Chemistry

Andrew Thompson is a British scientist with over 30 years’ experience spanning academic research, drug discovery, global health and life science innovation. After completing his PhD in Neuropharmacology in 1998, he spent 15 years at the University of Cambridge, leading research into drug screening and target engagement. His work resulted in 75 peer-reviewed publications and was supported by organisations including the Wellcome Trust and British Heart Foundation.

Andrew subsequently managed national and international research programmes at Cambridge’s Department of Medicine, helping secure £12 million in funding and supporting rare disease research and international collaborations. Later, at PetMedix, he led monoclonal antibody development programmes to advance therapeutic candidate towards clinical studies.

In 2018, Andrew co-founded SMi Systems, where he is CEO. He has since led the company in securing over £10 million in funding, establishing UK and US facilities, and help develop a patented single-molecule imaging technology. His career has focuses on transforming drug discovery and diagnostics through highly sensitive, high-throughput molecular analysis.

Dr. Kirill Gurdumov is a senior research scientist in the Nuclear Signatures group at PNNL. He competed his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at Washington State University in the Hipps/Mazur group (2022), where he studied the dynamics and energetics of molecular self-assembly at the solution-solid interface. He continued his surface science research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2023) where he joined the Chemical Physics and Analysis group studying supercooled film formation and phase transformation. He then joined the Nuclear Signatures group at PNNL developing gas separations processes for deployable nuclear explosion monitoring systems.

Damien Culver received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Adams State University in Alamosa, CO in 2015. He earned his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of California, Riverside in 2020 under the guidance of Professor Matthew Conley, focusing on the design and mechanistic understanding of well-defined heterogeneous catalysts and molecular structure and bonding. Following his doctoral work, Damien joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Washington State University as a postdoctoral researcher, working with Professor James Boncella on multidentate ligand-supported transition metal complexes designed with unique geometries to drive cooperative catalysis. In 2023, Damien joined Ames National Laboratory as a staff scientist, where his group develops molecular and heterogeneous catalysts for selective chemical transformations and energy storage.

Md. Wahad Zaman, PhD student in Dr. Kevin Kittilstved’s research group, will present on “Reversible dopant–defect coupling across dimensionality and Interface: Oxygen-vacancy engineering of electronic structure in Ruddlesden–Popper titanates and Ti1-xZrxO2 Photocatalysts.”