About the Founders’ Award
The Founders' Award is an award for UK-based postgraduate students working in the area of micro- or mesoporous science and celebrates the most promising PhD student of the past year. The Award is presented each year at the BZA Annual Meeting and has been devised in honour of Alan Dyer, Barrie Lowe, Frank Leach, and Lovat Rees, who founded the BZA in 1977 while at an IZA conference in Chicago. The Award was first granted in 2011 to James Patterson (have a look at all previous winners and their projects at the bottom of this page). A scientific committee of both academic and industrial scientists assesses the applications. The award is announced prior to the BZA conference to allow the winner a reasonable amount of time to arrange their attendance at the conference to receive their award and give a talk about their PhD project.
Application
The candidate must hold, or be studying for a postgraduate degree in a recognised UK institution and clearly working in the area of ordered micro and/or mesoporous materials. Eligible candidates must have received their PhD no more than 12 months prior to the deadline.
The application must contain:
a one-page summary of the research conducted during the PhD,
a CV containing a list of papers, patent applications, presentations, posters, awards, outreach activities and any other relevant information,
a nomination statement by the supervisor or another person familiar with the PhD work of the candidate (no more than 500 words).
Only complete submissions received before the deadline will be considered.
The deadline for application submission for the 2023 Award is 17th May 2024.
Please send e-mail nominations and research summaries to admin@britishzeolite.org. Please use the Subject Line "BZA Founders Award Application" followed by the family name / surname of the nominee.
The winner will be invited to receive the award and give their Founders’ Award Lecture at the 2024 BZA Meeting.
Previous winners and their projects
2022 - Emma Campbell - Kerr-gated Raman spectroscopy to study hydrocarbon upgrading reactions: methanol and biomass components
2021 - Lauren McHugh - Toxic gas adsorption and water stability in metal–organic frameworks and activated carbon composite materials
2019 - Sofia Marchesini - Design of porous boron nitride materials for adsorption applications
2018 - Giulia Bignami - Isotopic enrichment of important inorganic and inorganic-organic hybrid materials for quantitative and in situ analysis of structure and processes through sophisticated high-resolution solid-state NMR techniques
2017 - Matthew Ryder - Mechanical properties of metal-organic frameworks using quantum chemical calculations and neutron scattering experiments
2016 - Alexander O’Malley - Sorbate dynamics in zeolite catalysts: computational and neutron diffraction studies
2015 - Matthew Cliffe - Synthesis and characterisation of defective MOF materials
2014 - Matthew Potter - Understanding synergy in microporous materials for sustainable industrial applications
2013 - John Mowat - Synthesis, characterisation and adsorption properties of metal-organic frameworks and the structural response to functionalisation and temperature
2012 - Tom Carey - Behaviour of zeolites at different temperatures
2011 - James Paterson - Exploitation of synergy in oxidation catalysis with bimetallic aluminophosphate catalysts