Left: Nathan Davison (PhD from 2020.01, PDRA from 2023.09)

Middle: Jordan Barker (MChem, left 2023.05)

Right: Erli Lu

Xiao Yang (PhD, joined 2023.09)

MSc: Zhejiang University, China

Oreo the Cat (group cat, joined 2017.08)

Always work from home to help Erli.

Nathan is the Lu group veteran. He graduated from Newcastle University with a summer project in the Keith Izod group, and a final-year MChem project in the Lee Higham group. He joined Erli's group in 2020.01, as a NUAcT-programme funded PhD student, and rejoined the group in 2023.09 as a PDRA (3-year), funded by a Leverhulme Trust project.

Nathan has published 10 first-authored papers to date (2023.10) (1 Chem, 2 J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2 Chem. Commun., 2 Inorg. Chem., 2 Dalton Trans., 1 Eur. J. Inorg. Chem.). Nathan has won an RSC Research Enablement Grant (£10k) for a 6-month extension of his PhD programme.

During his PDRA, Nathan will look to unlock new frontiers of Group-1 metal chemistry, especially in solid-state.

Jack graduated from University of Edinburgh with a MChem degree in 2015, and submitted his PhD thesis in 2023.09, within the same institution. His PhD project was under supervision of Profs. Carole Morrison and Colin Pulham, developing new computational methods to predicting and tailoring new energy materials (funded by the US Air Force).

After submission his PhD thesis in 2023.09, Jack joined the Lu Group as a PDRA, with a joint appointment with James Dawson Group (also at Newcastle).

During his PDRA in the Dawson/Lu Groups, Jack will develop new computational models to predict solid-state chemical reactions under mechanical forces, especially focusing on electron-/ion-transfers at the solid-solid interfaces.

Xiao graduated with a M.E. degree from Zhejiang University in Chemical Engineering (2019.09 - 2022.06), under the supervision of Prof. Chengliang Xiao. His Master project was about extraction and complexation behavior of tetradentate phenanthroline-derived ligands to trivalent lanthanides and actinides.

Xiao joined the Lu Group in 2023.09 as a PhD student. He will study coordination chemistry of Group-1 metals, especially Li, Na and K. His research will focus on: (i) Unravelling structure-reactivity relationship; (ii) Unlocking unprecedented low-coordination subvalent Group-1 metal complexes.