Submitted by Pooja Pandey on Sat, 12/11/2022 - 21:24
Prof. Jacqui Cole officially received her award after presenting the prize lecture at the Royal Society. Her interdisciplinary research aims to provide a data-driven approach to materials discovery.
Professor Jacqueline Cole was officially awarded the Clifford Paterson Medal after presenting her prize lecture. Originally honoured with the award in 2020, her prize lecture was delayed due to the global pandemic and took place earlier this month at the Royal Society.
The award is endowed by The General Electric Company in memory of Clifford Paterson FRS and is given for outstanding contributions in the field of engineering . Professor Cole has been awarded the Clifford Paterson Medal “for the development of photo-crystallography and the discovery of novel high-performance nonlinear optical materials and light-harvesting dyes using molecular design rules".
Prof. Cole is the Head of Molecular Engineering at Cambridge, Professor of Materials Physics at the Cavendish laboratory and BASF / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Data-driven Molecular Engineering of Functional Materials. Drawing from multiple fields her interdisciplinary research “combines artificial intelligence with data science, computational methods and experimental research to realise a 'design-to-device' pipeline for data-driven materials discovery.” Often referred to as a non-traditional academic, Prof. Cole has continued to draw from multiple disciplines for her research. Her current research applies the latest AI advances to predict new chemical materials tailored to a given application, primarily in solar cells, magnetic devices and catalysts. The lead candidates from these materials are then validated experimentally, that are carried out at ISIS, the Central Laser Facility, Diamond Light Source and the Research Complex at Harwell.
Her lecture focused on 'chemistry aware' text-mining software, ChemDataExtractor, and its applications in the energy sector; and stressed her extensive work applying the software to materials used in solar cells, thermoelectric devices, magnetocalorics and batteries.
“I am really honoured. I feel energised to keep innovating and to use my research in future to help develop a circular economy that safeguards the natural environment”, said Prof. Jacqui Cole.
Image credits: Tiffany Lin Photography
References: https://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/News22_JCwinsCliffordPatersonMedal.aspx