5 Jun 2014
I am a final year PhD surface scientist at the University of St Andrews, writes Riho Seljamäe-Green.
Through the funding of SCI's Rideal Travel Bursaries I was able to attend the 247th ACS Meeting and Exposition held in Dallas, Texas from 16-20 March 2014 to present a poster and give an oral presentation entitled 'Formation of bioinorganic complexes by the corrosive adsorption of (S)-proline on Ni/Au(111)' in the 'Supramolecular Self-assembly at Surfaces' symposium of the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry.
Unlike previous conferences I had attended, this symposium was solely focussed on my field of surface science and gave me the unique opportunity to view the ongoing work of the world leaders in my field.
Although I am familiar with a lot of the presented work from published literature, being amongst the audience allows you to understand some of the difficulties and on-going investigations that are not mentioned in published articles. It is also interesting to gain the perspectives of other academics on their peers' work. In the same regard, it was very useful to have feedback on my own work in a collegial environment.
The SciMix poster session gave me the opportunity to talk to people carrying out similar work to myself in an informal environment which is a great way to find out about different avenues of experiments to pursue as well as work of other groups I was not so familiar with.
As with all conferences this size, it is an amazing opportunity to present to so many people who can offer unique insights from their own field of expertise which will help further the understanding of everyone involved. Furthermore, as a young academic it provides an ideal opportunity to introduce your work to a community which otherwise may not have been aware of you whilst opening doors to future collaborations and potential job opportunities.
I would like to thank SCI and the RSC for the funding that allowed me to travel to Dallas to participate in the ACS meeting through the Sir Eric Rideal Travel Bursary.
Riho Seljamäe-Green
University of St Andrews
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