Category: Person
Welcome back, Eduard!
After about a year and a half in the industry, I returned to the University of Bergen, this time as a Ph.D. candidate, joining the esteemed research group led by Assoc. Prof. Erwan Le Roux. In my research, I will delve into PET-imaging, with a specialized focus on exploring macrocyclic chelators as potential ligands for Titanium-45 radiopharmaceuticals.Disputation ceremony for Marie Wekre
On Friday September 1, MSc Marie Emilie Wekre defends her doctoral thesis for the ph.d. degree. You are welcome to sit in to learn about the research project and to follow the scientific discussion!
Vital coordinates: 10.30 in Auditorium 2 (Science Bld).
Extracts from the press release: The world’s population is growing and the demand for new raw materials for food, medicines and other foodstuffs is increasing. Macroalgae, also known as seaweed and kelp, play an important role in marine ecosystems and have great potential for sustainable exploitation. One of several classes of compounds that can be extracted from algae are polyphenols. Polyphenols constitute a large and diverse group of natural molecules that have many positive health effects and serve important functions in reproduction and protection in plants and algae. Much less is known about polyphenols in algae as opposed to land plants. Due to the nature of algae, it is also challenging to extract, isolate and quantify polyphenols from algae.
In this PhD project, improved methods for characterizing polyphenols from seaweed and kelp are developed, and new information on the polyphenol content in macroalgae is shown to be useful for commercial exploitation – as well as of value for chemical ecology and ocean monitoring.
Welcome back, Sharon!
Hello everyone! I have a master’s degree in chemistry from the university of Bergen where I had the opportunity to work with Hans-René Bjørsvik. My research focused on developing a synthetic pathway for a potential pharmacophore of avrainvillamide.
I am now employed as a research assistant and am looking forward to work on an exciting project. I will be synthesizing compounds that will be investigated for therapeutic effects, ADME-studies and toxicological assessments.
Welcome, Kristine!
Hello all, I am very excited to be pursuing my PhD here at UiB as a member of Prof. Dietzel’s research group.
I was born and raised in Oregon, USA, where I took my bachelor’s at Portland State University, but I moved to Norway two years ago to attend NTNU where I completed my master’s in Organic Chemistry. The main focus in my research both during undergraduate and graduate studies has been in alternative energy and I am glad to be continuing work with these applications in mind. I will be working with MOFs for the electrochemical transformation of carbon dioxide to formic acid as a means of chemical energy storage.
Outside of chemistry I love listening to music, dancing ballet, doing photography, and going for hiking and skiing trips, among other things.
Please welcome Markus aus Karlsruhe!
Please welcome MSc Markus Matz, who will be visiting with us until the middle of November, working with Svein Mjøs on deconvolution methods of spectrally resolved chromatograms obtained from HPLC- 80MHz 1H NMR hyphenation. Markus is a PhD student at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and you can learn more about him at his KIT webside.
Welcome Mathias!
Hi everyone, I am Mathias Brevik. Originally from the north-western town of Kristiansund, I moved to Bergen five years ago for my bachelor’s and master’s in chemistry. I am now excited to be joining the department as a PhD candidate.
The PhD project will focus on the development of multivariate techniques for the analysis and interpretation of mass cytometry data. Additionally, the project will explore approaches for the automatic optimization of chemical reactions via high-throughput experimentation. The work will be performed in the research group for chemistry in medical technology under the supervision of Bjørn Grung.
Beyond my PhD work, personal interests include reading, cinema, and music – both through listening and playing. You can find me in room 3059!
Julie joins Int’l Summer School Program – Congrats!
Every year two world leading large scale international centers, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, organize a highly regarded joint International Summer Student Programme on X-Ray and Neutron Science.
Participants of the summer school will be trained in the principles and applications of X-ray and neutron science (magnetism, materials science, soft matter, structural biology, imaging, etc.) and perform a four-week experimental project embedded in a research group at the ESRF or ILL. The participants are selected undergraduate students from universities of the 22 Member and Scientific Associate Countries of ESRF or ILL. It is a great pleasure to announce that one of our own students, Julie Brun, who is working on her master project in Pascal Dietzel’s research group, has been accepted as one of the approximately 20 participants this year. Congratulations, Julie! We hope you enjoy the summer school!
(text: Pascal Dietzel)
ISOM-XXIV is off to a good start!
Vidar and Deryn were proud and thrilled to welcome to Bergen the participants of the 24thedition of the International Symposium on Olefin Metathesis and Related Chemistry!
Following the kick-off in 1976 in Mainz, this important series of conferences has been held every odd-numbered year up to and including 2019, when ISOM-23 was held in Barcelona. 2021 was the exception, for reasons well known to all. Now, the olefin metathesis community is again gathered and gathering strength for new progress, right here in Bergen!
Located at the West Coast at the slopes of high mountains, Bergen has been an internationally oriented city since way before Hanseatic time, and it makes perfect sense that this international symposium is held in Bergen. On the other hand, there is no denying that geographically, Norway lies at the outskirts of Europe. We rely on our guests to bring the world in and thereby include us in the international community.
Priority research areas at University of Bergen are Marine research, Climate and energy transition, and Global challenges. Chemistry holds the keys to progress on many of these challenges, including the sustainable synthesis of materials and chemicals, better pharmaceuticals, the utilization of bio-based feedstocks, and low-carbon energy carriers, to name but few.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in their press release on the 2005 Nobel prize in chemistry, hailed olefin metathesis as one of organic chemistry’s most important reactions. Continuing, “This represents a great step forward for “green chemistry”, reducing potentially hazardous waste through smarter production. Metathesis is an example of how important basic science has been applied for the benefit of man, society and the environment.”
The scientific program of ISOM-24 very much reflects this rôle, as exemplified by session titles such as Sustainable metathesis, sustainable catalysts, and circular economy. Another observation from the program, is the forward-leaning and ambitious attitude, which is truly becoming for a mature scientific field. Session titles New perspectives, New frontiers, and Emerging reactions indicate that there is still much ground to break before the potential of olefin metathesis is fully achieved and put to work!
In their bid for ISOM-24, the conference chairs, professors Deryn Fogg and Vidar Jensen, expressed concern that the actual industrial uptake of olefin metathesis technology has been slower than expected. This puts double pressure on the ISOM series, as the main arena for communication between stakeholders in olefin metathesis.
Department of Chemistry is proud to be entrusted the organization of this important event. The conference chairs have done everything in their power to ensure a top scientific program and exciting extra-scientific events. Moreover, the local organizing committee, including
- Karianne Søreide
- Pål Magnus Gunnestad
- Giovanni Occhipinti
- Marco Foscato
- Saifon Maneesai
- Lise Clarke Capp-Isaksen
have made a massive effort in planning, preparing and now driving the many cogwheels that make a conference buzz, with good help from Christian Blanco, Eliza-Jayne Boisvert, Samantha Cormier, Jonas Ekeli, Dmytro Lemeshchenko, and Immanuel Reim.
In addition to stimulating and challenging scientific talks, the value of a conference also lies in the informal discussions, about observations yet unexplained, of failed attempts that rarely make it to the top journals, of thoughts on how and where to proceed, of collaborations to push for progress, of introducing young colleagues to an extensive network and so on. It remains with the participants see to it that ISOM-24 becomes a great success also in this respect!
For a few days Bergen is the center of the olefin metathesis community!
Thanks!
Dear all! Thanks for joining in last Thursday, in celebration of my second coming of age! I appreciate your company, the nice words said, as well as the beautiful flowers! — Knut
Congrats to dr. Stian!
Last Friday, Stian Hersvik Hegdahl’s dissertation ceremony got a semi-frenetic prologue as it became evident that one of the opponents was stuck and would not get to Bergen in time! Thanks to Stian himself, our PhD-advisor Torill and considerable and hard-earned experience from the Covid years, a fully satisfactory hybride format of the ceremony was rapidly concocted. After Stian had presented highlights from his thesis «From waste to bio-oil: Hydrothermal liquefaction of digested sewage sludge in small and large scale», dr Patrick Biller, Aarhus University, examined the candidate for over an hour from Kastrup and from the big screen in Auditorium 1. Opponent dr. Joseph Samec, Stockholms Universitet, physically present, continued the examination, and Stian continued answering promptly and clearly. The evaluation committee, including both opponents and local member Øyvind, approved of the performance. The newly minted philosophiae doctor Stian and main supervisors Tanja and Camilla were all pleased and happy as well! Our congratulations to Stian and thanks to all contributors with assigned roles as well as all those showing up in the lecture hall!