Dick Bedeaux, Erica Fraaije, Andrei and Hans Fraaije

Andrei delivered his Inaugural Professorial lecture ‘What a wonderful nano-world’ on Wednesday, 6th October in Greenbank Lecture Theatre.

In addition to local public, there were guest from far away:  Prof Dick Bedeaux (Norway), Prof Hans Fraaije with his wife, Erica (Holland), Dr Agur Sevink and Dr Sasha Korobko (Holland), Dr Alexander Morozov (Edinburgh). See short videos from the pre-lecture reception.

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Nano-science stars gather in Preston

Physics professor delivers inaugural lecture

The mysteries of the ‘nano-world’ were unravelled recently at a fascinating lecture delivered by Andrei Zvelindovsky, Professor of Computational and Theoretical Physics from the School of Computing Engineering and Physical Sciences.

‘What a wonderful Nano-world’ was the title of Professor Zvelindovsky’s inaugural professorial lecture, delivered to an enthralled audience that drew together the local public with several distinguished world figures from nano-science.

Professor Mike Holmes, Head of UCLan’s Graduate School and expert in liquid crystals, described the event:  “Andrei presented an engaging and accessible lecture which explained the concept of ‘smallest’, from the first proposal of the atomic structure of matter by the Greek Democritus, through to recent breakthroughs in his current research.”

Professor Zvelindovsky is currently working on materials which self-assemble into intricate three dimensional structures with exotic physical properties.

These materials include polymers, liquid crystals and colloid systems* which often mimic the structures seen in biology and have a wide range of potential applications in nano-technology.

Distinguished academics attending the lecture included Professor Hans Fraaije and Dr Agur Sevink from Leiden University in the Netherlands, Professor Dick Bedeaux from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Dr Sasha Korobko from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Dr Alexander Morozov from the University of Edinburgh.

Guest lectures given by some of these experts, transformed the whole event into a three-day, international mini-symposium.

Professor Hans Fraaije concluded: “Andrei gave an interesting overview of the relevance of fundamental research in nano self-assembly. It was a pleasure to witness the lively discussion.”

Andrei was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at UCLan in 2004, promoted to a Reader in 2006 and gained Professorial status in 2009.

* Colloids are liquids containing small soft particles, a well known example is milk. Life itself is believed to have been originated from a ‘colloidal soup’ on Earth.