RSC Advances Outstanding Student Paper Awards 2021

In 2021, RSC Advances launched an award series to recognise the hard work of students. These awards recognise outstanding work published in the journal, for which a substantial component of the research was conducted by a student.


Dr Laura Fisher, Executive Editor for RSC Advances
In 2021, RSC Advances launched an award series to recognise the hard work of students. These awards recognise outstanding work published in the journal, for which a substantial component of the research was conducted by a student. In order to be eligible for this award, the article must have been a research article and the rst author or co-rst author must have been a student at the time of carrying out the research. I'm delighted to say that we received over 900 nominations, which were shortlisted based on a number of criteria, and the winning papers were then selected by our Editorial Board and Associate Editors. Below, we highlight the winner of each subject category, and highlight the research that they carried out that led to them being chosen as a winner of this award.

Analytical chemistry
Vanessa N. Ataide, São Paulo University, Brazil Vanessa is recognised for her outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Enhanced performance of pencil-drawn paper-based electrodes by laser-scribing treatment (https:// doi.org/10.1039/D0RA08874A).
Vanessa graduated in Chemistry (2015) from Presbyterian Mackenzie University. She received her MSc (2018) from the Institute of Chemistry of the University of São Paulo under the supervision of Prof. Dr Thiago R. L. C. Paixão. She is currently a PhD student with the same supervisor and in the same institution. Her research interests include electrochemical paper-based devices, carbon materials, fabrication of electrochemical sensors using low-cost techniques, and analytical applications involving clinical and environmental interest species. She receives nancial support from São Paulo Research Foundation -FAPESP ( Nova grew up in London and developed a strong interest in science whilst at school. She went on to complete her undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, during which she completed her nal year research project investigating mechanisms of drug resistance in cancer cell lines. This was an area of great interest and so Nova then stayed at the University of Kent to complete a MScR investigating the potential of supramolecular selfassociating amphiphiles as novel cancer treatments. Aer completing her masters program, Nova completed a PGCE in secondary education and is now a science teacher at a secondary school in West London. In her free time Nova likes to partake in sports such as netball and swimming and enjoys travelling and reading.

Catalysis
Jairus L. Lamola, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Jairus is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Evaluation of Pbridged biaryl phosphine ligands in palladium-catalysed Suzuki-Miyaura crosscoupling reactions (https://doi.org/ 10.1039/D1RA04947J).
Jairus Lamola was born in Sebokeng, a small township in Gauteng Province, South Africa. He graduated with BSc chemistry and biochemistry, and BSc(Hons) chemistry degrees from the University of Johannesburg (South Africa) in 2015 and 2016, respectively. He then obtained a Master's degree in organic chemistry, in 2018 under the supervision of Dr Edwin Mmutlane. He received the Faculty of Science Dean's award for the best nal-year BSc student in 2015 as well as the top third-year student awards in chemistry and biochemistry (2015).
He started his PhD studies in organic chemistry in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Chris Maumela and cosupervision of Prof. Cedric Holzapfel and Dr Paseka Moshapo. His doctoral research focuses on the design and development of novel P-bridged biaryl phosphine ligands for palladiumcatalysed cross-coupling reactions. The PhD study has so far resulted in the publication of four research articles in international peer reviewed journals. Outside of work, he also enjoys cooking, storytelling, admiring nature and its biodiversity.

Computational and theoretical chemistry
Abhishek T. Sose, Virginia Tech, USA Abhishek is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Modelling drug adsorption in metal-organic frameworks: the role of solvent (https://doi.org/10.1039/ D1RA01746B).
Abhishek Tejrao Sose is currently a fourth-year PhD student working under the supervision of Dr Sanket Deshmukh in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Virginia Tech. His research is focused on the integration of the newly emerging eld of articial intelligence (AI) with molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to accelerate the design of new hybrid materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), for biomedical and energy applications. A large part of his research also involves the development of accurate and transferable all-atom (AA) and coarse-grained (CG) models that are accelerated by optimization algorithms.
Aer nishing his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in 2017, Abhishek decided to pursue his doctoral studies at Virginia Tech. Thus far, he has published four peer-reviewed journal articles (including three rstauthored articles) and given 6 oral presentations and 5 poster presentations, at national and international His Masters research focussed on phytoremediation studies in evaluating the exact phytoremediation rate (inorganics removalammonia, nitrate and phosphate) using an axenic method, and its performance in sh farm wastewater, aiming to enhance the treatment capacity and efficiency. He succeeded in isolation of the axenic cultures of Hemianthus callitrichoides, Vesicularia montagnei (Christmas moss), Salvinia molesta, Spirodela polyrhiza, and Lemna sp. for his study and side projects. He also received a travel bursary from the university to attend the International Phytotechnologies Conference in Hangzhou, China, that was organised by the International Phytotechnology Society (IPS), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISSCAS) in Autumn 2016. He obtained MSc in chemical engineering in 2018. His doctorate studies concentrate on the role, mechanism, and mitigation of fouling from marine algae and their organics in membrane distillation systems. He obtained his MyMaster Scholarship from the Ministry of Education Malaysia and USM Fellowship for his studies. So far, he has published 8 international journal papers and 1 conference proceeding (ISI and Scopus indexed). He has been invited to perform 2 manuscript reviews for the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
He is also a member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) and Microbiology Society, UK.

Yao Lu, Renmin University of China, China
Yao Lu is recognised for her outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Promotion effects of avonoids on browning induced by enzymatic oxidation of tyrosinase: structureactivity relationship (https://doi.org/ 10.1039/D1RA01369F).
Yao Lu received her MS degree from the Department of Chemistry, Renmin University of China in 2021, under the guidance of Prof. Rui-Min Han. Her research eld is physical chemistry mainly concerning the interactions of avonoids with tyrosinase. Her research interest is studying biochemical reaction mechanisms using optical spectroscopy.

Inorganic chemistry
Aayushi Arora and Preeti Oswal, Doon University, India Aayushi and Preeti are recognised for their outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Catalytically active nanosized Pd 9 Te 4 (telluropalladinite) and PdTe (kotulskite) alloys: rst precursor-architecture controlled synthesis using palladium complexes of organotellurium compounds as single source precursors (https://doi.org/10.1039/ D0RA08732G).
Ms Aayushi Arora who was born in Agra, India, in 1993, studied at Doon University Dehradun (2017-2021 for her PhD under the supervision of Dr Arun Kumar. She has been the recipient of the highly prestigious Indo-U.S. Fellowship for Women in STEMM (WISTEMM). With this fellowship, she carried out research work in 2020 at Texas A&M University, USA, under the supervision of Prof. John A. Gladysz. She has also been felicitated by the Hon'ble Governor of the State of Uttarakhand, India, at Rajbhawan on Uttarakhand Foundation Day, for her achievements as a young woman in science. Her research includes development and applications of new catalytic systems, designing uorescent probes for sensing metal ions and Werner's complexes for hydrogen bond donor catalysis. She has contributed to more than two dozen publications including articles and book chapters. In the short span of her career so far her h-index is 8.
Preeti Oswal was born in Himachal Pradesh, India, in 1995. Aer receiving her BSc and MSc degrees in chemistry in 2017, she became the recipient of a highly prestigious national DST-INSPIRE fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, for pursuing PhD research for ve years. For the last four and a half years she has been a PhD scholar at the Department of Chemistry, Doon University Dehradun, India, under the supervision of Dr Arun Kumar. She is working on designing novel organochalcogen and organophosphorous compounds which she uses as building blocks for catalysts and electrolysis. Her research experience includes homogeneous, heterogenous and nano-catalysis of various organic reactions such as Suzuki coupling, C-O coupling, aldehyde to amide transformation, allylation of aldehydes and Sonogashira coupling. She has also fabricated Pd 6 P at the nanoscale and explored its electrocatalytic application in hydrogen evolution reactions. At her young age and short span of her career so far, she has contributed to publishing more than 20 articles in journals of high repute, and 4 book chapters.

Materials chemistry
Shyam K. Pahari, University of Massachusetts, USA Shyam is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Designing high energy density ow batteries by tuning active-material thermodynamics (https:// doi.org/10.1039/D0RA10913D).
Shyam Pahari is a doctoral candidate in inorganic chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, studying energy materials in the lab of Prof. Patrick Cappillino. His dissertation research focuses on designing high energy-density active materials for non-aqueous redox ow batteries by examining the effect of molecular structure on thermodynamic properties of electrolytes. In particular, he investigates the interplay between solvation-free energy and lattice enthalpy in determining active material solubility utilizing experimental and computational approaches.
Shyam is a rst-generation college student and holds a MSci from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu. Prior to joining UMass Dartmouth, he briey worked as a high school chemistry teacher.

Mina
Shawky Adly, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA Mina is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Efficient removal of heavy metals from polluted water with high selectivity for Hg(II) and Pb(II) by a 2-imino-4-thiobiuret chemically modied MIL-125 metal-organic framework (https://doi.org/ 10.1039/D1RA00927C).
Mina Shawky Adly is currently a lecturer of physical chemistry in the Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Egypt. He earned his BSc at Mansoura University in 2012, and his Master's degree in physical chemistry from the same university. He received a joint supervision grant from the Ministry of Higher Education from 2019 to 2020. He has worked under the supervision of professor Samy El-Shall at the College of Humanities and Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA. In his thesis, he pioneered metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for different applications in adsorption and catalysis. He obtained his PhD in surface chemistry and catalysis in 2021 from Mansoura University. Recently, Mina's research has focused on the synthesis of new MOFs and their applications related to the environment and energy, such as heavy metals removal, solar steam generation, and supercapacitors. He supervises research activities in the same eld and teaches surface chemistry to Bachelor students in different programs at the