Susan Perkin is a British chemist who is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Her research considers the physics of liquids and soft matter. She was awarded the 2016 Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize and named the Soft Matter Lecturer of 2018. In 2015 Perkin was awarded a European Research Council starting grant and in 2020 she was awarded a European Research Council consolidator grant.

Early life and education

Perkin was an undergraduate student at the University of Oxford, where she completed a master's degree in chemistry at St John's College.^[1] She remained at Oxford for her doctoral research, where she worked alongside Jacob Klein.^[2] Her research involved placements at Oxford and the Weizmann Institute of Science. Before completing her doctorate, Perkin was made a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford.^[1]

Research and career

In 2007 Perkin was named a Research Councils UK Fellow at University College London.^[3] She returned to Oxford in 2012 to join the faculty in the Department of Chemistry, where she serves as a Fellow of Trinity College.^[4]

Perkin is interested in liquid interfaces, and explores them using a surface forces balance. In such experiments, liquids are confined between insulators or electrodes, and measurements are made of their mechanical, optical, electrical and dynamic properties.^[5] This set-up allows for characterisation of materials properties in both natural (i.e. non-biased) and working (i.e. during device operation) environments. This type of characterisation is essential to the application of functional materials in energy storage and bio-materials.^[6]

She leads a European Research Council funded programme that looks at electrolytic materials, in an effort to understand the fundamental physics that underpins their properties and interactions.^[7] Electrolytic materials are used in the electrolytes for batteries and form the interiors of halophilic organisms.^[7] One type of electrolyte is an ionic liquid, which is in a liquid state in ambient conditions because their asymmetric, bulky ionic structures will not crystallise. Despite this, the dynamics of ionic liquids cannot be explained using conventional physical theories.^[8] By using surface force analysis to study ionic liquids, Perkin has shown it is possible to estimate the screening length, near-surface ordering, capacitance and charge regulation.^[6]

Awards and honours

• 2015 European Research Council Starting Grant
• 2016 Meldola Medal and Prize^[9]
• 2016 Philip Leverhulme Prize^[10]
• 2018 Soft Matter Lectureship^[3]
• 2020 European Research Council Consolidator Grant^[7]
• 2023 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists UK Laureate in Chemistry

Selected publications

• Perkin, Susan (2012-03-21). "Ionic liquids in confined geometries". Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. 14 (15): 5052–5062. Bibcode:2012PCCP...14.5052P. doi:10.1039/C2CP23814D. ISSN 1463-9084. PMID 22301770.
• Perkin, Susan; Albrecht, Tim; Klein, Jacob (2010-01-26). "Layering and shear properties of an ionic liquid, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethylsulfate, confined to nano-films between mica surfaces". Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. 12 (6): 1243–1247. Bibcode:2010PCCP...12.1243P. doi:10.1039/B920571C. ISSN 1463-9084. PMID 20119601.
• Smith, Alexander M.; Lee, Alpha A.; Perkin, Susan (2016-06-16). "The Electrostatic Screening Length in Concentrated Electrolytes Increases with Concentration". The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 7 (12): 2157–2163. arXiv:1607.03926. doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b00867. PMID 27216986. S2CID 8714486.

References