AMBER Conference 2024 – Celebrating excellence in Materials Science

18 April 2024

 

The AMBER Conference 2024 took place in the Alex Hotel, Dublin from Monday 15th – Tuesday 16th April 2024. AMBER is the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research. The intent of the Conference was to review progress on our scientific programmes across our four research themes of ICT, Energy, Health, Functional Materials and Sustainability. The format was a mixture of talks, poster sessions and workshops.

We were delighted to welcome Deputy Director General of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Ciarán Seoighe to open our conference who had had two calls to action for our attendees, PIs, PhD, PostDoc and Masters Students, Visiting Researchers, Research Fellows and Operations Staff:

1. ‘It is Incumbent on us all to make the case for investment in science’

‘2. Prioritise building your own network’

We had two fantastic guest speakers:

Laura Lewis of Northeastern University, Distinguished University & Cabot Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering who gave a talk ‘Magnetism.. More than just Magnets’

Jos Malda of Utrecht University, Professor Biofabrication in Translational Regenerative Medicine Department of Orthopaedics (UMC Utrecht) and Clical Sciences of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University gave a talk on the future of Bio-Engineering.

     

We had a very engaging PhD & PostDoc Collaboration session which saw researchers networking with a focus on collaborating across disciplines and institutions to pitch a project that focuses on the AMBER themes of ICT, Engineered Functional Materials/Sustainable Materials, Energy and Health.

Following the days events Dinner was had and awards were give to

Education and Public Engagement Champions 2023/ 2024:

• Juan Carlos Palomeque (RCSI)
• Munirah Ghariani (TCD) (Prof. Yurii Gun’ko collected the EPE champion award on behalf of Munirah Ghariani)
• Cian O’Connor (RCSI)​
• Danielle Douglas Henry (TCD)

Posters

• HEALTH: Jack Maughan (RCSI)
• ICT: Dr Sajan Singh (TCD)
• Energy: Kavin Arunasalam (TCD)
• Sustainable Functional Materials: Dr Ayan Halder (UL)

Talks:

• Muireann Cosgrave (RCSI) Sustainable Functional Materials, ‘Synthesis of novel materials for printing and film formation Diblock Polypeptide Hydrogels as Bioinks for 3D Printing in Tissue Engineering’
• Dr Hodjat Hajian​ (TCD) ICT, ‘A reprogrammable metasurface for LiDAR applications​’
• Dr Sinead O’Rourke​ (TCD)​ Health​, ‘Investigating the impact of tissue source in the immune response to ECM-derived biomaterials’
• ​Dr Danielle Douglas Henry​ (TCD​) Energy, ‘The collaborative use of Electron Microscopy and Density Functional Theory for the characterization of exfoliated two-dimensional PtSe2 nanoflakes​’

And finally for Best Image:

Cian O’Connor, ‘Reaching for Connections’

Javier Gutierrez Gonzalez, ‘Primary cells growing on aligned MXene’

 

Day 2 Kicked off with 3 engaging workshops:

‘Education & Public Engagement (EPE) & RTÉ Brainstorm Workshop​’​
Mairéad Holden – EPE Manager, AMBER ​​
Jim Carroll – Editor, RTÉ Brainstorm​

‘Early Career in Research & how to get published’​
Panellists: Ortwin Hess, Edward Casey, Larisa Florea, Gillian Collins, Marco Monopoli            ​
​Lorraine Byrne, AMBER – Moderator

‘Commercialisation of Research’​
Panellist: Neil Gordon , John Whelan, Sebastien Vaesen, Conor Buckley, Fletcher Thompson​
Claire McKenna, AMBER – Moderator