Dr Ventsislav Valev from the University of Bath (a CDT-CMP Supervisor) was awarded this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Public Engagement with Research.

Ventsi’s work focuses on the interactions between light and new chiral nanomaterials. These emerging materials are creating opportunities to expand the use of light for chiral sensing, chiral separation and chiral synthesis — all vital functions for modern biochemistry and pharmaceuticals.

As part of his public engagement, Ventsi takes complex science and translates this to help inspire the next generation through extensive outreach work at local primary schools. Judges were impressed by his enthusiastic presentation and for the ways in which he has used public tools to inform his research.

As part of his presentation he explained: “To demonstrate chiral-optical effects to the children, we purchased 2 litres of concentrated limonene. Having so much limonene sparked the idea that we could immerse our metamaterials in it, for an excellent, previously unexplored way to achieve enhanced chiral-optical effects. This is now a research priority.”

Hear more from Ventsi on why he does public engagement.

CMP would like to say a massive congratulations and thank you for all of your work!

You can also read the full article here,