aspects of chemical biology.
- Christopher Fitchett–synthesis of new and interesting organic molecules, particularly focusing on colossal aromatic molecules.
- Richard Hartshorn- Aspects of bio-inorganic chemistry, including the reactivity of chelated ligands, ligand construction on metal ions and the synthesis of metal ion-based hypoxic cell selective anti-cancer agents.
- Paul Kruger- Inorganic supramolecular chemistry. Interests are centred in supramolecular chemistry and involve the design, synthesis and characterization of metal complexes incorporating organic and coordination chemistries.
- Daniel Foley-Developing new synthetic methods and strategies for application in early-stage drug discovery efforts.
The School has links with the following projects and research groups:
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School of Physical and Chemical Sciences Research Groups.
Research Centres
Biomolecular Interaction Centre
The Biomolecular Interaction Centre (BIC) is a multi-disciplinary research centre dedicated to the study of molecular interactions critical to biological function.
Centre for Atmospheric Research
The Centre for Atmospheric Research aims to co-ordinate UC research and teaching concerned with atmospheric science and to pomote high-quality atmospheric research.
Hear from our researchers
History of Mt John
Chris Monson from Earth and Sky shares some stories about America's involvement at Mt John.
Planet hunters
A team of UC astronomers have eyes on the universe - 24/7 (weather permitting!)
McLellan Telescope
Alan Gilmore shows us the 1m telescope at Mt John University Observatory in Tekapo
Black holes making waves around the universe
Professor David Wiltshire presents a lecture on black holes making waves around the Universe.
A (nano) chip off the old block
At a certain point, computer components can't get any smaller. How does the computer then continue to become faster, lighter, and energy efficient?
Hunting the elusive neutrino in Antarctica
Ҷֱ Physics and Astronomy Associate Professor Jenni Adams talks about neutrinos, and describes the huge neutrino detector, IceCube.
CNC Mill
Graeme explains one of the newest and most useful tools they have in the workshop.
David Wiltshire
David's main area of research is on explaining dark energy and developing cosmological models that do not require its presence to drive an expanding universe.
Karen Pollard
Associate ProfessorKaren Pollard is involved in researching 'The music of the stars' by looking at modes of non radial pulsations within the stars.
Anthony Butler
Dr Anthony Butler works on the MARS project at the Ҷֱ, New Ҷֱ.
Rosanna's hooked on Chemistry
Rosanna talks about her Chemistry PhD.
Chris on life as a PhD student
Chris talks about his Chemistry thesis.
Controlled synthesis of titanium dioxide
Jan Yves PhD thesis on the controlled synthesis of titanium dioxide.
Prof Antony Fairbanks' Research: A new paradigm for organelle targeting
Professor Antony Fairbanks is working on a revolutionary drug-targeting system that could be used to treat a range of fatal, inherited diseases caused by genetic enzyme deficiencies.