Unilever Lecture Theatre, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry


2022-11-29 14:30: Go EAST, young scientist - First principles view on chemical compound space (Professor Anatole von Lilienfeld, University of Toronto)

2023-01-25 14:30: Recent developments with the Transcorrelated method (Professor Ali Alavi, University of Cambridge)

2023-02-01 14:30: DMC-ICE13: ambient and high pressure polymorphs of ice from Diffusion Monte Carlo and Density Functional Theory (Flaviano Della Pia, University of Cambridge)

2023-02-01 15:00: Applying Matsubara Dynamics to Study Rates in Thermally Dissipative Systems (William Moore, University of Cambridge)

2023-02-03 11:00: Multiscale Simulation of DNA (Dr Modesto Orozco, IRB Barcelona)

2023-02-08 14:30: Found In Translation: Using Language Models To Predict C–H Borylation Regioselectivity (Ruslan Kotlyarov, University of Cambridge)

2023-02-08 15:00: Energy landscapes of Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks (ZIFs) (Arun Kumar Rajasekaran, University of Cambridge)

2023-02-15 14:30: Unravelling adsorption interactions and establishing benchmark accuracy: The case of hydrogen adsorption on low-dimensional materials   (Dr Yasmine Al-Hamdani, UCL)

2023-02-22 14:30: The structure of the carbon/electrolyte interface from molecular dynamics simulations (Professor Paola Carbone, University of Manchester)

2023-03-01 14:30: Spin dynamics in radical pairs (Professor David Manolopoulos, University of Oxford)

2023-03-08 14:30: Topology, Molecular Simulation, and Machine Learning as Routes to Exploring Structure, Dynamics, and Phase Behavior in Atomic and Molecular Crystals (Professor Mark Tuckerman, New York University)

2023-03-15 14:30: Exploring and implementing molecular counterfactuals for chemical toxicology prediction (Katie Beckwith, University of Cambridge)

2023-03-15 15:00: Crumbling Crystals (Niamh O'Neill, University of Cambridge)

2023-04-26 14:30: Quantum theory of electronic friction (Professor Rocco Martinazzo, University of Milan)

2023-05-03 14:30: Non-unitary Trotter circuits for imaginary time evolution (Chiara Leadbeater, University of Cambridge)

2023-05-03 15:00: Towards the development of neural network potentials for describing chemistry under challenging conditions (Samuel Brookes, University of Cambridge)

2023-05-10 14:30: Quantum Theory of Imperfect Crystals  (Professor Aron Walsh, Imperial College London)

2023-05-17 14:30: Tackling Topology with TopoStats (Dr Alice Pyne, University of Sheffield)

2023-05-24 14:30: Developing Hybrid Quantum Monte Carlo Algorithms for Low Quantum Overheads and Improved Noise Resilience (Dr Maria-Andreea Filip, University of Cambridge)

2023-10-11 14:30: Learning from molecular dynamics trajectory ensembles (Professor Peter Bolhuis, University of Amsterdam)

2023-10-18 14:30: Relativistic QED developments for atomic and molecular bound state computations (Dr Edit Mátyus, ELTE Faculty of Science, Budapest)

2023-10-25 14:30: From Computational Chemistry to Computational Microbiology: A Few Successes and Many Challenges (Professor Syma Khalid, University of Oxford)

2023-11-01 14:30: Fifty Years Simulating Water and Electrolyte Solutions : Where Are We? (Professor Carlos Vega de las Heras, University Complutense of Madrid)

2023-11-08 14:30: Path Integral Approaches to Spin-Phonon Coupled Systems (Ilija Srpak, University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute)

2023-11-08 15:00: Solvation Across Length Scales: A Classical Density Functional Theory (Anna Bui, University of Cambridge)

2023-11-15 14:30: Uncovering Molecular Transport Mechanisms by Counting with Colloids (Professor Alice Thorneywork, University of Oxford)

2023-11-22 14:30: Making Sense of Electrical Noise by Simulating Electrolyte Solutions (Professor Benjamin Rotenberg, Sorbonne University)

2023-11-29 14:30: Magnetism in 2D materials (Professor Biplab Sanyal, Uppsala University)

2024-01-17 14:30: Artificial chemistries: From designing matter to mimicking life

 (Dr Zorana Zeravcic, ESPCI Paris PSL Research University)

2024-01-24 14:30: All-atom simulations of DNA in complex 3D arrangements (Dr Agnes Noy, University of York)

2024-02-14 14:30: Foundation Models for Materials Chemistry (Professor Gábor Csanyi, University of Cambridge)

2024-02-21 14:30: Liquid Water at Coupled Cluster Accuracy (Professor Dominik Marx, Ruhr-University Bochum)

2024-02-28 14:30: Correlation and Collaboration: using model results to design functionals (Professor Lucia Reining, ETSF Palaiseau)

2024-03-06 14:30: Collective Dynamics in Non-Equilibrium Fluids (Professor Robert Jack, University of Cambridge)

2024-04-24 14:30: Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Materials: Where Physics Meets Chemistry (Professor Claudia Draxl, Humboldt University of Berlin)

2024-05-01 14:30: Sequence-Based Determinants of  Aggregation within Protein Condensates (Professor Monika Fuxreiter, University of Padova)

2024-05-08 14:30: Computational Models of Complex Membranes For Drug Delivery (Dr Christian Jorgensen, University of Portsmouth)

2024-05-15 14:30: Bridging Length Scales in Electrolyte Transport Theory via the Onsager Framework (Dr Kara Fong, University of Cambridge)

2024-05-22 14:30: Finding the Needle in the Haystack: Machine Learning for Rare Event Simulations (Professor Christoph Dellago, University of Vienna)

2024-10-16 14:30: Translational Eigenstates of Noble Gas Endofullerenes (Kripa Panchagnula, University of Cambridge)

2024-10-23 14:30: When the loss is not enough: misspecification uncertainty in atomic simulations (Dr Thomas Swinburne, Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille, CNRS)

2024-11-06 14:30: Biomolecular Condensates Through a Computational Microscope (Maria Julia Maristany, University of Cambridge)

2024-11-13 14:30: From Darcy to the Nanoscale: How Emerging Contaminants Challenge Existing Modeling Approaches in Contaminant Hydrology (Dr Kaveh Sookhak Lari, CSIRO)

2024-11-20 14:30: Colloidal Quasicrystals: How Entropy can lead to Forbidden Symmetries (Dr Laura Filion, University of Utrecht)

2024-11-27 15:00: Novel Approaches to Unravel the Nature of On-Water Catalysis (Professor Thomas D. Kühne, CASUS Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf)

2024-12-04 14:30: Water Tales in Nanoscale Environments (Dr Damian Scherlis, University of Buenos Aires)

2025-01-29 14:30: NMR Prediction Uncertainty Enables DFT-Free Structural Confirmation (Ruslan Kotlyarov, University of Cambridge)

2025-01-29 15:00: Halogenation Site-Selectivity Prediction Just Got Faster (Henrique Magri Marçon, University of Cambridge)

2025-02-05 14:30: Modelling Excited State Processes in Molecular Crystals  (Dr Rachel Crespo-Otero, University College London)

2025-02-12 14:30: Functional interfaces in UHV and in water : recent insights from ab initio (Professor Marie-Laure Bocquet, Ecole Normale Supérieure)

2025-02-19 14:30: Unraveling Water’s Behavior in Anisotropic Environments (Dr Yair Litman, University of Cambridge)

2025-03-05 14:30: g-xTB: DFT accuracy at tight-binding speed (Professor Stefan Grimme, University of Bonn)

2025-03-12 14:30: The (other) Big Bang Theory: Predicting Impact Sensitivities for Energetic Materials (Professor Carole Morrison, University of Edinburgh)

2025-03-19 14:30: Pushing back the boundaries for the atomistic simulation of electronic and ionic transport processes (Professor Jochen Blumberger, UCL)

2025-04-30 14:30: Calculations of excited electronic states using density functionals - without introducing time-dependence (Professor Hannes Jónsson, University of Iceland)

2025-05-07 14:30: Excitations with a Twist (Professor Bartomeu Monserrat, University of Cambridge )

2025-05-14 14:30: Nanoconfined Superionic Water is Molecular Superionic (Dr Samuel Coles, University of Cambridge)

2025-05-21 14:30: CO2 Hydration at the Air-Water Interface: A Surface-Mediated ‘In and Out’ Mechanism (Samuel Brookes, University of Cambridge)

2025-05-21 15:00: Towards modeling molecular crystals with the accuracy of diffusion Quantum Monte Carlo (Flaviano Della Pia, University of Cambridge)

2025-05-28 14:30: Quantum Circuits for Imaginary Time Evolution (Chiara Leadbeater, University of Cambridge)

2025-10-22 14:30: Exploring Descriptor Space for Applications in Materials Science (Dr Mihai-Cosmin Marinica, Université Paris-Saclay, CEA)

2025-10-29 14:30: Non-Gaussian Diffusion in Complex Media: From General Theory to Colloidal Transport in Glassy Soft-Hard Mixtures (Dr Vittoria Sposini, University of Padova)

2025-11-05 14:30: Remembering the Lab in Computational Molecular Material Discovery (Professor Kim Jelfs, Imperial College London)

2025-11-12 14:30: Multiscale Hydrophobicity in Complex Geometries (Dr Alex Epstein, University of Cambridge)

2025-11-19 14:30: Bayesian Inference of Free-Energy Landscapes and Transition-Path Times from Single-Molecule FRET Data Using the Langevin Equation  (Dr Tomoaki Yagi, RIKEN)

2025-11-26 14:30: Fluctuations, correlations, and stability in disordered athermal packings (Dr Roshan Kumar Maharana)

2025-12-03 14:30: The Earth’s Inner Core Nucleation Paradox (Professor Dario Alfè, UCL)

2026-01-21 14:30: Using artificial intelligence to push the limits of one-dimensional NMR for structure elucidation  (Professor Thomas E. Markland, Stanford University)

2026-02-18 14:30: Condensation in pores as a metaphor for benign overfitting? (Dr Christian Kexel, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies)

2026-02-25 14:30: A rule that’s made to be broken? Reframing the Arrhenius law and the calculation of activation energies for ion transport in solid electrolytes. (Dr Vanessa Ward, Durham University)

2026-03-04 14:30: SimPoly: Simulation of Polymers with Machine Learning Force Fields Derived from First Principles + the Challenge of Long-Range Interactions (arXiv:2510.13696) (Dr Lixin Sun and Dr Gregor Simm, Microsoft)

2026-04-29 14:30: Assembly of icosahedral quasicrystals from colloidal particles (Dr Eva G. Noya, Instituto de Química-Física “Blas Cabrera” Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) Calle Serrano 119, Madrid 28006, Spain)

2026-05-06 14:30: How fast is Quantum?  Exploring the speed limits of quantum information spread (Dr Vijay Ganesh Sadhasivam, University of Cambridge)

2026-05-13 14:30: Title to be confirmed (Dr Connor Box, University of Cambridge)