20/11/2024: Seminar at the Faculty of Science, University of Malta
The ER delivered a seminar to colleagues at the Faculty of Science and the Department of Chemistry at the end of the project to disseminate the results of the project to the academic community at the University of Malta. This was followed by coffee and cake to help foster networking within the community.
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Near the end of the project, the fellow was hosted by Smart Materials, a start-up company in Malta which pioneered and patented a method to produce auxetic flexible PU foam directly during synthesis, eliminating the need for conventional post-processing. During the visit, the fellow got the opportunity to visit the industrial plant and to shadow the CEO Dr Keith Azzopardi, featured in the photo below. The visit was beneficial to the fellow as it enabled her to gain an insight into how academic research can proceed to be scaled up to market scale and be put on the market. She contributed to the visit by presenting a presentation on the results of the project and discussions were held on how such results can be implemented on an industrial level.
17th to 21st June 2024: The research fellow attended the 11th International Conference on Auxetics and other materials and models with “negative” characteristics held in Dymaczemo Nowe near Poznań, Poland. She presented her work through an oral presentation entitled Towards the Synthesis of Auxetic Molecular Networks; Preparation of Precursors. For this conference she was accompanied by many of the Auxetics team at the University of Malta. It was an excellent opportunity to network with pioneers and emerging experts in the field of auxetics research. The PhD student, Ms Grace Ann Muscat also presented her work.
29th May 2024: University of Malta Research Conference 2024: The research fellow presented a poster entitled Calixarene tubes with potential auxetic properties at the University of Malta Research Conference 2024 held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta, Malta. It was an great opportunity to network with Maltese researchers from diverse fields and to showcase the AMPLIFI project on a local level. Ms Grace Ann Muscat also presented a poster about her doctoral work.
29-30th March 2024
Dr Maria Cardona was invited to give an oral presentation entitled “Towards Molecular Auxetics – Recent Advances and Insights” at the “Advances in Chemical and Applied Sciences for Sustainable Development (ACASSD-2024). Thanks to Dr Anita Nehra for this opportunity.
26-27th March 2024
Dr Maria Cardona was invited to give a lecture at the Malviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Thanks to Dr Raj Kumar Joshi for this opportunity.
8th March 2024
Dr Maria Cardona meets the Deputy High Commissioner for India in Malta, Mr Aniruddha Das prior to leaving for the International Conference on “Advances in Chemical and Applied Sciences for Sustainable Development (ACASSD-2024) held by the Department of Chemistry, School of Sciences, JECRC University, Jaipur Rajesthan, India. This event was shared on facebook by the same Commission
4-6 September 2023 UK Metamaterials Network International Conference on Mechanical Metamaterials
The MSCA fellow attended the “UK Metamaterials Network International Conference on Mechanical Metamaterials” together with the academics and doctoral students of the Metamaterials Unit research group. She presented a talk entitled “Novel 3D auxetic system based on calix[4]arenes”.
The Metamaterials Research Team on the way to Manchester for the conference
The MSCA fellow delivered an oral presentation
The doctoral student, Ms Grace Ann Muscat, co-supervised by the MSCA fellow, presented a poster entitled “Covalent organic Frameworks and their auxetic potential.”
The poster presented by Ms Grace Ann Muscat
16-21 July 2023 The Joint Conference on Calixarenes and Cucurbiturils, Tel Aviv Israel
The fellow attended the conference on Calixarenes where she attended lectures and networked with prominent scientists in the area. She presented her work through a poster entitled:
“Moving Towards Calixarene-Based Systems”
On Wednesday, 17th May, Dr Maria Cardona presented the project concept of AMPLIFI at the first ever University of Malta Research Expo.
University of Malta Research Expo 2023
During the secondment in Parma, the fellow, Dr Maria Cardona participated in group meetings and also gave a seminar to the research groups in Parma who are working with calixarenes and auxetic synthetic systems. The meetings were a good opportunity for the teams to understand what are auxetics and who the project aims to bridge the world of synthetic organic chemistry and auxetics. It was also a good opportunity to network and discuss with other researchers who have adopted different solutions to similar research questions about molecular auxetic systems.
Between the 9th of January and the 5th of May 2023, the research fellow was seconded in the laboratory of Professor Alessandro Casnati at the University of Parma where she could start the second stage of the project, that is the synthesis of a potentially auxetic calixarene dynamic polymer.
29th May - 2nd June 2022
The MSCA fellow attended a summer school in Sardinia where she had the opportunity to learn about the latest advances in supramolecular chemistry from leading scientists in the field and network with fellow researchers and scientists in the field. During this summer school she presented a poster entitled “On the auxetic behaviour of novel calixarene-based systems”.
