News

2024

Congratulations to Avery for getting the Technology Transfer and Industry Collaboration Internship at Tufts, where he will be learning about intellectual property management and applying this knowledge to Tufts inventions! - October 2024

Charlie has been named the 2025 Ipatieff Lecturer at Northwestern, where he will participate in extended visits to their Center for Catalysis and Surface Science. - October 2024

The group welcomes Dr. Dennis Meier as a postdoc! - September 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Audrey Dannar for defending her thesis! - July 2024

Sykes group research featured as Result of the Month By Scienta Omicron for their STM images of acetylene on Ag(111) with the new Infinity STM - July 2024

Elizabeth wins Best Poster Prize at the Catalysis GRC! - June 2024

Cole, Vinita, Allison and Nipun travel to Brookhaven National Lab to study NiAg alloys! - June 2024

Congratulations to Allison Zupan on the successful completion of her Master's degree! - May 2024

Sykes group takes a group outing to the Boda Borg! - May 2024

Cole Easton, Vinita Lal, Allison Zupan and Nipun Senevirathna at Brookhaven National Lab

Cole, Vinita, Allison and Nipun at Brookhaven National Lab 

2023

Charlie wins International Precious Metals Institute, Henry J. Albert Award - 2023

Charlie's invited talk about Single-Atoms Alloys at @CAT viewable online.

Audrey wins the Morton M. Traum Award at AVS 2023! - November 2023

Sykes Group UG researcher Nick McQuillan starts MD-PhD at the University of Colorado - September 2023

Sykes group takes a group outing to an escape room! - August 2023

Elizabeth wins Best Poster Prize at the Dynamics at Surfaces GRC - July 2023

Audrey and Elizabeth travel to Newport, RI for Dynamics at Surfaces GRC 2023. - July 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Yicheng Wang and Dr. Volkan Cinar for successfully defending their theses! - July 2023

Avery, Cole, and Elizabeth travel to BNL to continue researching Ag alloys alloys with AP-XPS - February 2023

The Sykes lab and their collaborators at University College London, the University of Cambridge, University of California Santa Barbara, and Argonne National Laboratory are honored with the prestigious 2022 Faraday Division Horizon Prize. Watch the Royal Society of Chemistry video about Horizon Prize winners. - January 2022

Professor Charles Sykes delivering speech at the IPMI award ceremony

Professor Charles Sykes delivering speech at the IPMI award ceremony

Sykes group takes a group outing to an escape room! - August 2023

Sykes group outing to the escape room

2022

Congratulations to Volkan for winning the 2022 Morton M. Traum Award! - November 2022

Nima and Nipun are welcomed to the group as first year graduate students! - November 2022

Audrey, Volkan, and Yicheng travel to Pittsburg for AVS 68th International Symposium and Exhibition - November 2022

Volkan and Yicheng travel to Chicago for ACS Fall 2022 - August 2022

Yicheng selected as a finalist for the Nottingham Prize at the 82nd Physical Electronics Conference - June 2022

Tufts hosts NECS conference in memory of Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos' life and ground breaking work - June 2022

Charlie receives International Catalysis Award: 2022 CATSA Eminent Visitor Award to recognize excellence in catalysis research by overseas scientists - March 2022

Avery, Cole, and Elizabeth travel to Brookhaven National Lab to study Ag alloys - March 2022

Charlie is named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science! - January 2022

Sykes Group work on RhCu single atom alloy selectivity is featured on the cover of Surface Science - January 2022

Volkan Cinar accepting the 2022 Morton M. Traum Award

Volkan Cinar accepting the 2022 Morton M. Traum Award

attendees at the N E C S Conference hosted at Tufts University

Attendees at the NECS Conference hosted at Tufts University

Avery Daniels, Cole Easton, and Elizabeth Happel at Brookhaven National Lab

Avery Daniels, Cole Easton, and Elizabeth Happel at Brookhaven National Lab

2021

The Sykes group welcomes Allison and Vinita as first year graduate students! - November 2021

Ryan Hannagan receives the AVS Platinum Award! - November 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Paul Kress for defending his thesis! - November 2021

Ryan Hannagan wins the Morton M. Traum Surface Science Student Award at the AVS International Symposium - October 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Ryan Hannagan for defending his thesis! - October 2021

Paul and Elizabeth travel to Brookhaven National Laboratory to continue studying Ag alloys - October 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Laura Cramer for defending her thesis! - August 2021

Tufts Now article features Sykes group research and newest paper which uses first principles to design catalysts! - June 2021

Laura and Elizabeth travel to Brookhaven National Laboratory to study Ag alloys - June 2021

Audrey Dannar awarded a Tufts University GIFT Fellowship to co-teach Chem32 in Spring 2022 - June 2021

George Giannakakis and Mengyao Ouyang walk in their Chemical and Biological Engineering PhD hooding ceremony - May 2021

Ryan's research is featured in Tufts' Spotlight on the Class of 2021! - May 2021

Sykes group gets a new Infinity Scanning Tunneling Microscope! - January 2021

George Giannakakis and Mengyao Ouyang at their Chemical and Biological Engineering P h D hooding ceremony

George Giannakakis and Mengyao Ouyang at their PhD hooding ceremony

2020

Congratulations Dr. Alex Schilling and Dr. Dipna Patel for defending their theses! - November 2020

The Sykes group welcomes Elizabeth, Avery, Helen, and Cole as first year graduate students! - November 2020

George receives a Gerondelis Foundation grant for his PhD studies! - November 2020

Congratulations to Ryan for winning the Russell and Sigurd Varian National Award! - September 2020

Congratulations to Ryan for being selected as one of four finalists for the Morton M. Traum Award! - September 2020

Congratulations to George for receiving the Johnson Matthey Student Award from the International Precious Metals Institute for his work on single-atom alloys! - April 2020

Congratulations to Ryan for taking 2nd place in the Tufts Graduate Student Research Symposium for his talk on RhCu Single-Atom Alloys! - March 2020

Ryan Hannagan and Paul Kress travels to Brookhaven National Laboratory to study Cu based alloy surfaces - March 2020

2019

Congratulations to Ben for defending his thesis! - December 2019

Paul Kress travels to Brookhaven National Laboratory to study novel alloy surfaces - December 2019

The Sykes Group welcomes Audrey Dannar as a first year PhD Student! - November 2019

Chemistry World article features Charlie and Maria's work on Single-Atom Alloys - October 2019

Dipna Patel is awarded the 2019 Russell and Sigurd Varian National Award by AVS - October 2019

Dipna and Charlie travel to AVS 2019 in Columbus Ohio - October 2019

Charlie and Maria are interviewed by ACS Catalysis about their award winning work on Single-Atom Alloys - August 2019

Charlie, Paul, Dipna, and Laura travel to ACS San Diego 2019 - August 2019

Alex Schilling travels to Newport Rhode Island to chair GRS Dynamics and Surfaces - July 2019

Amanda's ACS Nano paper on 1:1 chiral interactions covered by WSU Insider - May 2019

Ryan Hannagan and Paul Ryan travel to Diamond Light Source in the UK to study RhCu(111) SAAs - April 2019

Dipna Patel and Paul Kress travel to Brookhaven National Lab to study PdAg(111) Oxides - March 2019

Laura Cramer travels to Germany to partake in an exchange program through Northeastern section of the ACS - March 2019

The Sykes group welcomes Paul Ryan as a visiting PhD student from Imperial College London and Diamond Light Source Beamline I09 - March 2019

Ryan Hannagan and Paul Kress travel to the GRS and GRC in Ventura Beach California to present their work on RhCu and PdAu Single Atom Alloys - February 2019

Charlie Sykes and Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos are awarded the 2019 ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Sciences for their pioneering work in developing single-atom alloy materials as catalysts - February 2019

Dipna Patel accepting the 2019 Russell and Sigurd Varian National Award by A V S

Dipna Patel accepting the 2019 Russell and Sigurd Varian National Award by AVS

Dipna Patel discussing a research poster

Dipna Patel and Charlie Sykes at AVS 2019

2018

The Sykes group welcomes Yicheng Wang and Volkan Cinar as 1st year graduate students! - November 2018

Sykes Group perspective on single-atom alloys is featured on the cover of JPC Letters - September 2018

Laura Cramer's talk titled "An Atomc-Scale Study of Oxygen Dissocation on Ag on Cu(111)" awarded best presentation of the CATL session at ACS Boston 2018 - August 2018

Sykes lab Single-Atom Alloy work featured in Chemistry World - June 2018

Ben chosen as a speaker in the Young Investigator Session of the 2018 International conference on Ionizing Processes

Charlie named a 2018 AVS Fellow for pioneering developments in the field of single-atom alloy catalysis and for advancing the fields of molecular motors, molecular self-assembly, and chiral surface chemistry

Sykes Group work on isolated platinum atoms supported on a well defined copper oxide film is featured on the cover of Nature Catalysis and in Nature Reviews Chemistry - March 2018

Sykes Group research on PtCu Single Atom Alloys receives media attention in Chemical and Engineering News (Volume 96 Issue 3 p. 8) and is featured on the Department of Energy's homepage - March 2018

Andy's paper picked as JCP editor's choice - January 2018

2017

Dipna Patel wins "Best Young Scientist Presentation" award from HC Focus Topic at AVS 64 - November 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Andrew Therrien for defending his thesis titled "Using Model Systems to Understand Catalysis on Thin Film Oxides, Supported Single Atoms, and Naturally Chiral Surfaces"!! - September 2017

Natalie's Nature Communications paper is highlighted in Nature Nanotechnology - August 2017

Alex Schilling elected co-chair of Dynamics and Surfaces GRS 2019. - August 2017

The Reverse Science Fair with Medford High School, summarized by a Sykes group publication in J. Chem. Ed., is published on the Tufts news page. - April 2017

Physicsworld.com covers recent Sykes group research on hexagonal boron-carbon-nitrogen. - February 2017

Sykes group research is published on the Argonne National Laboratory website. - February 2017

Andy is awarded to the Graduate Student Travel Fund from the Office of the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. - January 2017

2016

Sykes group research published in ChemComm elucidating tartaric acid assembly and decomposition on Cu(111) receives media attention from ChemistryViews. - December 2016

The Sykes group welcomes Paul Kress, Ryan Hannagan, Laura Cramer, and Tedros Balema as 1st year graduate students! - November 2016

Andy wins the Morton Traum Student Award at the AVS 63rd International Symposium & Exhibition. - November 2016

Sykes group single atom alloy work is featured in C&EN. - October 2016

Congratulations to Dr. Matthew Marcinkowski for defending his thesis titled "Single Atom Alloys for Efficient and Selective Bond Activations: A Model Surface Chemistry Approach"!! - October 2016

Andy's reflection statement from the annual GDCh-NESACS German Exchange Program is highlighted in the NESACS publication "The Nucleus". - October 2016

Chris and Chloe present at the Department of Chemistry Undergraduate Poster Symposium detailing their summer research on self-assembled molecular rotor arrays. - September 2016

Felcia is awarded a Science & Technology Policy Congressional Fellowship through the Materials Research Society to work in policy in Washington D.C. - August 2016

Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society Younger Chemists Committee chaired by Felicia wins Outstanding Local Section Younger Chemists Committee at the National ACS meeting. - August 2016.

Andy competes in the 2016 TUNECC life sciences consulting case competition. - August 2016

Congratulations to Dr. Felicia Lucci for defending her thesis titled "Surface Reactivity of Single Atom Alloys: Model Studies Guiding the Design of Atom Efficient Nanoparticle Catalysts"!! - July 2016

Felicia meets Professor George Whitesides [Harvard University] and is featured on the NEACS "The Nucleus" May 2016 Edition. - May 2016

Chris is awarded the Robert Dewald Summer Scholarship. - April 2016

Natalie runs in the 120th Boston Marathon with the Tufts Marathon Team. - April 2016

Andy wins the Outstanding Oral Presentation Award at the 18th Annual Northeast Student Chemistry Research Conference. - April 2016

Andy and Felicia participate in the GDCh/NESACS Germany exchange program, a one week all-inclusive trip to Kiel, Germany centered around an international research conference. - March 2016

Natalie uses the LT-STM to spell "Tufts" with Br atoms and is featured on Tufts Now. - January 2016

Ben is named a spring 2016 GAANN fellow. - January 2016

attendees at the 2016 T U N E C C life sciences consulting case competition

Attendees at the 2016 TUNECC life sciences consulting case competition

120th Boston Marathon with the Tufts Marathon Team

120th Boston Marathon with the Tufts Marathon Team

18th Annual Northeast Student Chemistry Research Conference

Andy accepting the Outstanding Oral Presentation Award

the word "Tufts" spelled with bromine atoms using the low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy

"Tufts" spelled with Br atoms

2015

The Sykes group welcomes Alex Schilling, Dipna Patel, and Matthew Uhlman as 1st year graduate students! - November 2015

Tufts features the 2015 Reverse Science Fair. - October 2015

Felicia's Nature Communications paper on the selective hydrogenation of 1,3-butadiene is featured on the National Science Foundation's News websiteSpace Dailyphys.org, and AZoM. - October 2015

Charlie's talk at Boston ACS on Nano Cancer is recorded. - October 2015

Charlie becomes a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. - October 2015

Sykes Group research is featured on the Discovery Channel Canada television program Daily Planet. - September 2015

The Sykes group welcomes Dr. Zhitao Wang to Tufts as a post-doctoral fellow. - August 2015

Sykes Group research on 2D radioactive films receives media attention including a publication by Leon Sanche in Nature Material News and ViewsIFL ScienceNanowerkphys.org, and an article in Chemical Engineering News (Volume 93, Issue 25, p. 33). The research was also featured on the featured on the Department of Energy's homepage. - June 2015

Melissa receives the Excellent Oral Presentation Award at the 17th Annual Northeast Student Chemistry Research Conference (NSCRC). - April 2015

Congratulations to Dr. Colin Murphy for defending his thesis titled "Beginning to Bridge the Gap Between Work and Usefulness: Driving Molecular Devices and Intermolecular Coupling"!! - March 2015

Felicia is selected as a NSF sponsored US delegate to the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. - March 2015

Matthew named one of the first two Illumina Fellows in the Tufts Chemistry department. - January 2015

2014

Felicia receives the Leadership Development Award from the Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) of the American Chemical Society (ACS) to support attendance at the ACS Annual Leaders' Conference. - December 2014

The Sykes Group welcomes Ben Coughlin and Mostafa El Soda as 1st year graduate students! - November 2014

Emily appears in Chemical & Engineering News for her ACS public policy fellowship. - October 2014

The Sykes group welcomes Dr. Natalie Wasio to Tufts as a post-doctoral fellow. Dr. Wasio received her PhD in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame under Prof. Alex Kandel. - October 2014

Melissa receives the Carl Storm Underrepresented Minority (CSURM) Fellowship for the Gordon Research Conference. - October 2014

Felicia receives the AVS 61 Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Travel Grant. - September 2014

Sykes group work highlighted in the Association Affairs section of Science for Gordon Research Conferences. - September 2014

Colin is accepted into the technology transfer internship program. - September 2014

Charlie appears on local TV cooking show "Chow and Tell" hosted by Rayna Jhaveri to talk about cooking with liquid nitrogen. - July 2014

Charlie gives Young Talented Scientist Lecture at CHIRALITY 2014 in Prague. - July 2014

Congratulations to Dr. Emily Lewis for defending her thesis titled "A New Approach to Studying Cobalt's Surface Chemistry Using Cobalt Nanoparticles"!! - July 2014

The U.S. Department of Energy features our work on the web, in presentations and publications: - June 2014

Matthew receives an Excellent Oral Presentation Award at the Northeast Student Chemistry Research Conference. - April 2014

Felicia is awarded Best Talk at the Tufts Graduate Student Research Symposium. - April 2014

Matt, Felicia, and Emily all participate in the GDCh/NESACS Germany exchange program, a one week all-inclusive trip to Germany centered around an international research conference. - March 2014

Tim is awarded a National Research Council fellowship to conduct research at the Natick Army labs. - March 2014

Felicia is awarded a GAANN fellowship. - January 2014

2013

Congratulations to Dr. Timothy Lawton for defending his thesis titled "Structure Sensitive Chemistry: From Oxidation to Surface Explosions"!! - December 2013

Tim wins the Graduate Student Research Award and finishes as a finalist for the 2013 Morton Traum Award at the AVS 60th International Symposium & Exhibition. - October 2013

Felicia wins 1st place in the Nano Worcester poster competition. - September 2013

Emily receives the ICMR Apprentice Science Reporter Award to assist in writing the Meeting Science Newsletter for the joint Japan Society of Applied Physics-Materials Research Society meeting in Kyoto, Japan. - September 2013

Tim is selected as 1 of 5 finalists for the 2013 Morton Traum Student Award at the 2013 AVS Conference. - July 2013

Tim is selected as 1 of 9 finalists for the AVS National Student Awards at the 2013 AVS Conference. - June 2013

The Sykes group welcomes Dr. Alex Pronschinske to Tufts as a post-doctoral fellow. Dr. Pronschinske received his PhD in physics from North Carolina State University under Prof. Dan Dougherty. - May 2013

Tim is selected as a finalist for the Nottingham Prize at the 2013 Physical Electronics Conference. - May 2013

Tim wins 1st place in Poster Presentation at Tufts Graduate Research Symposium. - May 2013

Sykes Group discovery of the molecular cork effect for hydrogen spillover and capping is published in Nature Materials. - April 2013

Sykes Group work on Surface Explosion is featured on the cover of Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - April 2013

Melissa is awarded a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation. - March 2013

2012

Sykes Group work on Co alloys is featured on the cover of Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - December 2012

The Sykes Group welcomes Brian Mernoff and Andrew Therrien as 1st year graduate students. - November 2012

Our single molecule motor is chosen as #1 Microscopic Image That Will Blow Your Mind by Cracked.com (>500,000 views). - November 2012

April wins the Morton M. Traum Award at the 59th International AVS Symposium in Tampa, FL. The Morton M. Traum Award is given annually since 1981 by the Surface Science Division of the American Vacuum Society to the best student paper based on work leading to a PhD thesis. - November 2012

April receives the AVS Russell and Sigurd Varian Award at the 59th International AVS Symposium in Tampa, FL. - October 2012

Congratulations to Dr. April Jewell for defending her thesis titled "Atomic Diffusion and Molecular Self-Assembly on Metal Surfaces"!! - August 2012

Emily receives the Chemistry Department Research Excellence Travel Award. - July 2012

April is selected as a finalist for the Morton M. Traum Award. - June 2012

April is selected as a 2012 finalist for 1 of the 8 AVS National Student Awards. - June 2012

Charlie is named the 2012 recipient of the AVS Peter Mark Memorial Award. - May 2012

Sykes Group work on Co alloys is featured on the cover of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. - May 2012

Matt and Tim receive an honorable mention in the 2012 Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge. - May 2012

Colin wins Poster Prize for Excellence in Graduate Research at 14th Annual Northeast Student Research Conference. - April 2012

April is selected as a finalist for the Nottingham Prize at Physical Electronics Conference. - April 2012

Tim wins Tufts Outstanding Academic Performance Award for the doctoral level. - April 2012

April and Allister win 1st place in the Non-Interactive Media category for the Visualization@Tufts Award Program for their submission called "Using Microscopy to Study Chiral Molecular Interactions on the Nanometer-Scale". - April 2012

Emily wins 2nd place in the Visualizing@Tufts Award Program in the Photography category for her submission titled "A Craggy Seaside Pasture" - April 2012

Mishan is awarded a Tufts 2012 Summer Scholarship. - March 2012

Sykes Group work on a Single Atom Alloy is published in Science. - March 2012

Tim wins 3rd place in the Poster/Elevator Speech Competition at the 2nd Annual NanoWorcester Symposium at WPI. - March 2012

April and Tim are selected as 2 of 6 finalists for the Poster/Elevator Speech Competition at the 2nd Annual NanoWorcester Symposium at WPI. - March 2012

Emily and Colin are accepted as members of a 12-student exchange trip for the NESACS/GDCh Germany Exchange Program in Rostock, Germany. - March 2012

April is selected as 1 of 10 finalists for the Langmuir Student Award at the ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium in Baltimore. - March 2012

Sykes Group demonstration of a single molecule electric motor featured as Result of the Month on Omicron Nanotechnology's website. - February 2012

award recipients of a Poster/Elevator Speech Competition

Award recipients at the Poster/Elevator Speech Competition at the 2nd Annual NanoWorcester Symposium at WPI

2011

The Sykes Group welcomes Melissa Liriano, Felicia Lucci, Matt Marcinkowski and Mike Mattera as 1st year graduate students. - December 2011

Charlie is featured on a Museum of Science podcast about single molecule electric motor. - October 2011

Sykes Group receives official confirmation of Guinness World Record for Smallest Electric Motor. - October 2011

Sykes Group Youtube video discussing the single molecule electric motor project. - October 2011

Charles Sykes interview on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 discussing single molecule electric motor. - October 2011

Sykes Group research on a Single-Molecule Electric Motor is published in Nature Nanotechnology as a cover story. - September 2011

April wins Young Scientist Prize at the 10th International Conference on Structure of Surfaces in Hong Kong. - August 2011

Tim receives the departmental Research Excellence Travel Award. - July 2011

April wins the Best Poster award at the 71st annual Physical Electronics Conference. - June 2011

Sykes Group work on hierarchical chiral ordering is featured on the cover of Chemistry: A European Journal. - June 2011

Charlie is named one of the 2011 Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholars. - May 2011

Allister is selected to receive a 2011 James Flack Norris/Theodore Williams Summer Research Scholarship. - April 2011

April wins 1st place in the photography category of the "Visualizing Research @ Tufts Award Program" for her entry titled "Bullseye". This STM image gives both topographic and electronic information about a cluster of molecules on a metal surface. Concentric rings show electron waves bouncing off the cluster at the center of the bull's eye. As you move away from the center, the electron waves become more diffuse and the image appears out of focus. - April 2011

April receives a Tufts University Award for Outstanding Academic Performance. - April 2011

Congratulations to Dr. Erin Iski for defending her thesis titled "Assembly, Chirality, and Polymorphism of Large Molecules on Metal Surfaces "!! - March 2011

April is named 1 of 5 finalists for the Young Scientist Prize to be awarded at the 10th International Conference on the Structure of Surfaces. - March 2011

The Sykes group welcomes Dr. Georgios Kyriakou from Cambridge University as a Research Assistant Professor. Dr. Kyriakou will conduct research that is aimed at understanding surface phenomena with respect to heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis, chemoselective hydrogenations, and self-assembled systems. - January 2011

Guinness World Record certificate

Guinness World Record for Smallest Electric Motor

scanning tunneling microscopy image of both topographic and electronic information about a cluster of molecules on a metal surface

"Bullseye"

2010

Congratulations to Dr. Ashleigh Baber for defending her thesis titled "Nanoscale studies of molecules metals & alloys"!! - December 2010

Congratulations to Dr. Heather Tierney for defending her thesis titled "Understanding and Controlling Rotation at the Single-Molecule Level"!! - December 2010

Tim is accepted as 1 of 12 students from the Northeast to attend the Jungchemikerforum (JCF) as part of the NESACS/GDCh Germany Exchange Program in Erlangen, Germany. - December 2010

Sykes Group is listed as Nanotechnology Thought Leaders by AZOnano. - November 2010

April wins Honorable Mention for a video submission for ACS Nanotation Video Contest. - November 2010

Heather is awarded the Morton M. Traum Award which "is given annually since 1981 by the Surface Science Division of AVS to the best student paper based on work leading to a Ph.D. thesis" at the AVS Conference in New Mexico. - October 2010

Heather is awarded the Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Scholarship at the AVS conference in New Mexico. - October 2010

Emily is awarded a GAANN Fellowship. - September 2010

Darin matriculates at MIT. - September 2010

April wins Poster Prize at 240th National ACS Conference in the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry in Boston, MA. - August 2010

Sykes Group launches their 2nd Youtube video called "Molecular Machines" describing the Rotor Project. - August 2010

Heather is selected as 1 of 3 finalists to compete for the Morton M. Traum Surface Science Student Award at the AVS meeting in October. - July 2010

Heather is awarded an IFSM scholarship to attend the 17th International Microscopy Congress to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in September. - July 2010

April wins NASA Board Award for her work on sulfur dioxide detection using polymer-carbon composite films. - July 2010

Ashleigh wins Outstanding Poster Presentation Award at the 2010 Gordon Research Conference on Catalysis. - July 2010

April wins NASA Group Achievement Award for her work for the Electronic Nose Technology Demonstration aboard the International Space Station. - June 2010

Heather wins the prestigious Nottingham Prize at the Physical Electronics Conference. - June 2010

Dr. Sykes is promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. - May 2010

Sykes lab STM image of Pd/Au alloy featured on the cover of the Journal of Advanced Microscopy Research. - April 2010

Heather receives Tufts Outstanding Academic Performance Graduate Student Award. - April 2010

Heather is awarded 2nd place at the 14th Annual Tufts Graduate Student Research Symposium. - April 2010

Michael wins best poster prize at Northeastern Section Younger Chemists Committee at Boston University. - April 2010

Colin Murphy joins the Sykes Lab as a 1st year PhD candidate. - March 2010

Heather wins The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society MPMD Division 2010 Student Poster Award. - February 2010

2009

Emily Lewis joins the Sykes Lab as a 1st year PhD candidate. - November 2009

Heather is the one of the winners of Departmental Research Excellence Travel Award. - August 2009

Tim is awarded GAANN Fellowship. - August 2009

Students from Social Justice Academy in Boston visit the Sykes lab and "write" their school initials with molecules. - August 2009

Ashleigh is interviewed about the Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Germany, highlighted in Tufts news. - July 2009

NSF features group's rotor work in its Discovery Section - July 2009

Group's work on Thioether Rotors and their role in nanotechnology is featured on LiveScience. - July 2009

April receives graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation. - June 2009

Group's Outreach work with high school students featured on Tufts New and Events website. - June 2009

Group's work on Thioether Rotors featured on the cover of Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - June 2009

Erin wins a poster prize for "Excellent Poster Presentation by a Graduate Student" at the 11th Northeast Student Chemistry Research Conference at Boston University. - May 2009

Ashleigh has been accepted as one of 74 young researchers from the U.S. to attend the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates dedicated to chemistry in Lindau, Germany. - May 2009

Group's research on catalytic sites on Cu/Pd Alloys is featured on the cover of Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - April 2009

Erin wins poster prize during the Young Chemists Committee of the Northeast Section of the American Chemical Society German Exchange Program in Essen. - March 2009

Charlie interviewed on his research by Research Coportation for Science Advancement. - February 2009

Charlie receives a IUPAC Young Observer award. - January 2009

Charlie receives an NSF CAREER award. - January 2009

student accepting poster prize during the Young Chemists Committee of the Northeast Section of the American Chemical Society German Exchange Program

Erin accepting the poster prize at the German Exchange Program in Essen

2008

Tim joins the Sykes Group as a first-year PhD Candidate. - November 2008

Results from the Sykes Lab study of thermal and mechanical actuation of single-molecule rotors highlighted by Omicron Nanotechnology as the result of the month. - November 2008

Heather awarded 1st place out of 50 finalists at the American Vacuum Society Fall 2008 Conference Art Zone Competition. - October 2008

April awarded a NASA Board Award for her work on 'Palladium Chloride Sensors for Mercury Detection'. - August 2008

The group's research on naturally chiral surfaces is featured on the cover of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - July 2008

Erin wins the Best Poster award at the 68th annual Physical Electronics Conference. - June 2008

The Sykes Lab comes out with an educational video detailing the impact of our hydrogen project on the energy crisis. - May 2008

April awarded a NASA Tech Brief Award for NTR no 44997: "Palladium Chloride Sensors for Mercury Detection". - May 2008

Charlie named a Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar. - May 2008

Erin receives an award for the best talk at the 10th Annual Northeast Student Chemistry Research Conference. - April 2008

April awarded a NASA Tech Brief Award for her work for gold on polymer based sensing films for detection of organic and inorganic analytes in air. - April 2008

Erin receives an award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education. - April 2008

Charlie receives the Beckman Young Investigator Award. - April 2008

Charlie appointed as Usen Family Career Development Professor. - March 2008

Erin's paper featured on the front cover of the March Issue of Education in Chemistry. - March 2008

Darin awarded the Lt. Commander R.J. Manning Memorial Prize and the Max Tishler Prize Scholarship. - March 2008

April Awarded a NASA Tech Brief Award for her work on novel polymer based sensors for elemental mercury detection in air. - February 2008

2007

Charlie featured in ACS Nano's Episode 5 Podcast talking about thioethers. - December 2007

April Jewell, a promising young chemist, joins the Sykes lab coming from JPL. - September 2007

Stephen Jensen matriculates at Harvard University. - September 2007

Ashleigh receives the Travel Award for Research Excellence. - September 2007

Stephen wins 1st prize for best undergraduate science talk at Tufts Undergraduate Research Symposium. - April 2007

Erin is awarded GAANN Fellowship. - September 2007

Heather wins “Materials Research Society: Best Poster Award in Nanoscale Phenomena in Functional Materials by Scanning Probe Microscopy”. - Fall 2007

Charlie is a finalist in the Materials Research Society “Science as Art” Poster Competition. - Fall 2007

Charlie selected as one of 15 young professors to participate in the US-Japan Young Researchers Exchange Program. - January 2007

Stephen's paper is first ever paper accepted by Paul Weiss's new journal, ACS Nano. - August 2007

  • Excellence
  • ACS Boston
  • Interview with Stephen on Nanotation

2006

Ashleigh is awarded GAANN Fellowship. - September 2006

Stephen is awarded Summer Scholars Fellowship. - June 2006

Group is awarded ACS-PRF Type G Award. - Sept 2006

Stephen wins first place in UNCC "The natural World as Art and Science". - March 2006

2005

A First: Hydrogen Atoms Manipulated Below the Surface of a Palladium Crystal. - December 2005

Focus on Palladium's Hydrogen Storage Potential. - December 2005