The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering is holding its third seminar session on 8 September 2021, at 9am PKST (GMT +5) via Zoom. In this session, Professor John Hartwig, from the University of California, Berkeley will be talking about 'Changing Chemical Synthesis with Catalysis". 

About the speaker: 

John F. Hartwig is one of the leading scientists in the field of catalysis. He received PhD in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1990 and started his academic career as an Assistant Professor at Yale University in 1992 and was promoted to professor in 2008. Prof. Harwig was a junior professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign before moving to the UC Berkeley where he is Henry Rapoport Chair in Organic Chemistry, and Senior Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2011.

Prof. Hartwig’s research group focuses on the discovery and understanding of new reactions of organic compounds catalyzed by transition metal complexes and artificial metalloenzymes. These findings result from a combination of organic synthesis, organometallic synthesis, protein design and evolution, and mechanistic analysis of catalytic systems.

Prof. Hartwig has numerous awards and names lectureships to his credit. For instance, he was awarded ACS Catalysis Lectureship (2013), ACS Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2004), national Institute of health MERIT Award (2014).

Registration: Please register at https://forms.gle/mD2zUc8oBueEc8ow5 to attend the live Zoom session.

The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering is holding an insightful seminar on the topic of "Biologically Relevant Metrics of Particles in Indoor and Outdoor Environments" by Dr. Shahana Khurshid on 27 August 2021, at 3:30pm PST. 

About the Speaker: Dr. Shahana Khurshid studies air pollutants and their ability to cause adverse health effects. She has led over 25 research projects in universities, companies, and federal labs on air quality, exposure to pollutants, environmental conservation, cell lines, polymers, and biomedical assays. She grew up in Karachi, Pakistan before moving to the U.S. to pursue higher education where she received her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from MIT graduating in the top 5% of her class, M.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from UT Austin. After her Ph.D. she has worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and at UT Austin.

Centre for Water Informatics & Technology at LUMS is pleased to announce the next talk of the "Best of Water Systems Research" seminar series. The talk will be delivered by Dr. Ariel Dinar of UC Riverside and is titled "Dealing with Water Scarcity and Salinity: Adoption of Water Efficient Technologies and Management Practices by California Avocado Growers". 

About the speaker: Dr. Ariel Dinar is a Distinguished Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy at the School of Public Policy, University of California, Riverside (UCR). His work addresses various aspects of economic and strategic behavior associated with management of water, land and the environment. Dr. Dinar received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since then he spent 15 years in the World Bank working on water and climate change economics and policy. In 2008, Dr. Dinar assumed a professorship at UCR. Dr. Dinar founded the Water Science and Policy Center, which he directed until 2014. Dr. Dinar is an International Fellow of the Center for Agricultural Economic Research of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel since November 2010; a Fulbright Senior Specialist since 2003; and was named a 2015 Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. He authored and co-authored nearly 250 publications in peer reviewed journals, policy outlets and book chapters. He co-authored and edited 29 books and textbooks. He founded two technical journals (Strategic Behavior and the Environment, and Water Economics and Policy) for the latter one he serves at present as an Editor-in-Chief. He founded and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the book series Global Issues in Water Policy.    
 
About the seminar series: The “Best of Water Systems Research” is a webinar series initiated by The Center for Water Informatics & Technology at LUMS. While our companion webcast series “Aab Beeti” is geared towards generating public awareness and meeting leading practitioners and opinion makers in Pakistan’s water sector, this new series (BWSR) is primarily meant for discussing serious scholarship on water resources. The series celebrates distinguished works in water systems research and is aimed towards researchers, practitioners, and technical experts in water-related areas. The list of speakers majorly consists of individuals who regularly deploy quantitative data-driven methods & systems thinking and have earned recognition via peer-reviewed research in top journals. Also, many of the speakers may or may not have a direct interest in the Indus or South Asia’s other basins.

The talks are (mostly) delivered bi-weekly on Wednesday evenings. A tentative schedule for the webinars can be found at https://wit.lums.edu.pk/BWSR2021 which also includes recordings of past sessions and information on future speakers.

A link for attending will be sent via email to registered individuals. Colleagues who register once can attend all future talks without the need to register again.
 

The cost-effective and waste-free synthesis of materials, life science goods, and all kinds of organic products require efficient chemical transformations. In this regard, the development of more active and selective catalysts constitutes a key factor for achieving improved processes and providing a sustainable chemical industry and society. Despite continuous advancements in all areas of catalysis, organic syntheses and the industrial production of most chemicals can be improved significantly in terms of sustainability and efficiency. The talk will show how new and improved homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts can be developed by learning from each other. Specifically, the phenomenon of cooperative catalysis will be addressed in the context of non-noble metal-based catalysts. In detail, it will be demonstrated that recently developed molecular-defined and nanostructured cobalt and iron catalysts enable catalytic (de)hydrogenation processes with high yields and unprecedented selectivity. Examples that demonstrate the potential of such catalytic processes with bio-relevant metal complexes compared to more traditional catalytic reactions will also include reactions for energy technologies.   

About the speaker:   

Prof. Matthias Beller is one of the world’s leading professionals in the field of catalysis. He is the Scientific Director and Head of the Department of Applied Homogeneous Catalysis at Leibniz Institute of Catalysis, University of Rostock, Germany.  He completed his PhD with a distinction from the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Gottingen. After that, he spent some time with Prof. Sharpless at the Massachusetts of Technology. Prof. Beller spent some time in the industry, after which he joined the Technical University of Munich as an associate professor in 1996. Since 1998, he is a professor of catalysis at Leibniz Institute of Catalysis.  

The research work of Prof. Beller centers on one of the key technologies of the new millennium: catalysis. Catalysts accelerate chemical reactions and reduce the amount of energy required for production. They are indispensable helpers and bring together, which in part would never connect without them.  His group’s work has been published in more than 800 original publications and reviews, and more than 90 patent applications have been filed in the past decade.  

Prof. Beller has received several awards, including the Otto-Roelen Medal and the Leibniz-Price of the DFG. In 2006, he was also awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year” of Rostock, and he received the German Federal Cross of Merit. Since then, he has received the first “European Prize for Sustainable Chemistry,” the “Paul N. Rylander Award” of the Organic Reaction Catalysis Society (Richland, WA) the Gay-Lussac-Alexander-von-Humboldt-Prize of the French Academy of Sciences, and the Emil Fischer Medal of the German Chemical Society. In 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and received the Wöhler price for Sustainable Chemistry from the German Chemical Society and an ERC grant from the European Commission. In March 2016, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Rennes 1. Prof. Beller is also Vice President of the Leibniz Society, one of the major science organizations in Germany, and a member of the German National Academy of Science “Leopoldina” and three other science academies.  

The Centre for Water Informatics & Technology at SBASSE, LUMS is extremely excited to announce the launch of a webinar series intended to celebrate distinguished works in ‘Water Systems Research’. The seminars will be targeted towards researchers and technical experts working in water resource systems and will be delivered by scientists who have produced acclaimed research in the field. Securing the future of our water resources is becoming less of a problem of scarcity and more of a problem of effective management of what we already have. We strongly believe that this can be achieved only by adopting a systems perspective on water that takes into account the intricate linkages connecting the water system with food, energy, technology, and society. 'Best of Water Systems Research' is aimed at propagating the science and techniques of exactly this approach to sustain our water resources. In this series, WIT will be inviting top researchers who have applied systems theoretic methods to address real problems in water resource management.

The first talk will be delivered by Dr. Andrew Bell from Boston University on his work on participatory irrigation management in Punjab, Pakistan. Other confirmed speakers include Dr. Murugesu Sivapalan from UIUC, Dr. Ariel Dinar from UC Riverside, Dr. Grey Nearing from UC Davis, and Dr. Michael Mitchell from CSU Australia. Many other esteemed researchers are (and will be) invited and we are very excited to be able to learn collectively from their wealth of experiences. 

The talks will (mostly) be delivered bi-weekly on Wednesday evenings. A tentative schedule for the webinars can be found at here, while you can register here. The webinars will be streamed via zoom with the opportunity to interact with speakers during the Q&A after the presentation ends. A link for attending will be sent via email to registered individuals. Colleagues who register once can attend all future talks without the need to register again. 

The first talk will be delivered by Dr. Andrew Bell from Boston University and is titled: "Finding the next steps forward for IBIS water governance". The talk is scheduled for 6:00-7:00 pm PKT on Wednesday, July 28, 2021 and will be moderated by Dr. Talha Manzoor, Assistant Professor, Center for Water Informatics & Technology. 

About the speaker: Andrew Bell studies livelihoods and resource decision-making. including domains of irrigation, pest management, ecosystem services, technology adoption and migration. Most of his work applies survey and experimental tools (games, high-frequency smart-phone based surveys) to identify and model behaviour; and agent-based models to understand what these behaviours imply for system-level outcomes under scenarios of environmental change. He received his PhD (2010) in Natural Resource Management from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE, now SEAS), also MASc in Environmental Engineering from Waseda University and BASc in Environmental Engineering from the University of Waterloo. 

For more details and queries, contact Soban Hameed Saigol from WIT at soban.hameed@lums.edu.pk.

The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has initiated a biweekly series of webinars called “Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Webinars”.

In this series, some of the world’s best minds in chemical science and engineering are invited to share their latest research. The chosen topics are either the “holy grails in chemical science” or the rapidly emerging areas at the interface of Chemistry, Engineering, Biology, Materials Science, and Physics. The series will be beneficial, especially for graduate students and early-career researchers. Join us and learn from the world’s leading scientists how the fundamental building blocks of matter—atoms and molecules—can be manipulated to benefit Earth and its inhabitants.

The first talk of this series will be delivered by Professor John A. Rogers from the Northwestern University, USA. Participants can join this LIVE session via following details: 

 Zoom meeting ID: 936 7589 6155

Passcode: 823598

About the speaker

Since September 2016, John A. Rogers is a Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Neurological Surgery (and by courtesy Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Chemistry) at Northwestern University. He received Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry and S.M in Physics and Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before that, Rogers obtained BA and BS degrees in Chemistry and Physics from the University of Texas, Austin.

From 2003-2016, Professor Rogers holds a Swanlund Chair—the highest chaired position at the university—at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. His primary appointment was in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry, Bioengineering, Mechanical Science and Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Professor Rogers’ research (http://rogersgroup.northwestern.edu/) seeks to understand and exploit interesting characteristics of ‘soft’ materials, such as polymers, liquid crystals, and biological tissues as well as hybrid combinations of them with unusual classes of micro/nanomaterials, in the form of ribbons, wires, membranes, tubes or related. The aim is to control and induce novel electronic and photonic responses in these materials and develop new ‘soft lithographic’ and biomimetic approaches for patterning them and guiding their growth. Current research focuses on soft materials for conformal electronics, nanophotonic structures, microfluidic devices, and microelectromechanical systems, all lately emphasizing bio-inspired and bio-integrated technologies. These efforts are highly multidisciplinary and combine expertise from nearly every traditional field of technical study.

Professor Rogers has invented over 80 patents and patent applications, more than 50 licensed or in active use by large companies and startups. Professor Rogers has named several distinguished lectureships and awards to his credit.

The workshop co-organized by the University of Glasgow and LUMS, funded by the British Council, begins on June 08, 2021, Tuesday.

About 40 early career researchers from both UK and Pakistan are selected to participate in the workshop with experts as mentors.

We are pleased to have a distinguished panel of experts who will be delivering talks on Day 1:

• Mr. N. A. Zuberi (former MD PPIB and currently senior Advisor C-SAIL and Deputy CEO Kohala Hydro Power Project)
• Dr. Najeeb Ullah (Co-founder Cambridge Solar Environmental Solutions and Founding PD USPCASE)
• Dr. Mazhar Bari (SVP Tech. & Innovation, Siemens Ltd., Saudi Arabia)
• Dr. Jillian Anable (University of Leeds)
• Dr. Irshad Hussain (LUMS)
• Dr. Serena Corr (University of Sheffield)
• Dr. Muhammad Irfan (UET Peshawar)

Day 2 will be mostly focused on roundtable discussions led by experts in the field.

Day 3 will build upon Day 2 discussions and bring early career researchers to team up and deliberate on a research topic of mutual interest. They will also work on proposals for the challenge prizes.

There will be about 5-7 challenge prizes to support 6-month projects involving at least one UK and one Pakistan participant. The funds will support travel, chemicals, consumables and small-scale equipment.
 

Dr. Yarjan Abdul Samad is a world-renowned Pakistani scientist at Cambridge who is pushing the boundaries of nanotechnology in space science. Originally from a small village in a remote area of Pakistan, he has set great examples for hard work and resilience to become a space scientist at Cambridge.

We are honoured to have him for a discussion seminar where he will talk about "Graphene-based Hybrids and Composites and their Applications". 

Dr. Abdul Samad Is a Senior Research Scientist and a Teaching Fellow at Cambridge Graphene Centre. He Is the first Space Scientist from Pakistan at the University of Cambridge. His research work is focused on space technologies. and he has won several awards for his work. He is mentoring numerous graduate students. He got his Bachelors degree from Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute (GIKI) in Pakistan and Ph.D. from Khalif., University with research work done at top Institutions of Japan, USA and China. 

The topics he will cover are:

• Production of Graphene and related materials for Spacecrafts
• Development of graphene based composites, aerogels and coated electronic textiles
• Applications of manufactured graphene based components 

This event is scheduled for the following, please tune in according to your time zones:
Sunday, 2 May 2021 @ 12 noon US (CST), 6 pm UK, 8 pm Turkey/KSA, 10 pm Pakistan

To watch the seminar LIVE, please visit the links below: 
Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/SM-Nano
FB Live:  fb.me/STEMatters & fb.me/YPSoc

Iram Aziz is a PhD candidate for Chemistry and is going to present her research on the topic of “Nanostructured Carbons Containing FeNi/NiFe2O4 Supported Over N-doped Carbon Nanofibers for Oxygen Reduction and Evolution Reactions”. She has been working under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Salman Noshear Arshad. Meanwhile the committee members are Dr. Falak Sher and Dr. Basit Yameen from the Chemistry department at SBASSE LUMS.

This session is going to be conducted online via Zoom on Wednesday, 3rd March, 2021 at 3:00 PM.

Reference: Iram et al. RSC Advances 9, 36586-36599, 2019.