Welcome to the Schroeder Research Group! We are a synthetic chemistry group based in the Chemistry Department at University College London. Our research activities focus on the design and synthesis of functional materials for organic electronic applications. We are particularly interested in finding creative solutions for energy and healthcare applications, by exploiting the unique properties of π-conjugated molecules and polymers.

We take an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving and work closely together with colleagues in chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering to develop and study the materials powering tomorrow’s technologies.

News

November 2025: Bob attended the Advancing Materials Science: Bridging Chemistry and Engineering for a Sustainable Future conference in Doha, jointly hosted by the RSC and the e-MRS, to present the group’s recent work on chiral organic semiconductors.

October 2025: Mingyu and Bob attended the International Symposium on Polymer Chemistry (PC2025) in Changchun to present the group’s research on skin wearable hydration sensors and polymer-cell interfacing. Many congratulations to Mingyu for also winning a poster prize for his research. Very well deserved!

September 2025: A warm welcome to Celine, Farjana and Andy as they are joining the group for the MSci projects, while Ojas and Kunnian will be doing their MSc research in the group.

September 2025: Many congratulations to Stefania for passing her PhD upgrade viva!

July 2025: Qiaoyi presented her compelling research on structural defects in conjugated polymers and reaction conditions at this year’s MSc poster event at UCL. Nice job Qiaoyi!

July 2025: What an achievement! Adibah has successfully defended her PhD thesis without corrections. Many thanks to Dr Julia Rho and Prof Hugo Bronstein for conducting the viva examination. We’re absolutely delighted that Adibah will be staying with the group as a postdoctoral researcher for another year!

July 2025: Aisha took the stage at RSC MC17 in Edinburgh, presenting her work on water splitting using chiral organic semiconductors. Fantastic job representing the group!

July 2025: Farewell time for our wonderful summer and visiting students! Jamie and Karolina completed their internships with the group, while Cauan ended his four-month stay from the Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo (IFUSP) to return and finish his degree. Thanks for all their hard work and best wishes for their future endeavours!

June 2025: Adibah shared her wisdom at this year’s PGR symposium in the Chemistry Department, helping fellow PhD students navigate the rollercoaster ride of thesis writing with all its joys and inevitable hurdles.

June 2025: Many congratulations to Kinga, Matheus and Alex for completing their MSci journey by presenting their research at this year’s SARPIC event! They all did a fantastic job and we wish them all the best for their future adventures.

May 2025: The end of an era! After 9 amazing years in the group, Lewis has embarked on his next adventure, and we couldn’t be prouder or more excited about whatever lies ahead – scientific breakthroughs and hiking trails alike!

May 2025: The Schroeder Group brought science to life at Great Ouse Primary Academy, where pupils quickly discovered that polymer chemistry is pure magic (and infinitely more fun when you’re making stretchy, gooey slime)!

March 2025: From lab to Parliament! Aisha had the incredible opportunity to present her PhD research on chiral organic semiconductors at the 2025 STEM for Britain event.

February 2025: Zach has successfully completed his MPhil! We’re incredibly proud of him and thrilled about all the amazing opportunities that await.

February 2025: Corinna and Stefania crushed their first-year PhD presentations at UCL – officially making it past the first milestone of their doctoral adventures!

January 2025: Many congratulations to Matilde for getting her work on low-bandgap polymers for organic photodetectors accepted in Adv. Funct. Mater. What a great start to 2025, and a fantastic job by Adibah, Pete, Lewis and especially Matilde for getting this manuscript written up so quickly.

December 2024: It was that time of year again when Aisha showcased her baking skills to the group, and, as always, she went above and beyond with her chemistry themed decorations.

December 2024: To wrap-up the year, our work with the Royal Free Hospital on 3D-printed bone scaffolds was published in Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. Nice job Aisha!

November 2024: The highlight of this year’s Chemistry Lab Dinner was undoubtedly Aisha receiving the Ramsay Medal. A truly well-deserved recognition—congratulations, Aisha! It was wonderful to see your outstanding work celebrated in such a fantastic way.

November 2024: Megan’s review paper on hydrogen bonds in conjugated polymers and their role in wearable electronics was published J Mat Chem C.

November 2024: We had to say goodbye to Pete as he starts an exciting new role at Domino Printing in Cambridge. While we’ll certainly miss him in the lab (and the office will be a lot quieter!), we’re wishing him all the best in this next adventure. Good luck, Pete and thanks for all your hard work!

November 2024: Many congratulations to Chao, Mingyu and Rikin for all passing their PhD upgrade vivas.

November 2024: Bob attended the ACS-RSC Regional MEA Conference 2024 in Doha, to present the group’s work on interfacing conjugated polymers with neurones.

October 2024: Pete and Megan’s work on blending P3HT with polyborosiloxane elastomers was published RSC Applied Polymers. This project was both exciting and full of unexpected results with each experiment. A special shout-out to Pete for his deep dive into rheology!

September 2024: Huge congratulations to Aisha for winning this year’s Ramsay Prize for her outstanding work on chiral organic semiconductors! Well deserved!

September 2024: It was a true pleasure to see so many group members graduate. Congratulations to Dr Westwood, Dr Trueman, Jakub, Rikin, Iulia, Irem, and Andy!

August 2024: Lewis and Bob attended the International Conference on Flexible and Printed Electronics in Taipei, to present the group’s work on non-contact deposition of conjugated polymers and the design of self-healing organic semiconductors.

August 2024: This summer, we were delighted to host three participants from the In2Science program for a week in the lab. We also welcomed Chu and Joel, who secured internships through the MAPS Summer Research programme, as well as Aaiman, who was funded by an RSC Undergraduate Research Bursary.

July 2024: Pete presented his work on self-healing polyborosiloxanes composites at the IUPAC Macro 2024 in Warwick.

June 2024: Meet this year’s Gillespie Prize winner for the best presentation in Materials Chemistry, our very own Aisha. To celebrate, Adibah’s delicious brownies say it all. Well done, Aisha!

June 2024: Aisha and Jessie presented their PhD work at this year’s postgraduate research symposium in the Chemistry Department.

June 2024: Many congratulations to Lewis for getting his work on self-dopant diketopyrrolopyrroles (DPPs) published in Synthetic Metals!

May 2024: Andy, Irem, Iulia and Jakub finished off their MSci projects with their SARPIC presentations. They all did a fantastic job and we wish them all the best for their future adventures.

April 2024: Jessie and Bob attended the Spring MRS in Seattle to present the groups work on self-healing organic semiconductors.

March 2024: Bob has been admitted to natural sciences, physics, and mathematics section of the Institut Grand-Ducal de Luxembourg, the national academy of Luxembourg, as a corresponding member.

February 2024: Rikin, Mingyu and Chao did a brilliant job at introducing their PhD projects at the 1st year PhD talks within the Chemistry Department.

January 2024: Ryan’s work on neural tissue engineering using polypyrrole-collagen constructs has been published in Advanced Engineering Materials. This one has been a long time in the making and thanks to all our collaborators for their contributions!

January 2024: After slightly over 4 years in the group, we said goodbye to Megan, who took up a PDRA position at CHALMERS in the Giovannitti Group. Good luck in your new job and we hope we will keep the HPLCs running without your constant care!

December 2023: Congratulations to Ryan, the “biologist” in the group, for passing his PhD viva in the School of Pharmacy. It has been fun to learn about biological systems interacting with organic semiconductors over the years. Many thanks to Prof Paul Roach and Prof Wenhui Song for the viva examination. We wish Ryan all the best for his new adventures at AZ.

December 2023: Jessie and Aisha presented their work on self-healing coordination polymers and chiral organic semiconductors, respectively, at the Supramolecular Materials and Self-Assembly Workshop in London.

December 2023: Harsh’s excellent work on “Exploring Bismuth Coordination Complexes as Visible-Light Absorbers: Synthesis, Characterization, and Photophysical Properties” has been published in Inorganic Chemistry.

December 2023: The group pâtissier Aisha once again went above and beyond to summarise the year in the lab with personalised cookies 🙂

December 2023: Aisha took over the Boston MRS to present her work on chiral organic semiconductors and their potential in water splitting applications.

December 2023: Adibah attended the RSC Chemistry Poster Symposium to present her exciting work on low bandgap organic semiconductors.

November 2023: It has been a pleasure to attend the Royal Society’s UK-Taiwan Bilateral International Meeting in Taipei to discuss Climate Change, Energy and Carbon and the possibility of joint future collaborations between Taiwan and the UK.

November 2023: After three years of hard work, Megan successfully defended her PhD thesis. Congratulations Dr Westwood! Many thanks to Dr Mike Booth and Prof Iain McCulloch for conducting the viva and to Aisha, the group pâtissier, for an outstanding celebratory cake.

November 2023: Bob attended the RSC Faraday Discussions in Osaka to discuss current Challenges and prospects in Organic Photonics and Electronics.

October 2023: Bob was invited by the Institut Grand-ducal de Luxembourg to participate in their lecture series, featuring Luxembourgish researchers working abroad. He presented the group’s research on skin-wearable electronics and flexible organic semiconductors.

October 2023: We are thrilled that Stefania has selected our project, which is co-supervised by Prof. James Phillips in the UCL School of Pharmacy, for her rotation project as part of her CDT in Transformative Pharmaceutical Technologies. The project focuses on nerve regeneration using organic semiconductors, and we’re looking forward to the collaboration.

October 2023: A warm welcome to Iulia, Irem, Andi, and Jakub as they are joining the group for their MSci research projects. Their projects cover a wide range of exciting topics, including self-healing materials for wearable electronics, chiral semiconducting polymers for energy applications, and near-infrared absorbing polymers for photoacoustic imaging.

September 2023: What a bustling month it’s been as we welcomed four new PhD students to our team! Rikin is returning to the group, focusing on the creation of novel organic semiconductors for wearable sensors. Mingyu has embarked on his PhD journey, aiming to design exceptionally selective skin wearable sensors for healthcare monitoring. Chao, under the co-supervision of Professor Alethea Tabor, is set to explore the development of organic semiconductors for enhanced integration with biological systems. Meanwhile, Matilde, co-supervised by Dr. Nicola Gasparini at Imperial College, is delving into the study of near-infrared organic semiconducting materials for optoelectronic applications.

September 2023: Beth, Naim, and Rikin have successfully completed their experimental work and have now submitted their final MSc reports. We wish them the best of luck for their new opportunities.

August 2023: Adibah presented her work on the opto-electronic properties of her novel ultra low bandgap organic semiconductors at the RSC Photophysics and Photochemistry Group Early Career Meeting in Glasgow.

July/August 2023: The group has been busy welcoming summer students in the lab! We recently had the opportunity to welcome two participants from the In2Science program for a week. Additionally, Celine joined us through the Laidlaw Programme, and Alex and Irem successfully secured internships through the MAPS Summer Research programme.

July 2023: Adibah and Ana presented posters at this year’s 16th International conference on materials chemistry (MC16) in Dublin, whilst Bob discussed our most recent data on self-healing conjugated polymers.

June 2023: The group was very busy with 2nd year poster presentations and final year PhD talks this year. Adibah, Ana, Jessie and Aisha all presented posters of their ongoing research, and Megan joined Adibah in showcasing their nearly completed PhD work to the Department. Well done everyone!

June 2023: Aisha, Jessie and Bob took part in a careers day at Great Ouse Primary Academy in Bedford to talk to students about careers in science and demonstrate some colourful chemistry experiments.

June 2023: Alberto and Barnabas completed their MSci projects with their SARPIC presentations. They both did a great job and we wish them all the best for their future adventures.

May 2023: Megan is exploring the Alsatian capital and took the opportunity to present her work on supramolecular interactions in organic semiconductors at the European MRS Spring meeting.

May 2023: Congratulations to Ryan, Pete and Megan for getting their work on Schwann cell behaviour on doped organic semiconductor surfaces published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C. What a fantastic group effort!

April 2023: Adibah, Megan, and Pete delivered presentations on their research at the latest London Polymer Group Meeting, while Jessie and Aisha showcased their posters, making the group highly visible at the event.

April 2023: Pete and Bob attended the MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco and presented the group’s recent work on self-healing organic semiconductors for wearable electronics. Bob also took the opportunity to visit his old colleagues and friends at Stanford University and share some old memories and new research findings.

March/April 2023: Harsh presented his work on bismuth based coordination complexes at the ACS Spring Meeting in Indianapolis, as well as at the RSC Faraday joint interest group conference in Sheffield.

March 2023: Ana presented her work at the 19th European Molecular Imaging Meeting in Salzburg, not only enjoying the latest science in the field, but also the Alpine landscape.

February 2023: Adibah attended the 2nd International Symposium on Advanced Functional Materials (ISAFM) in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to present her work on NIR-absorbing organic semiconductors and was awarded the runner-up award for best oral presentation in the Advanced Materials category. Congratulations Adibah!

February 2023: Adibah, Aisha, Barnabas, Megan, Pete and Ryan delivered a day of slime making at St Gabriel’s CofE Primary School as part of the schools STEM week. 200 children made two different types of slime and compared the properties of the slime for observations.

January 2023: Megan was nominated by UCL to attend the Global Young Scientists Summit 2023 in Singapore, a get together of bright young researchers and Nobel laureates from around the world to discuss current science and technology trends. Well deserved Megan!