DPhil Student recognised as Future Leader

DPhil Student Dylan Sherman has been selected to the prestigious global CAS Future Leaders program for early-career scientists. He is one of 30 students from ten countries to receive the award.

Now in its 12th year, the CAS Future Leaders program is a global leadership program run by CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society. The program awards early-career scientists with leadership training and a trip to the ACS National Meeting & Exposition. This year’s participants were selected among hundreds of applicants, representing 10 countries and a wide array of scientific disciplines.

"I’m looking forward to networking, learning and growing through the program"

Dylan is a member of Multifunctional Materials and Composites (MMC) Lab in Engineering Science, and his DPhil explores MOFtronics: developing hybrid nanosheets functionalised by sandwiching guests between the sheets to construct durable nanodevices for sensing, lighting, and filtration.

He says of the award, “It’s immensely humbling to be joining a cohort of such influential, motivated and community aware global scientists. I’m looking forward to networking, learning, and growing through the program to maximise the impact and change possible through our scientific research."

Sherman explains the application process; “The nomination process required submitting a creative essay on current research findings and future goals. Emphasis was placed on communication style and novelty, so I created an outreach education video that took our research back to basics by relating our theories to football fields, sandwiches and tiramisus (to name a few of the eclectic analogies). It was certainly an insightful, educative process; I’d encourage interested applications to apply even if just for this initial experience!"

CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, is a global organization of expert scientists, technologists, and business leaders with a successful history of delivering scientific information opportunities.

"Dylan will be using this fantastic opportunity to broaden his perspective, whilst reaching out to the wider scientific community for increased impact of his research."

A part of the Materials Engineering group, is supervised by Professor Jin-Chong Tan who spoke about what this achievement means, "This is a very impressive achievement by a 2nd year DPhil engineer. I am sure Dylan will be using this fantastic opportunity to broaden his perspective, whilst reaching out to the wider scientific community for increased impact of his research."