Prof Ifor Samuel

Ifor studied for both his MA and PhD in Physics at Cambridge where he developed his fascination with conjugated polymers. After finishing his PhD he moved to Paris and worked with France Telecom for two years, investigating the non linear optical properties of organic materials. Then he returned to Cambridge for a year, received a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and took up a position at the University of Durham until  August 2000 when he moved to St Andrews. In 2001 he started the Organic Semiconductor Centre to encourage collaboration between physicists and chemists in developing the next generation of organic semiconductors and the wider field of organic electronics.

Dr Arvydas Ruseckas

Arvydas graduated in Physics from Vilnius University in Lithuania in 1985 and received his PhD in chemical dynamics and physics jointly from the Lund University (Sweden) and the Institute of Physics (Vilnius) in 1999. He joined the team at the University of St Andrews in February 2001. His current research involves studies of photophysics and light amplification in conducting polymers, molecular solids and model organic molecules using ultrashort light pulses and ultrafast spectroscopy.

Dr Ross Gillanders

Ross was awarded a BSc(Hons) in Instrumentation with Applied Physics from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2001, and completed his PhD in Physical Chemistry with a thesis titled “Optically-Addressed Thin Film Sensors” in 2004 at Strathclyde University, Glasgow. His first postdoctoral position was at the ICMCB at the University of Bordeaux developing spectroscopic instrumentation for supercritical fluid processes, before moving to the Optical Sensors Laboratory in Dublin City University in late 2005 to work on an optical oxygen sensor for marine and estuarine applications. He subsequently worked in University College Cork developing novel polymeric optical oxygen sensors for food packaging. Prior to taking the role at St Andrews in October 2013, Ross worked for three years at Cork Institute of Technology, mainly developing instrumentation for industry-led water-related projects.

Dr Saydulla Persheyev

 Saydulla was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In 1995 completed his PhD working on the joint research project between Ioffe Institute (St Petersburg, Russia) and Tashkent State University (Uzbekistan). In 1997 he joined “Amorphous materials group” at Dundee University working on various projects linked to PECVD deposition and excimer laser processing of amorphous hydrogenated silicon for various applications such as solar cells, bio-sensors, detectors, THz emission etc. From 2005 to 2009 worked for the spin out company based in Dundee “Quantum Filament Technologies” working on the development of thin film Field Emission Displays based on excimer laser crystallised amorphous silicon films. In 2014 he joined the School of Physics and Astronomy, St Andrews University. His current research interests are non-invasive medical devices for treatment and diagnostics, development of novel organic light emitting diode (OLED) based light sources for photodynamic therapy (PDT) to treat parasite based and fungal infection skin diseases, biophotonics and biosensors.

Dr Jonathon Harwell

Jonathon is from Sussex, England and graduated with an MPhys in Physics from University St Andrews in 2014. In 2012 he worked with Dr Bansal and Dr Giardini on the fabrication of an optoelectronic muscle contraction sensor, with a view to use as an input device for prosthetic limbs. For his masters project he performed an investigation into the effects of strong coupling on organic light emitters in metal microcavities, with a focus on the effect on the energy of the light emitting singlet states. He started a PhD with Prof Ifor Samuel’s group in September 2014, and is working on the fabrication of solar cells using perovskites – a promising new class of material – and on Monte Carlo simulations for modelling exciton diffusion in crystalline materials.

Mengjie Wei

 Mengjie is from Anhui, China and graduated from Shanghai University in March 2016 with an MSc in Microelectronics. During the two and a half years, she worked on a national project about the multi-wavelength amplified spontaneous emission from different kinds of micro-structures. In September 2016, Mengjie was offered a place as PhD student under the supervision of Prof Ifor Samuel and was sponsored by China Scholarship Council. Currently her research focuses on organic semiconductor polariton light emitters, especially on the strong coupling and polariton lasing phenomena of organic materials in microcavities.

Iain Campbell

 Iain holds an Mphys degree from the University of St Andrews, he interned with the group throughout his degree, working with Dr Gillanders and Professor Turnbull on explosives sensing. He has now joined the group and is working towards his PhD; His research is focused on sensing applications of organic semiconductors, particularly explosives and biomedical sensing.

Dr Caroline Murawski

 Caroline studied physics at the University of Technology in Dresden, Germany. She received a diploma degree in 2010 for her work on white organic light-emitting diodes with high colour quality under supervision of Prof. Karl Leo. Staying for a PhD in Dresden, she investigated emitter orientation and examined exciton annihilation processes which cause efficiency roll-off. Caroline joined the groups of Prof. Ifor Samuel and Prof. Malte Gather as a Research Fellow in May 2015. Her research included exciton diffusion length analyses in small-molecule organic semiconductors and the application of OLEDs in biophotonics. She left the group in November 2018 and became the junior research group leader at Kurt-Schwabe-Institut Meinsberg. She works on new applications of organic semiconductor devices, especially OLEDs, for biophotonics.

Dr Francisco Tenopala Carmona

Francisco was born in Mexico City, Mexico. There he graduated with a BSc in Physics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, in which he developed a final research project on Random Lasers. After that, he obtained the MSc degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the same university. In his masters project he worked in deposition and self-assembling techniques of gold thin films. He joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group in September 2014 as a PhD student. He worked on single molecule spectroscopy of conjugated polymers at the OSC, under the co-supervision of Prof Ifor Samuel and Dr Carlos Penedo-Esteiro.

Dr Dimali Vithanage

Dimali graduated with a BEng (Hons) in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of Bath in 2003. The following year she went on to receive a MSc distinction in Photonics and Optoelectronic Devices jointly from the Universities of St Andrews and Heriot Watt. In September 2004 she joined the Polymer Optoelectronics group to start a PhD under the supervision of Prof Ifor Samuel. Her research was on parametric and polymer amplifiers using ultrafast spectroscopy. In 2008 Dimali joined the Laboratory of Ultrafast Spectroscopy at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) under Prof Majed Chergui in Switzerland. At EPFL, she was part of a team to build a MHz detection, X-ray absorption pump probe set up at the Swiss Light Source synchotron at the Paul Scherrer Institute. In 2009 she started as a postdoctral fellow at Lund University in Sweden, under Prof Villy Sundstrom on investigating the dynamics of solar cell materials using time resolved techniques. In late 2012 she came back to work for Prof. Ifor Samuel here in St Andrews to work on photophysics of organic semiconductors.

Dr Alex Thompson

 Alex Thompson was awarded a BEng (Electronics and Computer Systems)/BSc (Research and Development) from Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia in 2010. He remained at Swinburne to perform a PhD in Biomedial Engineering with Prof. Paul Stoddart. His PhD project investigated novel optical techniques to stimulate neurons in the cochlea, with the aim of replacing conventional electrical stimulation. In December 2014 he joined the group to develop a wearable sensor of erythema in collaboration with the Photobiology Unit at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

Dr Euan Shaw

Euan was born in Dumfries in the south west of Scotland. He obtained his MPhys degree in physics in 2011 from the University of St Andrews and carried on under the supervision of Dr Carlos Penedo to obtain his PhD in the field of single-molecule biophysics from the same university. He joined the Organic Semiconductor Centre upon the completion of his PhD in September 2015 as a Research Fellow to begin working on developing direct methods to measure exciton diffusion.

Dr Guy Whitworth

Guy was born in London. He graduated with an MPhys in physics and astronomy from the University Southampton in 2012. For his Masters project Guy preformed studies in organic photovoltaic devices and their integration with nano-crystalline quantum dots. Guy joined the group in 2012 for his PhD and is investigating into the excited state interactions hindering organic optoelectronic devices in specific regard to organic solid-state lasers.

Dr Yun Long

Yun was born in Jiangxi, in China and emigrated to England in 1994. She gained a BA and MSci in Physics from the University of Cambridge (Fitzwilliam College) in 2012, and went on to receive an MSc in Photonics and Optoelectronic Devices from the University of St Andrews (jointly with Heriot-Watt University). In the summer of 2011, she carried out a project with the Quantum Optoelectronics Group at Cambridge University investigating the cavity photon and exciton modes in semiconductor microcavities in order to characterise them for creation of exciton polaritons. Having joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics Group as a PhD student under the supervisor of Prof. Ifor Samuel in 2013, her research looks into exciton diffusion in organic semiconductors used in solar cells, focusing chiefly on methods used to measure the exciton diffusion length.

Dr Paulina Morawska

Paulina graduated from Gdansk University of Technology in Poland in 2011 with a MEng in Applied Physics. For her Masters project she completed an investigation into the study of electromodulation of exciplex fluorescence in organic films. She joined St Andrews in January 2012 to start a PhD in organic polymer lasers for use as explosives sensors in the TIRAMISU project under the supervision of Prof Graham Turnbull and Prof. Ifor Samuel. After completing her PhD Paulina moved to a secondment at Helios Photonics.

Dr Ashu Kumar Bansal

Ashu was born in Saharanpur in India. He received M.Sc in physics from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and M.Tech. in applied optics from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) New Delhi. After this for a brief period he has worked on Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors as a project assistant in central scientific instruments organisation, Chandigarh. Then he moved to Germany to obtain his Ph.D. in physics at University of Regensburg under the supervision of Prof. Alfons Penzkofer on spectroscopic characterisation of organic electroluminescent materials. In June 2008 Ashu has joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group as a research fellow and since then he has been involved in various projects, which include photophysical characterisation of materials to device fabrication and applications of organic electronic devices in biomedicine. After leaving the group he became a project Manager at Techcomp Research and Engineering Centre.

Dr Gordon Hedley

Gordon was born and brought up in Stranraer in south west Scotland. In 2005 he received an MSci degree in Physics from the University of Durham. His Masters year project at Durham was investigating the dynamics of new OLED compounds and it was here that he first became enthused by the field of chemical physics. He joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelctronics group here in St Andrews in September 2006 under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel to commence study for a PhD on the ultrafast photophysics of iridium complexes. After completing his PhD Gordon stayed with the group, looking at the photophysical properties of organic systems. Outside of the lab Gordon’s interests include history, technology and the dynamic between the two, wiki’s and how collaborative development can operate in a scientific environment. Gordon is now conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Regensburg in the group of Prof. John Lupton, also an alumnus.

James Stevenson

James was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He graduated with an MPhys in physics with photonics from the University of St Andrews in 2011. During his undergraduate studies he was a participant in the organic electronics and applications erasmus intensive program in 2010 and carried out his masters project on electrospinning of polymer nanofibres under Dr Graham Turnbull. James joined the group in 2011 to study for his PhD with the intention of continuing work on electrospinning of semiconducting polymers and working on polymer lasers. After leaving the group, James went on to work for Selex

Dr Tom Wood

Tom was born in Malvern, England, and studied for his undergraduate degree of ‘Physics with Study in Europe’ jointly at the University of Manchester and Universite Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France. Following the end of his Masters in 2009, he moved to France to carry out his PhD studying photonic transducers for gas sensing in the Im2np lab at Aix Marseille Universite, with several placements at Universidade do Sao Paulo in Brazil. Having completed his PhD, Tom remained in the same group in Marseille until the end of 2013 for an initial post-doctoral position characterising organic semiconductors for solar cell applications by optical means including ellipsometry and integrating sphere photometry. During 2014, he worked at City University of Hong Kong performing optical measurements including time-resolved photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy on nanostructured semiconductors, as well as engaging in nanofabrication activities. In April 2015, Tom started working at the University of St Andrews as a Research Fellow on the UP-VLC project for visible light communications, where his responsibilities included the simulation, fabrication and characterisation of nanostructured grating elements.

Dr Olena Kulyk

Olena obtained BSc and MSc in Physical and Biomedical Electronics at NTUU ‘KPI’ in Kiev. She worked on inorganic semiconductors during her BSc in Kiev and near-field micro-probing during her MSc at ECIT, Queen’s University of Belfast. Before coming to the group for a PhD, Olena worked on electronic circuits for critical systems at the Kiev Design Bureu. Her research interests while in the group included light-tissue interactions, skin optics and phantoms, optoelectronic design and engineering, computer simulations and fluorescence imaging for Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) for skin lesions. Beyond her research she enjoys keeping fit, dancing, travelling, cooking and socialising. Olena went on to work at ELI, a European programme to develop advanced lasers.

Dr Gopala Krishna Thalluri

Gopala Krishna Thalluri was born in a Hyderabad, India. In 2007, he received M.Sc (Engg) degree in Microsystems Integration Technology from Chalmers University of Technology , Sweden. Then he moved to Belgium in 2008 to obtain Ph.D. in physics at University of Hasselt, Belgium under the supervision of Prof. Jean Manca on preparation and characterization of hybrid solar cells. In 2012, he started as a postdoctral researcher at Laboratory of Structural Inorganic Chemistry (LCIS) and the Group of Research in Energy and ENvironment from MATerials (GREEnMat), University of Liege, Belgium on investigating the dye-sensitized solar cells for a special light guide application. In March 2014, he joined the group as a research fellow working on preparation and characterization of organic solar cells. After leaving the group Gopala joined Helios Photonics.

Dr Shuyu Zhang

Shuyu was born in Suzhou, China. He completed his undergraduate studies at Soochow University with a major in Physics in 2007 and his master studies at Fudan University with a major in Plasma Physics in 2010. In September 2010, he joined Prof. Samuel’s group here at the University of St Andrews to research organic optoelectronic devices for his PhD. He earned a PhD title in May 2014 with the thesis title of ‘Directional organic light-emitting diodes using photonic microstructure’. After working in the group as a Research Fellow mainly on the EPSRC project ‘Ultra-parallel visible light communications’, Shuyu went on to Fudan University, Shanghai where he is now an assistant professor.

Dr Guohua Xie

Guohua studied for his BSc, M.Sci and PhD at Jilin University, Changchun, China. From September 2006 to July 2011, he studied and worked on OLEDs in the State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics. His doctoral research projects were mostly related to integration of OLEDs on active matrix backplanes, such as LTPS and CMOS. After defending his PhD degree, he started an internship in department COMEDD at Fraunhofer IPMS, Dresden, Germany, from August 2011. During the whole year of 2012, Guohua carried out his postdoctoral research which was sponsored by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and hosted by Prof. Karl Leo at both IAPP, TU Dresden and Fraunhofer COMEDD. In January 2013, he joined the group conducting research on OLEDs. He is now an Associate Professor at Wuhan University, China.

Dr Zarifi Masri

Zarifi was born in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. He graduated from University of Nottingham with a BSc degree in Physics in 2004. In 2006, he received an MSc degree in Materials Physics and Applications from Loughborough University. His MSc research project focused on the investigation of high strain rate deformation behaviour of Nickel-Titanium shape memory alloy. He joined Prof. Ifor Samuel’s group in October 2010 to pursue a PhD on exciton diffusion and charge transport in organic solar cells. Zarifi’s other interests are playing football, badminton and squash.

Dr Emiliano Rezende Martins

Emiliano is from Ituiutaba, Brazil. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sao Paulo in 2005. Following this he received his MSc in Electrical Engineering in 2008 from the same university, with a thesis topic on modelling of the supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibres. He then joined the Erasmus Mundus Masters of Photonics in 2008. In the first year of this master he studied at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and then moved to the University of St Andrews for his second year. He completed his master in 2010 with a thesis on microstructured silicon solar cells. Emiliano joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group in 2010 under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel to pursue his PhD on microstructured organic semiconductors and is now a professor at the University of Sao Carlos.

Dr Qin Xue

Qin received her BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from Jilin University, Changchun, China. From 2008 to 2011, she studied and undertook research on OLEDs in the State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University. Her research focused on improving the performance of blue and then white OLEDs. Since July 2011, she has been appointed as a lecturer working for College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University. Under the sponsorship of China Scholarship Council, now Qin is a visiting scholar in Prof. Samuel’s group and investigating the photophysics of OLEDs.

Dr Yue Wang

Yue was born in Hubei China in 1985. She graduated from the East China Normal University in Shanghai with BEng degree in Electronic Science & Technology in 2007. The following year she went on to receive an MSc degree in Photonics and Optoelectronic Devices jointly from the Universities of St Andrews and Heriot Watt. In September 2008 she joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group to start a PhD under the supervision of Dr Graham Turnbull and Prof. Ifor Samuel. Her PhD research was on developing organic laser fabrication by nanoimprint lithography. In 2012 Yue completed her PhD and successfully won a EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship to develop a novel multifunctional explosive sensing array here in the group. In 2013 she moved to the University of York as a postdoctoral researcher.

Dr Neil Montgomery

Neil graduated from the Lancaster University in 2008 with an Mphys in Physics. For his master’s project, he completed an investigation into the study of propagation and decay of quantum turbulence in superfluid helium^-4. He joined St Andrews in September 2008 to start a PhD on polymer lasers under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel and Dr Graham Turnbull. In 2012 Neil began working at the UK patent office as an examiner.

Dr Georgios Tsiminis

Georgios was born in Athens, Greece where he completed his undergraduate studies at the National Technical University of Athens with a Major in Applied Physics in 2004. In September of the same year he started the MSc in Photonics and Optoelectronic Devices at the University of St Andrews and Heriot-Watt University. He completed the course with distinction and joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group for his PhD (one- and two-photon pumped organic semiconductor lasers) under the supervision of Dr Graham Turnbull and Prof. Ifor Samuel. In 2009 he became a research fellow in the group working on UV-nanoimprint lithography for organic semiconductor lasers as part of the HYPIX project. In October 2011 Georgios moved to the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing at the University of Adelaide as an ARC Super Science fellow to work on detection of trace quantities of explosives.

Amy Illingworth

Amy was born in Penrith, Cumbria. In September 2004 she started at the University of Sheffield to study for an MPhys degree. This included studying abroad at the University of Alberta, Canada and a final year project on polymer optoelectronics with Professor David Lidzey. In September 2009 she joined Professor Ifor Samuel’s group, looking at exciton diffusion and the morphology of organic photovoltaics. Her other interests include rock climbing and mountaineering. In 2011 Amy began a career in the financial services industry, training in actuarial studies.

Dr Ajay Pandey

Ajay was born in Ballia in India. He obtained a M.Sc in Physics from the University of Allahabad and the M.Tech in Laser Science and Applications from the Devi Ahilya University of Indore. With a short stay at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur as a research engineer he moved to obtain a PhD with Prof. Jean-Michel Nunzi at Laboratory POMA, Angers in France. His doctoral work was on the study of physics and models of plastic solar cells. He joined us as a research fellow in May 2007 and currently worked on dendrimer based photodiodes and solar cells. In 2010 Ajay took up a postdoctoral research position with Paul Burn’s group in Queensland, Australia then won an ARC fellowship to develop his own research.

Dr Mario Giardini

Dr Mario E. Giardini graduated and received his PhD in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Pavia, Italy. He has been a Research Scientist for the National Institute for Physics of Matter (INFM, Italy), where he developed instruments, devices and technologies for a diverse range of mainly biomedical and biotechnological applications. His research has implied a framework of constant contact with industry, including three years as head of the R&D activities of a leading microscope manufacturer. He joined Ifor Samuel’s team to work on forensic applications of fluorescence detection. He is now a lecturer in biomedical engineering at Strathclyde University.

Dr Stuart Stevenson

Stuart graduated with a MEng (Hons) degree in Semiconductor Engineering from the University of Dundee, Scotland, in 2004. He joined the Polymer Optoelectronics group at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, working towards a Ph.D. in organic physics. His research interests included the study of charge transport and photo-physics in dendrimer OLED devices. After obtaining his PhD Stuart went on to work in industry.

Dr Ruth Harding

Ruth graduated with a first class MSci in Physics from Queen Mary and Westfield College, London in 2000. She completed a PhD in Physics at Kings college London in 2004 under the supervision of Gordon Davies on using photoluminescence (PL) to characterise ion implantation defects in silicon. She moved to St Andrews in November 2004 to work on the photo physics of light emitting dendrimers. In 2008, Ruth won a sponsored position to train as a medical physics specialist in Manchester.

Dr Jean-Charles Ribierre

Jean-Charles was born in Caen in France. He obtained a Msc in Physics from the University of Caen and the DEA Photonics and Image from the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg. Then, he started a PhD with Dr. Alain Fort at the IPCMS/GONLO on the influence of the viscoelastic properties on the orientational dynamics of push-pull chromophores in photorefractive guest-host polymers. After finishing his PHD, he moved to Japan for 1 year to work as JSPS postdoctoral research fellow at the Supramolecular Science Laboratory of Dr. Tatsuo Wada in RIKEN. He worked there on the optoelectronics properties of liquid carbazole based materials. He took up his position with us in May 2004 and worked on the light emitting dendrimer film morphology and interfacial interactions. Jean-Charles is now an Associate Professor at Kyushu University, Japan.

Dr Andreas Vasdekis

Andreas graduated from the Department of Physics of the National University of Athens in 2002. He obtained an MSc (distinction) in Photonics and Optoelectronic Devices from the Universities of St Andrews and Heriot Watt. His MSc dissertation was completed in CNRS/LPN Photonic Devices for Telecoms Applications Group in Paris in September of 2003. In October of the same year he began working on his PhD thesis in polymer laser microcavities and photonic crystal devices under the supervision of Dr Graham Turnbull and in collaboration with the Photonic Crystal group. In 2007 he joined the Optics Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne and is now a Professor at the University of Idaho.

Dr Yim Fun Loo (Annie)

Annie graduated from the University of Dundee in 1999 with a 1st class honours in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and in 2003 with a PhD in Organic Thin film research. In October 2003, she took up the Postdoctoral research assistant position at the University of Liverpool working on new materials to replace silicon oxide for the continuous scaling down of devices. She moved to St Andrews in July 2005 to take up a research fellow position at the Organic Semiconductor Centre working on photodiode and field effect transistors using new types of dendrimers. Outside of work, she likes hillwalking, skiing & badminton. In 2006 Annie started working at Molecular Vision.

Dr Andy Lewis

Andy was born in 1979 in Birkenhead, Merseyside but grew up in Lancashire. Educated at Bolton School from 1990-1997, he then moved to the University of St Andrews and obtained his B.Sc. Physics degree (2001) and a M.Sc. in Photonics and Optoelectronics (2002). He then joined our group for a PhD on characterisation and improvement of organic photovoltaics using both polymers and dendrimers under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel. Andy’s interests outside of the lab include music, computing, sport and theatre. In 2006, Andy started work at Qinetiq.

Dr Chris Yates

Chris studied at Imperial College, London, obtaining a first class honours degree in Chemistry in 1996. He completed a Ph.D. in 2000, studying phase stabilisation of lyotropic liquid crystal structures. Thereafter he joined CRL-Opto in Scotland, working on the development of high resolution ferroelectric liquid crystal microdisplays. In 2003 he joined the research group of Professor Gerd Heppke at the Technische Universitat, Berlin, as a European Research Fellow, studying ferro and antiferroelectric liquid crystals. Chris joined the group in January 2004, and worked towards increasing the extraction of light from OLED devices. In December 2005 Chris started working for Micro Emissive Displays.

Dr Miguel Camacho-Lopez

Miguel received his PhD in physics in 2002 from Heriot-Watt University studying the picosecond third-order nonlinearities and all-optical potentiality of devices containing polydiacetylenes. In December 2000 he joined the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University (Ohio, USA) as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Prof. Peter Palffy-Muhoray on the opto-mechanical properties of liquid crystal eleastomers. In March 2002 he joined the Polymer Optoelectronics Group at the University of St Andrews as a postdoctoral research fellow to work with Prof. Ifor Samuel and Prof. James Ferguson (Photobilology Unit Ninewells Hospital, Dundee) in a project financed by Scottish Enterprise to develop a novel organic light emitting polymer device to be used in Photodynamic Therapy to treat different types of skin diseases, including skin cancer. He now works at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico.

Dr Alison Carleton

Alison studied at the University of St Andrews and received her degree in Physics in 1998, an MSc in Optoelectronic and Laser Devices in 1999 (A jointly ran course with Heriot-Watt University) and her PhD on continuous-wave, intracavity optical parametric oscillators in April 2004. She joined Ifor Samuel’s group in November 2002 as a postdoctoral research fellow and investigated microstructured polymer lasers, concentrating on circular distributed feedback lasers.

Dr Justin Lawrence

Justin graduated in 1998 from the University of Dublin with a B.Sc (Hons) in Applied Sciences. From 1998-2000 completed a M.Phil at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He spent part of 1999 as a researcher in the University of Liege in Belgium. Justin joined the Polymer Optoelectronics group in September 2000 as a PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel. His research topic included: Optical amplification and lasing in conjugated polymers and novel semiconducting dendrimers. Fabrication of wavelength scale microstructure by soft lithography and its application to organic semiconductors. He received a PhD in 2004 and moved on to Clemson University in South Carolina. Justin has subsequently moved to Bangor University as a lecturer.

Dr Steven Magennis

Steven was born in Edinburgh in 1974, spending his childhood in nearby Dalkeith. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and received a first class degree in chemistry in 1996 and a PhD in 2000, the latter for work on the synthesis and photoluminescence of lanthanide complexes. Steven took up his present position as a postdoctoral research fellow in St Andrews at the beginning of 2001 and and investigated the nature of the light-emitting species in conjugated polymers. Steven then became an EPSRC Advanced Fellow at the University of Manchester. He is now a Professor and group leader in the University of Glasgow