September 2024

August 2024

  • (Anand) Attended the Alfons van Blaaderen / SCMB conference celebrating Alfons’ 60th birthday and the SCMB group’s 25th anniversary. Quite an impressive diversity of talks.

June 2024

  • June 25: Ashish Joy will present his (and Shivani’s) work on AC electrophoresis today as an oral presentation at the ACS Colloids & Surface Science Symposium in Seattle.
Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy set up - red and blue lasers

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: a fluorescence correlation spectroscopy set up with red and blue lasers! Victor is planning to get it working and to use it this summer.

May 2024

  • May 15: Congratulations to Venketesh wins the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists Jerry Batista award to attend the COMP annual scientific meeting – the awards don’t seem to stop for Venky!
  • May 10: Departmental poster session highlighted all the research going on in the Department of Physics & Physical Oceanography. Ashish wins “Best Poster” prize. And Majid wins the students’ choice Best Poster – congratulations to both !!

April 2024

  • Shivani gets hired by the National Research Council in Ottawa – BIG CONGRATULATIONS! We celebrated with Ethiopian food on her last day in the lab.

February 2024

Victor Borges tied for first place to win the Tindall/Steinitz Award, the top prize given at the annual Atlantic Undergraduate Physics & Astronomy Conference (AUPAC), awarded to the undergraduate student giving the best research presentation. Congratulations, Victor!

The presentation was entitled “Using Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy to Categorize Electrophoretic Mobility and Diffusion in Colloidal Nanoparticles”.

October 2023

Venketesh (graduated and now working in medical physics) wins best poster award at the  ISMRM-SNMMI PET/MRI workshop. Congratulations!

Brief visit to Reine Nehmé’s laboratory in ICOA to learn more about microscale thermophoresis.

June 2023

Majid poses in front of his new electro-rheo-microscopy set up.

May 2023

Sina presents at the Biophysical Society of Canada meetings in Calgary!

  • May 26: Students from École des Grand-Vents (grade 6) visited! Arranged by Stefan Wallin and myself, they visited our lab in Physics to see demonstrations by Majid, Ashish, Nishel and Anas, the liquid nitrogen/helium facility (to see the coldest point in Newfoundland – thanks to Frank), and the NMR facility (thanks to Céline Schneider)!
  • May 8: Nishel Alexander joins the lab from University of Prince Edward Island for the summer term. He will work with me on construction of the fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) set up, and also on fluorescent tagging and purifying proteins and polymers.

December 2022

Shivani and Kirti decked out at their wedding in Dehradun – congratulations!

Our equipment grant (for an FCS setup) is in the local MUN news.

October 2022

September 2022

  • Shivani’s Dipolar Depletion paper (with Cassandra and Ivan) accepted in Phys. Rev. X!
  • Venky’s Ficoll paper (with Saman and Stefan, and Yun Liu from NIST) accepted in Macromolecules!
  • Ealisha returns to complete her Masters in Environmental Science!

June 2022

Venky convocation: perfect balance!

May 2022

Grade 6 students from École des Grand-Vents, who are currently studying electricity and magnetism, visited Physics (our lab, as well as the labs of Profs. Andrews and Chen). In our lab, Victor Borges showed them experiments on colloidal particles being driven into oscillatory motion by electricity. Anas Alhasanat showed how to mix liquids with magnetism. Frank from the liquefaction facility showed them the Stirling engine that makes liquid nitrogen: then they got to see superconductivity in action in the undergraduate lab upstairs.

  • Venketesh gets the Graduate Academic Excellence ISRA award – 2022 by the International Students Resource Center, MUN. Also this week, Venky got a job as Assistant medical physicist at the Dr. H Bliss Murphy Cancer Center – congratulations two-fold!!
  • Dillip Mohapatra arrives in St. John’s to begin his postdoc – welcome!
  • Victor Borges begins summer research doing micro-electrophoresis studies

April 2022

Ashish Joy arrives in St. John’s to start a PhD – welcome !

Congratulations to Shivani (April 28) for a successful PhD defence!

Left to right: Qiying Chen, AY, Shivani, Ivan Saika-Voivod, John Dutcher (screen large), Mykhaylo Evstigneev (screen small)

Congratulations to Venky (April 14) for a successful PhD defence!

Left to right: Mike Morrow, AY, Venky, Alan Denton (screen), Ivan Saika-Voivod

Sina Heravi is awarded the best poster presentation in biochemistry at the SEA (Scientific Endeavours in Academia) conference at MUN – congratulations!

Venky receives the Burton’s Pond Award (for exceptional dedication to improving the quality of life for the residents of Family Housing. Congratulations!

March 2022

Congratulations Venketesh and Sandhya: welcome to the world, baby Hridya!

January 2022

Josipa Cecić-Vidos begins working in Orléans (Josef Hamacek group) as part of the X-CROWD project.

November 2021

  • Majid Bahraminasr arrives in St. John’s – welcome!
  • Suhad’s study of internal dynamics in polymer microgels is published in Langmuir.

August 2021

  • Anas Alhasanat and Sina Heravi arrive in St. John’s – welcome!!!
  • Shivani’s Deans Doctoral Award just got extended by a semester!

June 2021

Venketesh is awarded “Fellow of the school of graduate studies” by MUN’s School of Graduate Studies for his “continued academic excellence”. Congratulations, Venky!

May 2021

  • Erica Short completes her honours thesis (congratulations!) and begins a Canada Summer Jobs work term, joint with Stefan Wallin and AY. She is simulating polyethylene glycol at varying concentrations.
  • Shivani and Venketesh share their thoughts and perspective on the current second wave of Covid in India on VOCM radio.

Apr 2021

Shivani Semwal and her exciting work with the Kalpana Network, a network of female STEM students, mentors and STEM subject experts featured on the Gazette.

Shivani in the Soft Materials Lab (MUN Gazette)

Mar 2021

Yanitza Trosel was awarded the 2020/2021 J. Bruce and Helen H. French Graduate Scholarship in Physics. This scholarship recognizes excellence in both course work and research in the Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography. Congratulations, Yanitza!

Feb 2021

Yanitza Trosel wins a Student Research Achievement Award in Physical Cell Biology at the Biophysical Society Meeting. Congratulations, Yanitza!

On the occasion of the International Day of Women in STEM, Shivani Semwal speaks about her association with Vigyaan Shaala International and mentorship.

Spot the two Memorial soft materials graduates in CAP’s Spot the Physicist poster! [Hint: their names begin with A.]

StudentProgrammeAward/RecognitionYear(s)Award Amount

T. R. Venketesh
PhDGraduate Academic Excellence Award (International Students Resource Center, MUN2022
Burtons Pond MUN Award for Student Leaders2022
Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies Award, Memorial U.2021
Graduate Student of the week award, Memorial U.2020
MITACS Globalink Research Fellowship to visit a French lab2019$6k
Shivani SemwalPhDDean’s Doctoral Award, Memorial University2017-2021$5k/yr
MITACS Globalink Research Fellowship to visit a Dutch lab2019$6k
Yanitza TroselPhDMITACS Accelerate – Lab2Market Award2022$15k
3 Minute Thesis competition, Memorial University2018
Oral presentation award, CAP Congress2018
Poster presentation award, Biophysical Society meeting, USA2021
Victor BorgesUGAUPAC Cup, Atlantic Undergraduate Physics and Astronomy Conference, Halifax, NS2023
Tindall-Steinitz Prize for Best Oral Presentation, AUPAC, Sackville, NB2024
Sina HeraviMScBarrowman Travel Award, Memorial University2023$400
Best Poster Presentation at Biochemistry, Memorial University2022$100
Biochemistry Graduate Teaching Excellence Award, Memorial University2022$100
Majid BahraminasrPhDDean’s Doctoral Award, Memorial University2021-2025$5k/yr
Ashish JoyPhDBest poster, Departmental Poster session, Memorial University2024$100
Jinesh MachalePostdocCo-chair at the Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference organized by the University of Calgary and the Chemical Institute of Canada.2023
Dorcas AkrongPhDBest Presenter (Oral) award during the 24th Aldrich Conference, organized by the Graduate Student Union, Memorial University2023