The School of Chemistry at University College Cork is delighted to announce that Professor Justin D. Holmes has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor honoris causa) by the University of Latvia. The conferring ceremony will take place in Riga on Friday, 26th September 2025.

The School of Chemistry wishes to congratulate Vaishali Vardhan on being awarded the "Effective Communication Award for PhD Students".

Dr Sarah O'Keeffe has been featured in TIME Magazine for her work in the development of a groundbreaking drug with Eli Lilly.

PhD students across all areas in the School of Chemistry presented their research at the annual Research Day attended by academic staff, research staff and research students, including new students commencing PhDs in the School from September 2025. 

Members of the School braved the rain and joined a local Parkrun last Saturday.

On Thursday July 31st speakers Prof. Gerard McGlacken, Dr Davide Tiana, Dr Stig Hellebust and Dr Marco Dalla (Insight) were joined by Prof. Olaf Wiest (University of Notre Dame and Director of the US Centre for Computer Assisted Synthesis) for a mini-symposium on ‘Machine Learning, Computation and Chemistry’. Attendees included those from Academia and Industry (Pfizer, Eli Lilly and others).

School of Chemistry Professor Colm O’Dwyer was honoured for outstanding contributions to materials chemistry leading to innovations in solid state devices and electrochemical energy storage technology.

Two students from the School are currently participating in the RSC’s Broadening Horizons initiative. Earlier in June they attended the Taster Event in Manchester to bring together the scholars with alumni and industry partners.

Congratulations to our PhD students whose conferring ceremony took place on Friday the 20th of June, and our best wishes to them in their future endeavours.