News

News

See below for comings and goings, degrees, awards, conference travels, and other milestones in the MAW group!

2024

The interest in milk bags and sustainability continues: Mary Anne White gave an interview for The Toronto Star for an article on bag milks, published March 7, 2024, and an interview on CityNews, Kitchener, March 11, 2024.
It's winter, and there's always interest in the science of snow. As part of Expedia.ca's series "Where to Canada", Mary Anne White explained the science of snow, March 2024. This piece also was covered in GQ magazine.

2023

Along with other researchers from around the world, Mary Anne White joined the online conference, 3rd International Workshop on Thermal Conductivity of Solid States at Low Temperatures, hosted by B. Verkin Institute of Low Temperature Physics, Karkiv, Ukraine, in October 2023. Mary Anne gave a keynote talk, "Thermal Conductivity and Near-Zero Thermal Expansion Materials."
Dr. Michael Jakubinek (MSc 2005,PhD 2009) has been promoted to Senior Research Officer at the National Research Council in Ottawa. Congratulations, Mike!
Dr. Nada Haidar, DDS, who was a summer student in our group in 1993 and 1994, was honoured by Dalhousie University with a 2023 Aurum Award, for her outstanding community dental work. Congratulations, Nada! When in our group, she and Mary Anne White co-authored Discovering Chemistry: A Guidebook for Grades 4 to 6 and Wonderful Water: Explorations in Chemistry for Grades 1 to 3, booklets that were circulated to schools across Canada, sponsored by the Chemical Institute of Canada as part of National Chemistry Week.
Mary Anne White gave an invited talk, "Form-Stable Phase Change Materials: New Developments" at the International Energy Agency T67T40 Task Force Meeting, Halifax, April 24, 2023.
Mary Anne White had an interview with CBC Radio in Quebec City, to discuss with the science of snow rollers, a rare winter phenomenon in which snow spontaneously forms balls or rolls, March 2023.
Mary Anne White was an invited speaker at the International Energy Agency conference, Enerstock Online, on February 14, 2023, and spoke on "New Developments in Phase Change Materials".

2022

Mary Anne White was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal "for Services to Education and Science"
Congratulations to Dr. John Noël (PhD 2018) and his wife Megan, on the birth of their daughter, Laura, on October 13, 2022.
Congratulations to Dr. Alex Bourque (PhD 2014) on his new position as Application Scientist at Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc. (ACD/Labs).
Congratulations to Dr. Jan Carroll-Pöhls (formerly Dr. Jan Pöhls; PhD 2017) on his appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of New Brunswick, starting August 2022.
Congratulations to Dr. Samer Kahwaji (PDF/Research Associate, 2014-2019) on starting a position as a Research Scientist and Advisor with Nova Graphene, Halifax, June 2022. Press Release
Mary Anne White presented the opening keynote lecture, "Challenges for Advanced Materials Researchers" at the workshop on Future Directions of Advanced Materials, Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research, McMaster University, May 2022.
We are happy to announce that our first patent on form-stable phase change materials has been granted, ZL2018800459502, on February 15, 2022, co-inventors John Noël (PhD 2018) and Mary Anne White.
Mary Anne White presented a virtual seminar, "Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage" at Semnan University, Iran, February 16, 2022.
Congratulations to Dr. John Niven (MSc, 2015) on his new position with Blue Light Analytics.
More ice/snowflake news featuring an interview with Mary Anne White was reported in this Saltwire News article, January 2022.

2021

Mary Anne White addressed one of her favourite topics, the six-fold symmetry of snowflakes, in this CBC article, December 2021.
Mary Anne White attended the 14th Pacific Rim Conference on Ceramic and Glass Technology, December 2021. Originally scheduled for Vancouver, BC, due to covid restrictions, the conference was held online. Mary Anne presented the opening plenary lecture, Thermal Properties of Advanced Ceramics (link for Video) and also an invited lecture, Form-Stable Phase Change Materials Using Porous Ceramics (link for Video).
The publication of our environmental assessment of milk containers, with three former graduate students from our Materials Sustainability graduate course (published in J. Cleaner Production 325, 129347 (2021), led to an article for the public on which type of milk container is best for the environment, published in The Conversation, and also translated to French. This article was republished in more than 30 media outets (newspapers, online news, etc.) around the world, and has had more than 200,000 reads as of December 31, 2021.
Congratulations to Dr. Jan Pöhls (PhD 2017), on joining the McCall MacBain Postdoctoral Fellows Teaching & Leadership program at McMaster University.
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Ellis (BSc Honours Project student, 2016) on the completion of her PhD at Queen's University in August, under the supervision of Professor Philip Jessop (summer research assistant with us in 1985!). Dr. Ellis is now a Development Scientist at Green Centre Canada.
Mary Anne White presented an award lecture, "Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage: Challenges and Perspectives" for the Canadian Society for Chemistry's CLS TK Sham Award in Materials Science, at the online IUPAC CCCE Conference, August 2021. Link for Video
Congratulations to Dr. Carl Romao (PhD, 2015) on the award of a prestigious Marie Curie Fellowship, which he has taken up at ETH, Zurich, with Professor Nicola Spaldin.
Through the wonders of science, Mary Anne White joined billions of people around the world in getting vaccinated against covid-19.
Mary Anne White was profiled on Women Now, a 1/2 hour television show on Eastlink, broadcast April 12, 2021.

2020

Congratulations to Sarah Ellis (BSc Honours project student 2016; presently PhD student at Queen’s University), on selection as the 2021 Kenneth G. Hancock Memorial Awardee. Sponsored by the ACS Division of Environmental Chemistry and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, this award provides national recognition for outstanding student contributions to advancing the goals of green chemistry, and this award is given to only one graduate student in the world.
Congratulations to Dr. John Noël (PhD 2018) and his wife Megan, on the birth of their daughter, Beatrice, on October 14, 2020.
Congratulations to Dr. Jacy Conrad (BSc Honours project, 2015) on completion of her PhD from the University of Guelph, August 2020.
During these pandemic times, we have to do some things in a different way. See here for Mary Anne White's essay about attending a zoom wedding, published in the Globe&Mail, and here for a 17,000-voice virtual choir in which Mary Anne White participated.
Mary Anne White has been appointed by the Standards Council of Canada to Membership of the Canadian Committee for the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Subcommittee on Greenhouse Gas Management.
Congratulations to Dr. John Niven (BSc Honours Project 2013, MSc 2015) who successfully completed his PhD at McMaster University in January 2020. John is now a postdoctoral fellow with MesoMat.

Nice news to start the year -- Mary Anne White has been announced as the 2020 winner of the Canadian Society for Chemistry's Canadian Light Source T K Sham Award for Materials Chemistry. See details. Mary Anne was supposed to give an award lecture at the Winnipeg CSC Conference in May 2020, but COVID-19 intervened and the conference was cancelled. Stay tuned for future developments.

2019

Check out the Dalhousie-produced video on the Anatomy of a Snowflake, highlighting our research on freeze-cast ceramics.
In November, Mary Anne White presented the Atake Memorial Lecture, "Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage" at the 7th International Symposium on the New Frontiers of Thermal Studies of Materials, Yokohama. While in Japan, Mary Anne visited Toshiba R&D in Kawasaki, where she presented a talk, "Recent Advances in Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage" , and Mino Ceramic Inc. in Nagoya, where she presented "New Developments in Porous Ceramics".
Mary Anne White was the 2019 James A. Morrison Lecturer at the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research at McMaster University, November 2019. This was a special honour because the late Professor Jim Morrison was Mary Anne's PhD advisor, and November 2019 marks 40 years since Mary Anne's thesis defence. Mary Anne's research lecture was entitled "Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage" and her public lecture was "Sustainable Approaches to Advanced Materials."
Congratulations to Dr. Samer Kahwaji (PDF/Research Associate, 2014-2019) on starting a position as a Scientist with Solid State Pharma Inc., Halifax, in October 2019.
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, "Thermal Properties of Freeze-Cast Ceramics" at the Global Forum on Advanced Materials for Technology and Sustainable Development, Toronto, July 2019.
Chemistry from our lab to make fish tags indicate when a tagged fish has been predated, was described in an article about tracking endangered salmon on the CBC news website.
For a report on Soapbox Science Halifax 2019, see here.
Read Mary Anne White's profile on the 1 Million Women in STEM website.
Read Mary Anne White's blog, My House is Now a Lab, on the Soapbox Science 2019 website.
Congratulations to Dr. John Noël on receipt of his PhD at Convocation, May 2019. John is the final PhD stuent from our group: the end of an era.
Dr. Samer Kahwaji presented a poster "Bio-based Phase Change Materials for Reliable, Cost-effective Thermal Energy Storage, May 2019, at Atlantic BIOCON 2019, Halifax.
We recently published a paper on the use of edible oils as practical phase change materials for thermal energy storage. In this paper, which is freely available to all via open access , we showed that coconut oil, available from a grocery store thermal energy in buildings, due to its high latent heat (105 J/g) and favourable phase transition temperature of 24 ^oC, and stability on thermal cycling. Such a material can be used to buffer temperature fluctuations in buildings, and is available to all consumers at a reasonable price.
Congratulations to Dr. Jan Pöhls (PhD 2017), on the receipt of a PBEEE fellowship from Fonds de recherche Nature et technologies, from the Quebec government for his work at McGill.
Mary Anne White will be joining women scientists from around the world, in participating in Soapbox Science 2019 , speaking with the general public about thermal energy storage, at the Seaport Farmers' Market in Halifax, on July 9, 2019. Should be fun!
Mary Anne White was interviewed by Canadian Chemical News, for an article on diamond chemistry, published in March 2019.
Congratulations to Dr. Kim Miller (PhD 2012) who will be starting a new position as Scientist with Solid State Pharma Inc., Halifax, in late April 2019.
Congratulations to Stefan Juckes (BSc Honours Project student in Physics, 2016) on his acceptance to Dentistry at the University of Toronto.

2018

Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, "Heat Capacity Determination: Tricks of the Trade" at the Materials Research Society Conference, Boston, November 2018.
Mary Anne White is happy to announce the publication of the 3rd edition of "Physical Properties of Materials" (CRC Press, 2019).
Congratulations to Dr. Jan Pöhls (PhD 2017), on his new postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University with Professor Brad Siwick, starting November 1, 2018. .
Both Dr. John Noël (PhD 2018) and Dr. Carl Romao (PhD 2015) started new positions on October 1, 2018. John started work at Imperial Oil in Sarnia, and Carl started a postdoctoral fellowship at Tuebingen, Germany, where he is part of the Teaching at Tuebingen program.
Congratulations to John Noël on the successful defence of his PhD thesis, "Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage" on September 17, 2018. Photo.
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk “Phase Change Materials for Solar Thermal Energy Storage” at the International Conference on Energy, Materials and Photonics, Montreal, July 2018.
Mary Anne White presented “When Hard Materials Become Soft: The Case for Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage”, as the D. K. C. Macdonald Memorial Lecture at the Canadian Materials Science Conference, Edmonton, June 2018.
Congratulations to Dr. Jan Pöhls (PhD 2017), for being selected by the Canadian Association of Physicists as having the best PhD thesis in condensed matter and materials physics for 2017. Way to go, Jan!
Congratulations to former group member Catherine O’Neill on her admission to the Dentistry program at Dalhousie University for the fall of 2018.
Mary Anne White was interviewed for an article in Men’s Health on why you burn your mouth easily with pizza. The article was published in the May 2018 edition of Men’s Health.
Our work on investigations of ice-structuring agents in ice-templated ceramics was featured in Advances in Engineering .
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, “Thoughts on Supply Chains, Energy and the Role of Science in Sustainable Approaches” at the Supply Chain & Logistics Management Workshop, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, April 2018.
Our work on fatty acids and related phase change materials for thermal energy storage was featured in Renewable Energy Global Innovations.
Mary Anne White was invited to present “A Side Career in Science Outreach” at the Dalhousie Chemistry Career Night, March 2018.
Our work on a pH-dependent fish tracking device was highlighted on the NSERC website.
Congratulations to John Noël on winning third prize (and $500) for the Dalhousie 3 Minute Thesis Contest 2018. John's presentation was called "Bringing the Heat: Materials for Thermal Energy Storage". For details, see the DalNews article.
Mary Anne White had a letter to the editor published in the Globe & Mail, January 11, 2018.
The year 2018 is the bicentennial of Dalhousie University's founding, in 1818. To celebrate, Dalhousie is highlighting 52 "Dalhousie Originals", one per week. Congratulations to our colleague, Professor Jeff Dahn on being the Dalhousie Original for the second week of January. Jeff was, along with Mary Anne White, Georges Kipouros, Mike Lee and Farid Taheri, one of the founding members of the Institute for Research in Materials (2002), and was PI on the NSERC CREATE DREAMS (Dalhousie Research in Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability program (2010-2016) for which Mary Anne White was director. Jeff is one of a large number of valued colleagues at Dalhousie who carry out outstanding research in materials.

2017

We are very sorry to announce the passing of Hong Tang (MSc 2008), on December 28, 2017 in Halifax. Born in Hunan Province, China on December 16th, 1975, Hong is survived by his wife, Yue Liu, daughter, Mandy (8); sons, Lucas (6) and Derek (4). Hong graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University with a Bachelor of Polymer Material and Science in 1998. He then worked in China for BASF and for HK Barrington Chemicals. He and Yue moved to Halifax in 2003. Hong graduated from Dalhousie University with a Master of Science degree in Chemistry in 2008. After his graduation he worked for Bebbington Industries in Dartmouth, where he developed a new dishwasher detergent. Then he became an award-winning real estate agent, working with Royal LePage Atlantic at the time of his death. He was very active in the Chinese Society of Nova Scotia, including as Chair and Board Member. Hong was also very involved in the Halifax Chinese Christian Church. We extend our sincere condolences to Hong’s family.
We have just had our 200th publication accepted! It was a close race, with a paper in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry in honour of Dalhousie University’s upcoming 200th anniversary accepted on November 9, 2017 as publication #199, and a paper in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C accepted on November 15, 2017 as publication #200.
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, “Thermoelectrics for Sustainable Energy Harvesting” at the 64th AVS International Symposium and Exhibition, Tampa, FL, November 2017. It was Mary Anne’s 100th conference presentation!
We bid farewell to Dr. Jan Pöhls after a long association with our group. Jan first came here in 2011 as a visiting Masters student from Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel, Germany, and then returned in September 2012 as a PhD student. Jan successfully completed his PhD is August 2017, and now is a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Arthur Mar’s group at the University of Alberta. See here for a photo.
Mary Anne White presented a public lecture, “What an informed person should know about energy” Halifax, Nova Scotia, October 2017.
Dr. Doug MacLaren (PhD 2003, now Section Head, Sarnia Applied Process Research, Imperial Oil Ltd.) presented the 2017 Coffin Lecture at Dalhousie University. In his lecture, Doug gave an excellent summary of his career path to date, and how his education at Dalhousie prepared him for his career.
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, “Phase Change Materials for Sustainable Energy Storage”, at the International Conference on Materials and Systems for Sustainability, Nagoya, Japan, September 30, 2017. On her return to North America, she visited Simon Fraser University, where she presented a seminar, “Thermodynamics of Materials: From Fundamentals to Applications”, October 5, 2017.
Congratulations to Jan Pöhls on the successful defence of his PhD thesis on August 3, 2017. Click here for a photo of Jan on this happy occasion.
Congratulations to Dr. Samer Kahwaji and his wife Souad on the birth of their baby boy, Mika, August 1, 2017. [photo]
Mary Anne White received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa on June 19, 2017, at their Science convocation. See here for a photo, here for her written convocation address, and here for a video.
Congratulations to Dr. Sabrina Leslie (summer student 1999) on obtaining tenure and being promoted to Associate Professor of Physics at McGill University.
Some recent work from our group was highlighted in DalNews, showing the diversity of materials research.
John Noël and Mary Anne White attended the 100th Canadian Society for Chemistry Conference in Toronto in May 2017. Mary Anne presented an invited talk, “Thermal Energy Storage by Melting of Organic Materials”, and John presented a poster, “Supercooling and Molecular Clusters in Liquid Fatty Acids”. John’s poster was selected by the CIC Materials Chemistry Division, for the Materials Horizons graduate poster prize at this year's CSC conference. Congratulations, John!
Mary Anne White visited the Department of Physics at University of South Florida and presented a colloquium: “Recent Advances in Thermal Properties of Materials: From renewal energy applications to new fundamental information about matter,” March 2017.
The new Discovery Centre opened in Halifax in February 2017. For a discussion of the Dalhousie contributions to initiating the Discovery Centre, see the article in Dal News.
In light of Mary Anne White’s official retirement from Dalhousie University on December 31, 2016, she has been appointed as Professor Emerita as of January 1, 2017. Mary Anne will continue to carry out research and maintain her lab, but is no longer taking new graduate students or undergraduate students. A written account of Mary Anne White’s public lecture, “33.3 Years at Dalhousie” can be found here.

2016

On November 17, 2016, Mary Anne White was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada. See here for photos and here for a video.
In late October, Mary Anne White was invited to speak to the Halifax alumni of McMaster University. The venue was the Halifax Citadel, and in this historic site Mary Anne spoke about the history of the Harry Shirreff Professorship in Chemical Research, and the importance of individuals supporting universities. The funds donated to establish the Harry Shirreff Professorship were from R. B. Bennett, Canada’s Prime Minister (1930-1935), which is a very interesting story in itself.
In the fall of 2016, Mary Anne White presented three Chemistry Cafés, which were discussions with the public on Chemistry in Our Lives. These were held in Bridgewater, New Glasgow and Baddeck. These cafés were sponsored by the Maritime Chapter of the Chemical Institute of Canada..
In August 2016, Jan Pöhls travelled to Orlando to attend the 2016 International Confederation for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (ICTAC) conference, where he presented a talk, “Origins of Ultralow Thermal Conductivity in Phenyl-C61-Butyric Acid Methyl Ester”.
Congratulations to John Noël on the receipt of a Gerry Dauphinee Scholarship for overall excellence in graduate work in Chemistry at Dalhousie University and for excellence as a teaching assistant, September 2016.
Congratulations to Jan Pöhls on the receipt of a Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarship, 2016-2017.
Congratulations to John Noël on the publication of his work from his internship at NREL: Corrosion evaluation of alloys and MCrAlX coatings in molten carbonates for thermal solar applications, J. C. Gomez-Vidal, J. Noel and J. Weber, Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, 157, 517-525 (2016).
Congratulations to Louis Desgrosseilliers, on the successful defence of his PhD thesis, July 2016! See photo.
Mary Anne presented "Food Security: The Role of Materials Research in Your Life" to the Shad Valley students at Dalhousie University in July. At the end, she and Sarah Ellis made the ever-popular liquid-nitrogen-frozen yogurt.
Our group had five posters at the IRM Annual Research Day, June 2016.
In early June, many members of our group participated in an IRM-sponsored Workshop: "Sustainable Approaches to Materials Research, Including Life Cycle Assessment”, including three talks (Mary Anne White: “Sustainable Materials Approaches”; Jan Pöhls: “Searching for the Holy Grail of Thermoelectric Materials Using High-Throughput Calculations”; Louis Desgrosseilliers: New Indoor Heat Storage Technology to Realize the Benefits of Time-of-Day Electricity Rates.”). In addition, Sarah Ellis and John Noël led break-out sessions concerning life-cycle analysis, and Sarah, John and also Jan Pöhls (on behalf of another student) presented results of the breakout sessions on the second morning. The feedback from the attendees was very good, and it was especially nice to see our students take such leadership roles.
Our group had a significant impact in the program for the 2016 Canadian Society for Chemistry Conference, held in Halifax in June, with a total of 10 presentations. Special congratulations to Sarah Ellis for her first-prize poster, “Versatility of Free-Cast Materials” in the Materials Chemistry undergraduate poster competition (see photo), and to Jan Pöhls for honourable mention for his poster, “Computational and Experimental Investigations of a Novel Class of High-Performance Thermoelectric Compounds.” in the Materials Chemistry graduate poster competition.
Congratulations to Sarah Ellis and Stefan Juckes, who both worked as undergraduate research assistants and honours project students in our lab, on their graduation with BSc(Honours) in Chemistry and Physics, respectively, June 2016. See photo here.
Congratulations for 2015-16 honours project student, Stefan Juckes, on the award of an NSERC PGS-M Scholarship.
Congratulations to John Noël on receipt of an NSERC CGS Scholarship, 2016-2018!
Congratulations to Sarah Ellis on completing of her honours project in Chemistry. Sarah is working with us for the summer before going off to graduate school in the fall.
Congratulations to Stefan Juckes on completing of his honours research project in Physics. Stefan is now a Masters student in Physics at Dalhousie with Professor Harm Rotermund.
Our paper, “ YCuTe2: A Member of a New Class of Thermoelectric Materials with CuTe4-Based Layered Structure. U. Aydemir, J-H Pöhls, H. Zhu, G. Hautier, S. Bajaj, Z. M. Gibbs, W. Chen, G. Li, S. Ohno, D. Broberg, S. D. Kang, M. Asta, G. Ceder, M. A. White, K. Persson, A. Jain, and G. J. Snyder, J. Materials Chem A 4, 2461-2472” has been selected by the journal as a “Hot Article for 2016”.
Mary Anne White has been selected as an Honorary Member of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science . The Nova Scotian Institute of Science is an organization that represents and promotes science to Nova Scotians. It was founded in 1862 as a direct descendant of the Halifax Mechanics’ Institute (1831–1860) and the Halifax Literary and Scientific Society (1839–1862). It is one of the oldest learned societies in Canada. Mary Anne served as the NSIS Vice-President, 1993-1994 and President, 1994-1995, and she has presented several public lectures hosted by NSIS.
Eileen Burns (DREAMS Summer Research Assistant, 2011) has been accepted into Medical School at Dalhousie. Congratulations, Eileen!
Congratulations to Carl Romao on the award of an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship! Carl will stay on with us until the end of the summer and then take up his NSERC PDF with Professor Andrew Goodwin at the University of Oxford Carl also was awarded the Leffek Prize for best PhD in the Department of Chemistry in 2015. Well done, Carl!
Congratulations to Stefan Juckes on the Tindall/Steinitz Research Award (best oral presentation) for his lecture "Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Tapes" at the Atlantic Universities Physics & Astronomy Conference [link] in St. John's, Newfoundland, February 2016.
Congratulations to Dr. Mike Jakubinek (MSc 2005; PhD 2009, and current research collaborator on BNNTs) on his promotion to Associate Research Officer at NRC, and winner of the 2015 "rising star" (early career) award.
Congratulations to Mike Jakubinek (MSc 2005; PhD 2009) and his wife Tara on the birth of their daughter, Quinn [photo], on January 10, 2016, a baby sister for Cameron.
Mary Anne White was a panelist on topics “Careers” and “Undergraduate Advice” at the 3rd Canadian Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, Halifax, January 2016.
The newly announced elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 have been a topic of discussion, and Mary Anne White did an interview on the topic on CBC Radio’s program “Day 6” on January 11, 2016. You can listen to the interview here. With apologies to Tom Lehrer!
Read here about the chemistry of the changing colour of the copper on the new Wallace McCain building.
Mary Anne White has been appointed as an Officer in the Order of Canada “for her contributions to chemistry, which have advanced our understanding of the thermal properties of materials, and for her leadership in science outreach initiatives”. [link] The Order of Canada, Canada’s highest civilian honour, was established in 1967, during Canada’s centennial year, to recognize outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation. Over the last 45 years, more than 6 000 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the Order. Mary Anne will be officially installed in the Order of Canada later in 2016.
Maria Stancescu, a research assistant in our group from 2004-2006, has completed her PhD at University of Central Florida and will be joining Intel in Oregon in January 2016 as a process engineer in technical development.

2015

Mary Anne White had a letter published in the Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015. [click here].
Congratulations to PhD student Louis Desgrosseilliers, as his spinout company, NeoThermal Energy Storage is a finalist in the 2015 InnovaCorp i3 CleanTech competition.
Congratulations to our group on winning first prize in the 2015 Halloween pumpkin carving contest, beating out fierce competition. [photo]
In October, Mary Anne White presented a seminar,"Sustainable Approaches to Materials Research", for the Department of Physics, Central Michigan University. Since teaching did not make travel feasible this term, she presented the seminar remotely via WebEx. By not travelling, she saved about 500 kg of CO2, which is about equivalent emission from driving a passenger car for a month.
Carl Romao visited Malta in September 2015 to present an invited talk, “Elastic properties and their relationships to the thermal expansion of thermomiotic materials” at Auxetics 2015 [photo].
Congratulations to John Noël on receipt of a Douglas E. Ryan Prize from the Department of Chemistry “overall excellence in graduate work in Chemistry at Dalhousie University with exceptional productivity in research” in 2014-15.
We welcome Sarah Ellis and Stefan Juckes for honours research projects in Chemistry and Physics, respectively, for the 2015-16 academic year.
At the end of the summer, we said farewell to Jacy Conrad and John Niven. Jacy had been an undergraduate researcher with us since May 2013. She is now at the University of Guelph where she holds an NSERC Scholarship as a PhD student with Professor Peter Tremaine. John joined our lab as a summer student in May 2011, and received his MSc in 2015. He is a now a PhD student and NSERC Scholar at McMaster University with Professor Kari Dalnoki-Veress. We wish Jacy and John both well in their future endeavours.
Welcome to Dr. Julan Zeng, a Visiting Scholar from Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha, P. R. China. Dr. Zeng is an associate professor, with his PhD from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science. He is interested in phase change materials for energy storage, and his year-long visit is sponsored by the Hunan Provincial Education Department.
In August, the summer students (Jacy Conrad, Sarah Ellis and Stefan Juckes) and Mary Anne White carried out hands-on science experiments, Mixing and Unmixing for visiting junior high students at the SuperNova Science Camp in Halifax. Those junior high students take a lot of energy!
In August 2015, John Noël attended the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS) conference in Montreal, where he presented a talk, “Nucleation and Supercooling in Saturated Fatty Acid Phase Change Materials.” On the first day of the conference, John won a $50 prize for a contest in the trade show on knowledge of thermal analysis.
Congratulations to John Niven on the successful defence of his MSc thesis, “Physical Properties of Nanotube Materials” on July 30, 2015. [photo] John will be starting his PhD in Physics at McMaster University in the fall.
Following Carl’s PhD exam, while Martin Dove was still here, we had an afternoon at Mary Anne and Rob’s cottage. After a few people had a swim or a paddle in the canoe, the rain started and we had to head inside for supper.
Congratulations to Carl Romao on the successful defence of his PhD thesis “Thermoelastic Properties of Materials with Negative Coefficients of Thermal Expansion” on July 16, 2015. We were very pleased to have Professor Martin Dove from Queen Mary University of London here as external examiner [photo]. It was Carl’s good luck that Rick Hapanowicz from Quantum Design in San Diego (the makers of our PPMS) happened to be in Halifax on vacation the same day and brought Carl a nice gift to celebrate the completion of his PhD [photo]. Carl is staying on as a postdoctoral research assistant to expand on his earlier studies of thermomiotic materials.
Congratulations to John Noël on passing his PhD preliminary exam in Chemistry in July 2015.
As of July 1, 2015, Mary Anne White was named as the Harry Shirreff Professor of Chemical Research. This is one of two endowed Chairs in the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University, and was held most recently by Axel Becke until his retirement at the end of June 2015. The Harry Shirreff Professorship of Chemical Research was set up in 1944 with funds from the Viscount Bennett Fund. Viscount Bennett was R. B. Bennett: businessman, lawyer, politician and Prime Minister of Canada (August 7, 1930 to October 23, 1935), and Harry Shirreff was a colleague and friend of Bennett’s.
Congratulations to PhD student Louis Desgrosseilliers for winning significant funding in the first Innovacorp Smart Energy Demo Challenge, for the spin-out Neo Thermal Energy Storage. See here for details. We look forward to future developments! And for an article in the Halifax paper, see here.
In late June, Mary Anne White presented a public lecture, “What’s new about the elements?” at the Halifax Central Library, June 2015. This lecture was sponsored by The Royal Society of Canada, and was Mary Anne’s inaugural lecture as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
In June, Mary Anne White and Carl Romao attended the 11th International Conference on Ceramic Materials for Energy and Environmental Applications in Vancouver, BC, where they respectively presented the talks, “Materials for Solar Thermal Energy Conversion and Storage” and “Polymer-ceramic composites incorporating thermomiotic (negative thermal expansion) and near-zero thermal expansion materials”.
We had good participation at the Institute for Research in Materials (IRM) Annual Research Day in June, including posters by Samer Kahwaji, John Niven, John Noël and Jan Pöhls.
Dalhousie University was the host for the Canadian Materials Science Conference in early June and we had a good turnout from our group with an invited talk by Mary Anne White (“Sustainable approaches to materials research”), and talks by Carl Romao (“Mechanical Properties of Thermomiotic (Negative Thermal Expansion) Materials”), Louis Desgrosseilliers (“Supercooling Heat Storage Materials for Solar Domestic Hot Water”) and Mike Johnson (“Accurate Physical Property Measurements on Small Samples”), and posters by Samer Kahwaji (“Properties of Organic Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage”), John Noël (“Understanding Supercooling Behaviour in Organic Phase Change Materials”), John Niven (“Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Yarns”), Jan Pöhls (“Origins of Ultralow Thermal Conductivity in Bulk [6,6]-Phenyl-C61 Butyric Acid Methyl Ester (PCBM)”). Congratulations to Jan for winning first prize for his poster! (photo)
Congratulations to Jacy Conrad on her graduation in May with her BSc with honours in Chemistry and Physics. (photo) On graduation, Jacy won the John Carstairs Arnell Prize for the best Honours Research Project in Chemistry 2014-2015, the Society for Chemical Industry Merit Award for top standing in the final year of the Dalhousie Chemistry undergraduate program, and the Burgess McKittrick Award for best female student in 4th year Honours Physics. Congratulations, Jacy!
A Workshop on Energy Advanced Materials and Sustainability, co-led by Mary Anne White, took place at Dalhousie University on May 28 and 29 and attracted participants from across the country. Mary Anne presented two talks: “An Introduction to Sustainable Materials Approaches,” and “Phase Change Materials”, and posters were presented by Louis Desgrosseilliers, Samer Kahwaji, John Niven, John Noël, Jan Pöhls and Carl Romao.
In May, Mary Anne White visited the New York University and presented a seminar, “Thermal Properties of Materials: from renewable energy applications to new fundamental information about matter.” While in NYC, as part of the Canadian Celtic Choir, she sang “Celtic Mass for the Sea” by Scott Macmillan, at Carnegie Hall.
Welcome to summer research assistants Jacy Conrad (just finished her BSc (Honours Chemistry and Physics)), Sarah Ellis (just finished third year Honours Chemistry) and Stefan Juckes (just finished third year Honours Physics). Sarah and Stefan are members of the DREAMS (Dalhousie Research in Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability) team.
Congratulations to Dalhousie Integrated Science Program (DISP) students Jennifer Allott and Yannick MacMillan on their excellent talk and poster on their work on nucleation agents for phase change materials.
NSERC News: Congratulations to John Niven for the award of an NSERC CGS-D Scholarship, and Jacy Conrad for the award of an NSERC PGS-M Scholarship. And Mary Anne White has been awarded an NSERC Discovery Grant, 2015-2020.
In March, Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, “Thermal Properties of Polymer-Inorganic Composites” at the 249th ACS Conference, Denver, CO. While in Colorado, Mary Anne also visited colleagues at NREL (the National Renewable Energy lab). link to
Congratulations to Mike Jakubinek (NRC, Ottawa; PhD Dalhousie 2009) on his contribution to the world’s largest boron nitride nanotube production facility, as highlighted in Canadian Chemical News.
Our recent work on boron phase stability has attracted some attention, in phys.org and Serious Science
In response to the cold and icy conditions in Halifax this winter, Mary Anne White did an interview concerning use of salt and other things to melt ice on CBC TV that was nicely summarized on the CBC website, and also did a radio interview on the same topic on The Sheldon MacLeod Show on 95.7 News talk Radio. Bottom line: salt will melt ice as long as the temperature is above -21 °C (the NaCl/water eutectic). Read more here.
Congratulations to Jacy Conrad won honourable mention for her talk “Freeze-Cast Thin Films for Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells” at the Atlantic Universities Physics & Astronomy Conference 2015 at Mount Allison University, February 2015. Congratulations, Jacy!
Mary Anne White attended the EMN Meeting on Ceramics – Energy, Materials, Nanotechnology in Orlando, January 2015, and presented an invited talk, “The Role of Nanostructure in Thermal Expansion”.
Mary Anne White spoke at the 2015 Let’s Talk Science Eastern Regional Conference, January 2015. Her talk was entitled “Experiences in Science Outreach.”
Mary Anne White visited the Department of Chemistry at the University of Western Ontario as an external PhD examiner, and presented a talk, “Recent Advances in Thermal Properties of Materials: From Renewable Energy Applications to New Fundamental Information about Matter”, January 2015.
Congratulations to Alex Bourque (PhD, 2014), who has accepted an employment offer from an international company in Paris, France.
Welcome to DISP (Dalhousie Integrated Science Program) students, Jennifer Allott and Yannick MacMillan. Jennifer and Yannick will be working with Samer Kahwaji to learn about phase change materials for energy storage.

2014

Jan Pöhls has returned from a term at Professor Jeff Snyder’s lab at Caltech as an internship for the DREAMS program.
Mary Anne White was interviewed on Global TV Morning News concerning “The Science of Snow”, December 12, 2014, and also with “The Coast” on a similar topic.
Our recent study of magnetic entropy evolution in perovskites was highlighted in Canadian Chemical News.
John Noël has returned in November 2014 from two months at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. The visit was John’s DREAMS internship, and he investigated the corrosion of materials in molten salts.
Honours project student Jacy Conrad presented her summer research “Freeze-Cast Thin Films for Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells” at the Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference, Kingston, ON, November 2014, and won 3rd prize for Applied/Engineering Physics. Congratulations, Jacy!
Congratulations to Rong Sun (MSc 2004) and his wife Jing on the birth of a baby girl, Aria, in October 2014. Aria is a baby sister for two-year-old Elena.
Internat Energy Solutions Canada (IESC) Engineering Manager, Livio Nichilo, was a guest in our lab in late September 2014, to review and work on a collaborative R&D project. The results are expected play a role in providing benefits for occupant comfort and energy efficiency in heritage buildings. [photo]
John Noël and Jan Pöhls left at the end of the summer for DREAMS internships respectively at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado and Professor Jeff Snyder’s lab at Caltech.
Congratulations to John Niven and John Noël. Both received Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarships for 2014-2105.
Congratulations to John Noël on his transfer from the MSc program to the PhD program, as of September 2014.
Congratulations to Dr. Samer Kahwaji and his wife Souad on the birth of their baby boy, Luca on July 11, 2014. [photo]
In late June, Carl Romao attended HPCS (Canada’s High Performance Computing Symposium) in Halifax, where he presented a poster: “Finite Element Analysis of Thermal Stress in Thermomiotic Materials,” which was awarded 1^st place in the poster competition.
In mid-June, most of our group attended the IRM Research Day, where we had a total of five posters, and a good opportunity to hear about recent materials research at Dalhousie and elsewhere.
In June, Louis Desgrosseillers travelled to Lleida, Spain to attend Eurotherm Seminar #99. Louis presented a poster, “Thermodynamic Evaluation of Supercooled Seasonal Heat Storage at the Drake Landing Solar Community” and also had a chance to meet with many top researchers in the area of thermal energy storage. Louis’ co-supervisor, Professor Dominic Groulx, also attended, and presented a talk, “PCM-Based Thermal Storage System Research at Dalhousie University: A Review.”
In June, Mary Anne White attended the Canadian Society for Chemistry Conference in Vancouver, where she presented an invited talk “Thermal Properties of Selected Polymer-inorganic Composites.”
Congratulations to Alex Bourque on his PhD graduation, May 2014. See here for a photo.
In May, Mary Anne White attended the Nova Scotia Energy R&D Conference 2014: Energy for Change, and presented an invited talk: “How phase change materials can help make solar thermal capture feasible”. Louis Desgrosseilliers also gave a poster, “Thermodynamic Evaluation of Supercooled Seasonal Heat Storage at the Drake Landing Solar Community.”
In May, John Nöel, Louis Desgrosseilliers and Mary Anne White attended the annual meeting of the NSERC Smart Net-Zero Energy Building Strategic Research Network, in Montreal. John was co-author of a poster with students from McMaster (see photo). Mary Anne stayed an extra day and visited INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications in Varennes, Québec, where she gave a seminar: “Energy Harvesting and Storage: Thermoelectrics and Phase Change Heat Storage Materials.”
Congratulations to Alex Bourque on the successful defence of his PhD thesis, “Investigations of Reversible Thermochromism in Three-Component Systems”, on March 27, 2014, delayed one day due to a snow storm. [photo]
Congratulations to Paul Allred on the successful defence of his MSc thesis, “Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage”, on March 20, 2014. [photo]
The work of our lab was the focus of an article in the March/April 2014 issue of Canadian Chemical News.
Inorganic Materials: Multi Length-Scale Characterisation, edited by D.W. Bruce, D. O'Hare and R. I. Walton, Wiley (2014), has just been published. We have a chapter in this book called “Thermal Methods” (M.B. Johnson and M.A. White, Chapter 2), which offers a practical guide to thermal property measurement (Thermal Analysis, Heat Capacity, Thermal Conductivity and more).
Mary Anne White presented “Science of Ice and Snow” to Grade 6 to 9 girls at It’s for Girls SuperNova Camp, Halifax, January 2014.
In February, Mary Anne White and John Niven attended the 2014 Nanotechnology Materials and Devices Workshop in Cincinnati, OH. Mary Anne presented an invited talk, “Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Materials” and John presented a poster, “Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Yarns” [photo].
Welcome to Dr. Samer Kahwaji, a new postdoctoral fellow in the group as of February 2014. Samer received his PhD in Physics at Dalhousie University in 2013.
Congratulations to Jan Pöhls on passing his preliminary exam in January!
In January, Mary Anne White visited Georgia Tech (where she gave a seminar during a memorable snowstorm) and also presented an invited talk (“Freeze-Cast Methods to Make Porous Ceramics”) at the 38th International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites, Daytona, Florida.
We were pleased to host Professor Ken Libbrecht from Caltech in January 2014. While here, Ken gave an overflowing public lecture “The Secret Life of a Snowflake”, and a packed Physics seminar, “The Secret Life of a Snowflake: Puzzles and Peculiarities in the Molecular Dynamics of Ice Crystal Growth”. For more on Ken’s snow crystal work, see here.
We are pleased to have two new grants, starting January 2014, one sponsored by Intel and the other an NSERC Engage grant to work with Internat Energy Solutions Canada. Both are jointly with Dr. Dominic Groulx in Mechanical Engineering.

2013

Congratulations to Chris Smith (MSc 1997) on his tenure and promotion to associate professor at University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, TX. After his MSc at Dalhousie, Chris received a PhD in Chemical Education from Purdue University, and chemical education is the focus of his research program.
On November 16, 2013 Mary Anne White was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada at a ceremony in Banff, Alberta. Her citation reads: Mary Anne White is a world leader in experimental investigations of thermal properties of materials, at the overlap of chemistry, physics and materials science. Her contributions to the basic understanding of thermal conduction in solids and phase stability in complex systems have advanced science and led to new directions in applications such as more efficient thermoelectric materials and thermally erasable paper. For the announcement in the Globe & Mail on November 18, 2013, see here and in DalNews, see here. See here for a photo from the Royal Society of Canada gala dinner. To celebrate the FRSC induction, Mary Anne hosted a table at the Discovery Centre Awards Gala, and invited current (and one former) graduate students. See here for a photo.
Ryan Fielden has now completed his work on our NSERC Engage project, and has returned to his MSc program in Dr. Mark Obrovac’s group.
Congratulations to Louis Desgrosseilliers (PhD student in Mechanical Engineering jointly with Dr. Dominic Groulx) on receipt of a 2013 Dalhousie Engineering Excellence Graduate Scholarship.
Mary Anne White was interviewed on CBC’s Radio’s Sunday Edition with Michael Enright, on “What is materials science?” You can listen to the interview here.
Congratulations to Jan Pöhls (PhD student in Physics) on authorship on a publication in Nature Communications on research he carried out in Germany before starting his PhD at Dalhousie.
In October 2013, Carl Romao (PhD student in Chemistry) and Mary Anne White attended the MS&T meeting in Montreal. Carl presented a talk, “Thermomechanical Properties of Composites Containing a Thermomiotic Component” and Mary Anne presented an invited talk, “Phase Stability of Elemental Boron”.
Mary Anne White presented “Thermodynamic Stability of Boron Allotropes: A Chemical Thermodynamic Approach” at Advances in Chemistry of Disordered Solids: A Symposium Honouring the Contributions of Professor Patrick Jacobs, University College London, London, UK, September 2013. Mary Anne completed her honours BSc project with Professor Patrick Jacobs at the University of Western Ontario in 1975. Patrick passed away March 31, 2013 at the age of 89. The symposium was held in London, England, organized by several of his former colleagues and collaborators. Patrick was active until the very end of his life, with his textbook “Thermodynamics” (Imperial College Press) coming out just days before his passing.
Mary Anne White has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and will be officially inducted in Banff in November.
Congratulations to Carl Romao on the receipt of a Ryan Prize from the Department of Chemistry for “overall excellence in graduate work in Chemistry at Dalhousie University with exceptional productivity in research”.
Welcome to new graduate students John Niven (BSc (Dalhousie) and now MSc candidate in Physics) and John Noël (BSc (U Guelph and now MSc candidate in Chemistry). Both hold NSERC scholarships, and John Noël is also a member of the DREAMS program.
Our summer undergraduate research students, John Niven, Jacy Conrad and Anderson de Pereira have completed their work. John is staying on to do a Masters in Physics with us, Jacy is back to classes but will continue to work with us part-time, and Anderson has returned to Brazil, where it is winter but the temperatures are the same as summer here.
John Niven visited the NanoWorld Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati, directed by Dr. Mark Schulz and Dr. Vesselin Shanov. He prepared carbon nanotube thread which will be studied for his MSc project.
We had a nice, but not hot, day at Mary Anne and Rob’s cottage in July. Only Jan went in the water. And we all played croquet, very badly in the rough terrain. Congratulations to Alex for winning (but then he turned into a mean poison ball player!). link to photo July 2013
Welcome to Ryan Fielden who has joined us as a research assistant to work on a short-term NSERC Engage project that ends in October. Ryan holds a BSc in Chemistry from Dalhousie University and has taken a leave from his MSc program with Dr. Mark Obrovac.
Congratulations to Dr. Kim Miller as she starts her new position as R&D Product Development Specialist with Intertape Polymer Corp. in Truro, Nova Scotia. Kim joined our group as a PhD student in January 2008, and completed her PhD in December 2012. Most recently, she has been working with us as a postdoctoral fellow. Best wishes, Kim!
In July, we participated at the IRM Research Day, with a talk from Carl Romao, and posters from Paul Allred, Alex Bourque, Jacy Conrad, Anderson Pereira, Louis Desgrosseilliers, Kim Miller, John Niven, Jan Pöhls and Mike Johnson. For the complete program and abstracts, click here.
We hosted Cody Morelock, a PhD student from Professor Angus Wilkinson’s research group at Georgia Tech for a week in June. [photo]
In June, the CBC Radio national science show, recorded its annual Question Roadshow in Halifax, and Mary Anne White answered a question about the chemistry of pie dough. Listen to the show here. For an outstanding pie crust recipe, see here.
Mary Anne White won second prize in the 2013 Art of Physics Competition, hosted by the Canadian Association of Physicists, for a photo of an unusual ice formation, and an explanation of the physics. See the photo here.
In May, Carl Romao attended the Canadian Society for Chemistry conference in Montreal, where he presented a talk: “Thermomechanical Properties of Thermomiotic Materials”.
Also in May, Jan Pöhls and John Niven attended the Canadian Association of Physicists conference in Quebec City, where they both presented posters. The titles were, respectively: “Thermal Transport Properties of Ge Clathrates” and “Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Yarns,” and Jan won second prize in the condensed matter division for his poster.
Mary Anne White, Paul Allred and Louis Desgrosseilliers were in Ottawa in May for the annual meeting of the NSERC Smart Net-Zero Energy Building Strategic Research Network. [photo]
Congratulations to Kim Miller on receipt of her PhD in Chemistry and John Niven on receipt of his BSc (Honours Physics) and Certificate in Materials Science at spring convocation in May. At the Physics awards ceremony, John also was co-recipient of the E.W. Guptill Memorial Prize, and Jacy Conrad (summer student) received awards for both the best overall student in second year of honours physics, and the best female student in second year of honours physics. Well done, all!
Congratulations to Lauren Bilinsky (summer student, 2010) on acceptance to medical school at Memorial.
Congratulations to Hong Tang (MSc, 2007) and his wife Yue Liu, on the birth of their son, Derek, on May 23. Derek is a baby brother for Mandy and Lucas.
Congratulations to PhD student Carl Romao on receipt of a Sumner Scholarship.
Welcome to summer students Jacy Conrad, John Niven and Anderson de Pereira. Jacy and John are Dalhousie students (Jacy just finished her second year, and John just completed his BSc). Anderson is a visiting student at Dalhousie, and his home university is UFRJ – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Jacy and Anderson are both members of the DREAMS program.
Welcome back to Kim Miller (PhD 2012) who will be with us as a postdoctoral research assistant for six months, starting April 2013.
Congratulations also to Louis Desgrosseilliers (PhD candidate jointly with Professor Dominic Groulx in Mechanical Engineering) on receipt of an NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGSD), April 2013.
Congratulations to John Niven (honours project student in Physics) on receipt of an NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship (GGSM), April 2013. John has accepted to stay with us for his Masters degree.
In early April 2013, Mary Anne White attended the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting in San Francisco, where she presented a talk, “The Role of Cage Dynamics in Thermal Conductivity of Na_xSi₁₃₆ Clathrates”. While in the Bay area, Mary Anne visited Professor Pupa Gilbert at the Advanced Light Source.
Mary Anne White spent the month of March 2013 visiting Professor Ken Libbrecht in the Department of Physics at Caltech. Ken is a specialist in the crystal growth of ice (see here for his beautiful Snow Crystals website). While at Caltech, Mary Anne gave a Materials Research Seminar “Thermal Properties of Materials, Including Sustainable Approaches to Energy Harvesting and Storage.” Also while in Pasadena, Mary Anne spent a day visiting Professor Gerald Van Hecke at Harvey Mudd College.
Congratulations to John Niven, who took second place for his talk "Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Yarns" at the Atlantic Undergraduate Physics and Astronomy Conference 2013 in Moncton, February 2013.
On February 1, Mary Anne White visited the Department of Chemistry at the University of Guelph, and presented a seminar "Sustainable Approaches to Energy Harvesting and Storage."
Mary Anne White has been appointed as Associate Editor, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, as of January 2013.
In January we were pleased to welcome Professor Mario Bieringer from the University of Manitoba. While here, Mario gave a seminar, “Topochemical Synthetic Strategies for Functional Extended Materials”, and we discussed research collaborations. Photo here.
Our new FT Raman spectrometer is now operational. Its features include a wide temperature range (-150 °C to 100 °C). To use it, contact Mike Johnson (michel.johnson@dal.ca). Photo here.

2012

Congratulations to Kim Miller on the successful completion of her PhD, "Towards Near-Zero Coefficients of Thermal Expansion in A₂Mo₃O₁₂ Materials." Photo here.
In November, Mary Anne White was a D.B. Robinson Distinguished Speaker at the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta. Her talk was titled "Sustainable Approaches to Energy Harvesting and Storage".
Congratulations to Louis Desgrosseilliers (PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering, jointly supervised by Dominic Groulx and Mary Anne White) on receipt of a 2012 Dalhousie Engineering Excellence Graduate Scholarship.
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, "Freeze-Cast Preparation of Porous Bioceramics with Controlled Silver Release" at the MS&T'12 Conference in Pittsburgh, in October 2012. While in Pittsburgh, Mary Anne had a chance to catch up with two PhD graduates from the group. Dr. Greg Bednarz (PhD in Physics, 1992) is now Visiting Clinical Associate Professor and Clinical Associate Director, Medical Physics Division, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cancer Centers, Pittsburgh. Dr. Darek Michalski (PhD in Chemistry, 1995) is now a Research Scientist, also at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cancer Centers, Pittsburgh. Greg and Darek were both Killam Scholars when they were at Dalhousie University.
Congratulations to Louis Desgrosseilliers on graduation with his Masters of Applied Science (jointly supervised by Dr. Dominic Groulx). Louis tied for first graduate from the Dalhousie Research in Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability (DREAMS) program, an NSERC CREATE program.
Jan Pöhls started as a PhD student in Physics in September. Jan completed his Masters degree at the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel, Germany, but did much of his Masters research here.
Louis Desgroseilliers started as a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering in September. Louis is co-supervised by Professor Dominic Groulx in Mechanical Engineering.
John Niven started in September as an Honours Project student in Physics.
Congratulations to Kim Miller for receipt of the Ryan Prize in Chemistry for excellence in graduate work.
Congratulations to Louis Desgrosseilliers on the successful completion of his Masters of Applied Science on July 27, 2012. Louis' thesis, "Heat Transfer Enhancements Using Laminate Film Encapsulation for Phase Change Heat Storage Materials" in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was co-supervised by Dr. Dominic Groulx. Louis is the first person in our group to complete a graduate degree in the DREAMS program, and he will start a PhD with us in September 2012.
Mary Anne White presented a talk "The Role of Materials Research in Your Life" to the students in the Shad Valley Program, Dalhousie University, July 2012. Our summer student, Herman Stubeda, helped make liquid nitrogen frozen yogurt for the students, a great illustration of thermal properties of materials on a hot summer day!
In July, Alex Bourque (PhD student) attended the 5th International Conference on Molecular Materials, in Barcelona, Spain. He presented a poster " Investigations of Reversible Thermochromism in Ternary Mixtures."
In late June, our group attended the IRM 10th Anniversary Symposium, "The Future of Materials Research". We presented the following: "IRM Historical Overview: 10 Years and Going Strong" (Mary Anne White, oral); "Thermodynamic Stability of Boron Allotropes" (Adam Bent, poster); "Investigations of Reversible Thermochromism in Ternary Mixtures" (Alex Bourque, poster); "Reclaimed Laminate Waste as Novel, Heat Transfer Enhancing, Encapsulation for Long-term PCM Heat Storage" (Louis Desgrosseilliers, poster); " Towards Materials with Zero Thermal Expansion" (Kim Miller, poster); "Thermomechanical Properties of Negative Thermal Expansion Materials" (Carl Romao, poster); "Effect of Reagent Concentration in Ternary Thermochromic Mixtures" (Herman Stubeda and Alex Bourque, poster); "Analysis of a commercially available candle-powered LED lantern" (the DREAMS students, includingPaul Allred, Alex Bourque and Herman Stubeda, poster), and "The Influence of IRM on Thermal Properties Research" (Mary Anne White, poster). Congratulations to Louis for winning a prize for his poster!
Congratulations to Rong Sun (MSc 2004) and his wife Jing on the birth of their daughter Elena (photo) on June 21, 2012. After his MSc here, Rong completed a PhD at MIT and then worked for a telecom startup company in Boston, until it was acquired recently. Since the spring of 2012, he has been employed with Thermo Fisher Scientific, developing optical MEMS for portable chemical analytic instruments, such as portable FTIR, Raman, X-ray, and other spectroscopic analyzers.
In June 2012, Louis Desgrosseilliers (MASc student) attended the Cleantech Conference and Showcase in Santa Clara, California, and presented a poster "Reclaimed Laminate Waste as Novel, Heat Transfer Enhancing, Encapsulation for Long-term PCM Heat Storage."
Carl Romao (PhD student) attended the Canadian Materials Science Conference at the University of Western Ontario, where he gave an oral presentation: "Thermomechanical Properties of Negative Thermal Expansion Materials." (June 2012)
Mary Anne White attended the 6th International Conference on Highly Frustrated Magnetism in Hamilton, Ontario in June, where she presented a poster "Magnetic Entropy in Er_xY_2-xTi₂O₇ Pyrochlores as Functions of Temperature, Field and Composition".
While in Hamilton, Mary Anne was joined at McMaster by Paul Allred and they spent a day with Professor Marilyn Lightstone and Professor Jim Cotton, collaborators on the NSERC Smart Net-Zero Energy Buildings Strategic Network. While there, Mary Anne gave a seminar, "Thermal Properties of Materials: From Energy Storage to Thermoelectrics" and she and Paul had an excellent view of the transit of Venus.
Best wishes to Andrew Ritchie (PhD student) who left in June to take up a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Saskatchewan with Professor Stephen Urquhart.
Congratulations to summer student Herman Stubeda, for his award as top science student in first year Physics in 2011-2012!
Mary Anne White, Louis Desgrosseilliers (MASc student) and Paul Allred (MSc student) attended the Nova Scotia Energy Research & Development Forum in May 2012. Paul presented a poster, "Thermal Characterization of Salt Hydrate Phase Change Materials for Solar Thermal Storage" (photo) and Louis presented a poster, "Lauric Acid for Use As a Latent Heat Storage Material" (photo).
Sponsored by a grant from RRFB (Resource and Recovery Fund Board) to consider recycling Tetra Pack waste, which has a high degree of embodied energy, into containers for phase change heat storage materials, Louis Desgrosseilliers (MASc student) toured several industrial sites in Brazil in May.
Congratulations to Dr. Cathy Whitman (PhD 2005; research associate since 2007) and her husband Aaron, on the birth of their daughter, Helen Clara, on May 5, 2012.
Welcome to Herman Stubeda, an NSERC USRA and DREAMS summer research assistant.
Congratulations to Adam Bent on completing his Chemistry Honours Project, April 2012. Adam will stay on with us to continue his research in the summer.
We are pleased to announced that we received funding from NSERC in April for a new FT Raman spectrometer!
Kim Miller spent two weeks at the lab of Professor Mario Bieringer (website) at the University of Manitoba in March.
Congratulations to Carl Romao on passing his PhD Qualifying Exam, April 2012. Carl has now transferred from the MSc to PhD program. He looked very smart for the exam (photo).
Mary Anne White talked about Chemistry in Our Lives to Grade 10 and Grade 12 chemistry students at CHAT school, Toronto, March 2012.
Mary Anne White visited the Nanoworld Lab at University of Cincinnati in March 2012 (photo). We have been collaborating with the group of Professors Vesselin Shanov and Mark Schulz there, on determination of physical properties of carbon nanotube materials.
On behalf of the DREAMS program, Mary Anne White received an award from the American Chemical Society Committee on Environmental Improvement for "outstanding contributions to the incorporation of sustainability into chemical education." Mary Anne received the award at the ACS meeting in San Diego in March 2012, and presented the award address: "Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability". See link for a handout on this topic.

2011

Congratulations to Hong Tang (MSc 2008) on his new position as President of The Chinese Society of Nova Scotia. (photo)
Congratulations to Andrew Ritchie on the successful defence of his PhD thesis, "Characterization of Na-Loaded Type II Si and Ge Clathrates: A Systematic Structure-Property Evaluation of Thermoelectric Materials". (photo)
Mary Anne White attended the Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston, November 27 to December 2. She presented an invited talk, "Morphological Control of Freeze-Cast Ceramics for Preparation of Hybrid Composites", co-authored by Ran Chen and Mike Johnson.
Congratulations to Jan Pöhls (University of Kiel, visiting graduate student in May to November 2011) on his graduation and his award for the best Masters in Materials Science at the University of Kiel, with the best GPA for that program in the past five years there.
In September, Kim Miller (PhD candidate) presented a paper "Synthesis and investigation of mixed molybdate compounds as low (positive and negative) thermal expansion materials" at the Brazilian MRS Meeting in Gramado, Brazil. While in Brazil, Kim also visited the Laboratorio Nacional de Luz Sincrotron in Campinas, Brazil and was treated to a guided tour of the facilities. (photo)
Congratulations to Jan Pöhls, on completion of his Master's Thesis, "Physical Properties of a Carbon Nanotube Tape" in September. Jan is a visiting graduate student from Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel, Germany and he has carried out all his Master's work in our lab.
Congratulations to Mike Johnson (and his wife Laura) on the birth of Isabelle Maria on September 17. Isabelle is a baby sister for Marc. (photo)
In September, we welcomed a new Chemistry Honours Project student, Adam Bent.
In September, we welcomed Paul Allred, a new Master's student in Chemistry. Paul holds a Bachelor's degree in Materials Engineering from the University of Utah.
In August, our 2011 summer undergraduate research students, Eileen Burns and John Niven, completed their research terms and returned to classes.
Congratulations to Anthony Cerqueira on completion in August of his Master's in Chemistry, "Synthesis and Thermodynamic Investigation of Boron Allotropes".
We had a day at Mary Anne and Rob's cottage in August. Several people swam across the lake. (photo)
In August, we welcomed back to PhD candidate Alex Bourque, after his summer stay at Toshiba, Japan, as part of the DREAMS program's industrial internship.
In July, "Physical Properties of Materials", second edition (CRC Press) was published. Hurray! (photo of MAW with book)
When Kim Miller and Carl Romao returned from Brazil, we also we welcomed Professor Fernando Rizzo, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, our collaborator on negative thermal expansion materials. (photo)
In July, Kim Miller (PhD candidate) and Carl Romao (MSc candidate) spent two weeks at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, carrying out experiments on negative thermal expansion materials with our collaborators there.
Mary Anne spoke about " Science in Our Lives" at the 15th anniversary of the SuperNOVA Science Camp in July.
Mary Anne presented "The Role of Materials Research in Your Life" to the Shad Valley students at Dalhousie University in July. At the end, she and John Niven made the ever-popular liquid-nitrogen-frozen yogurt.
In July, Louis Desgrosseilliers returned from his DREAMS internship at Hydro Quebec.
In June, The Mary Anne White Research Group attended the Institure for Research in Materials Symposium on Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability, Halifax NS. Andrew Ritchie gave a talk on, "Thermal and Electrical Properties of Type-II Sodium-Containing Silicon Clathrates"; Anthony Cerqueira gave a poster on, "Synthesis and Determination of Thermodynamic Stability of Boron Phases"; Jan-Hendrik Pöhls gave a poster on, "Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Tapes"; Eileen Burns gave a poster on, "Energy Storage Unsing Phase Change Materials"; John Niven gave a poster on, "Magnetic Contribution to Heat Capacity and Magnetic Entropy of (ErxY1-x)2Ti2O7"; Michel Johnson gave two posters on, "Physical Property Measurement System" and "Scanner Thermal Microscope"; and Ran Chen gave a poster on, "Control of Morphological and Organic Content of Hybrid Al2O3/PMMA Compositions"
In June, Carl Romao and Kimberly Miller attended the International Thermal Conductivity Conference and International Thermal Expansion Symposium in Saguenay, Quebec (photo). Carl Romao gave a talk, "Finite Element Analysis of Thermal Properties of Composites Containing Negative Thermal Expansion Materials" and Kimberly Miller also gave a talk, "Synthesis and Investigation of Mixed Molybdate Compounds as Low Positive and Low Negative Thermal Expansion Materials."
Mary Anne White received an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws honoris causa, from the University of Western Ontario on June 13, 2011. Mary Anne also delivered the convocation address. See here for details.
Mary Anne White presented a talk, "Structure, Electronic Properties and Dynamics of Si Clathrates with Na Guests" at the North American Solid State Chemistry Conference, Hamilton, ON, June 2011.
Alex Bouque is continuing his stay in Japan, as his industrial internship in the DREAMS program. While there, he visited the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba (photo), May 2011.
Welcome back to Dr. Cathy Whitman, Research Associate, after her maternity leave.
Congratulations to Craig Bryan on the receipt of his BSc(Hon), May 2011 (photo). Craig was an honours project student 2010-2011.
Alex Bouque (PhD candidate in the DREAMS program) is carrying out an internship at Toshiba R&D in Kawasaki, Japan. Here (photo) is a photo of Alex with his lab-mates at Toshiba.
Welcome to three new students in May. Eileen Burns (photo) is a summer student who has just finished second year in Chemistry at Dalhousie. Eileen is an NSERC DREAMS (Dalhousie Research in Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability) summer award holder. John Niven (photo) is a summer student who has just completed his second year in Physics student at Dalhousie, and John holds an NSERC USRA (Undergraduate Student Research Award). Jan Pöhls (photo) is a visiting researcher from Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel, Germany. Jan is carrying out research for his Masters in Materials Science in our lab, and he'll be here for six months.
In April, Mary Anne White attended the Materials Research Society Conference in San Francisco. She presented a talk ("Sustainable Materials Issues: A Graduate Course") in the Forum on Materials Education and Evaluation, and a poster ("Thermal and electrical conductivity of bulk, aligned MWCNT arrays and yarns") in the Symposium on Nanoscale Heat Transport--From Fundamentals to Devices.
Congratulations to Hong Tang (MSc, 2007) and his wife Yue Liu, on the birth of their son, Lucas, on March 25. Lucas is a baby brother for Mandy.
At the end of March Anthony Cerqueira and Kimberly Miller attended that Atlantic Inorganic Discussion Weekend in Fredericton, NB. Anthony presented a poster, "Synthesis and Thermodynamic Stability of Boron Allotropes." Kimberly gave an oral presentation, "Trimolybdates to Tailor Thermal Expansion.
Mary Anne White visited the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario in March 2011, to present "The Role of Materials Research in Your Life", as the 2011 J.R. Dacey Memorial Lecturer.
Mary Anne White and Ran Chen attended the 35th International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites in Daytona Beach, Florida in January 2011. Mary Anne presented an invited talk, "Morphological Control of Freeze-Cast Ceramics with Different Compositions" and Ran presented a poster "Porous Hybrid Al₂O₃-Based Ceramics Prepared by Freeze casting and Organic Surface Modifications" (photo link).

2010

Mary Anne White presented Sustainable Energy: Fantasy and Reality at Hal-Con 2010, Halifax, in November 2010. This was as invited lecture at this science fiction/fantasy conference.
Mary Anne White was a panelist at "Science and its Publics," a discussion on science and the media, held in Halifax in November 2010, to celebrate the opening of the Science Media Centre of Canada.
Congratulations to Patricia Laws (MSc 2002) and her husband Tom on the birth of their baby, Samuel Thomas, on November 14.
Congratulations to Mike Jakubinek (MSc, 2005; PhD, 2009) and his wife Tara on the birth of their son, Cameron, on October 1, 2010 (photo link).
September 2010: Welcome to new graduate students, Carl Romao (BSc, McGill) and Louis Desgrosseilliers (BEng, U Waterloo). Carl is a new MSc student and Louis is a new MASc student, co-supervised by Dr. Dominic Groulx in Mechanical Engineering. We also welcome new honours project student, Craig Bryan.
At the end of July/early August, Mary Anne White and Mike Johnson attended the 21st IUPAC International Conference on Chemical Thermodynamics in Tsukuba, Japan. Mary Anne presented an invited public lecture, "Energy and Temperature in Our Lives: The Role of Thermodynamics" (link to photo and poster), as well as an oral presentation, "Thermal Properties of Nanoscale Materials" in a Special Session in Honor of Professor S. Seki and Professor H. Suga (photo link). Mike gave an oral presentation, "Getting Accurate Heat Capacity Measurements from a PPMS" in the workshop on Calorimetry with Commercial Relaxation Calorimeters, and also presented a poster, "Magnetic Phase Transitions in (YxEr1-x)2Ti2O7 : Influence of Magnetic Field" in the Symposium on Inorganic Materials (photo link). While in Tsukuba, Dr. Makoto Tachibana took us on a tour of the National Institute of Materials Science (photo link). A highlight of the conference was meeting The Emperor of Japan (photo link).
For the last half of July, we hosted our Brazilian collaborator, Dr. Bojan Marinkovic, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro [photo Link 1 and 2).
Mary Anne White is the program director for a new research program -- Dalhousie Research in Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability, otherwise known as DREAMS. This is a $1.65 million NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program, aimed primarily at supporting a cohort of research trainees (mostly Masters and PhD students, but also undergraduates and postdocs) who will address important aspects of energy production/storage and sustainability. Researchers will play a pivotal role in renewable energy production and storage as well as the sustainable production of environmentally acceptable or re-usable materials. For more details about DREAMS, see the IRM website, the announcement on the Chemistry website and DalNews. The national launch of the CREATE program took place at Dalhousie University (photo link).
Mary Anne White has been selected as one of the 2010 recipients of a University Research Professorship at Dalhousie University. Limited to 15 positions across the whole University, the title of University Research Professor is granted to faculty members who have achieved distinction in scholarship. Mary Anne was first appointed as University Research Professor 2005-2010, and the present announcement is a renewal of the appointment.
Congratulations to Kim Miller on the renewal of her Sumner Scholarship.
Congratulations to Patrick Murray who received his BSc (Honours) at convocation on May 26, 2010. See a photo here (photo)
Mary Anne White had a visit to Utah in May, and gave a lecture, "Thermoelectrics for Power Generation" at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, and "Thermal Properties of Materials: From Energy Storage to Thermoelectrics" at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT.
Mary Anne White is honoured to be the recipient of the 2010 Dalhousie University Undergraduate Chemistry Society Teaching Award. The winner of this teaching award is chosen by the undergraduate chemistry students.
Our group had good participation at the recent Atlantic Student Chemistry Conference, ChemCon 2010, held at Dalhousie University in May 2010. Andrew Ritchie presented a poster, "Local Structure and Electronic Property Elucidation of Sodium-Containing Silicon Clathrates Through X-ray Absorption Studies." Anthony Cerqueira also presented a poster, "Synthesis and Determination of Thermodynamic Stability of Boron Phases." Summer students Lauren Bilinsky and Alex Safatli also attended the conference, and Mary Anne White presented one of the keynote addresses, "Advanced Materials in YOUR Life."
In May 2010, Alex Bourque attended a week-long Workshop on Small Angle Scattering at NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Congratulations to Dr. Cathy Whitman and her husband Aaron Whitman, on the birth of their son, Chase Herbert, on May 7, 2010..
Welcome to summer students Lauren Bilinsky (photo) and Alex Safatli (photo). Lauren and Alex will be with us from early May to the end of August.
In late April 2010, Mary Anne White and Kim Miller traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to visit collaborators at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, with whom Mary Anne holds an NSERC CIAN grant, Interamerican Collaboration on Negative Thermal Expansion Materials. Mary Anne stayed for a week and presented a seminar, "Thermal Properties of Materials: From Energy Storage to Thermoelectrics." Kim stayed for three weeks to carry out some synthesis and characterization of new compounds. See a photo here (photo).
Congratulations to former group member David James on the award of an NSERC PGS-D scholarship. David is currently a PhD student at MUN.
Congratulations to Anthony Cerqueira for winning second prize in the poster competition at the Atlantic Inorganic Discussion Weekend, March 13-14, for his poster "Synthesis and Determination of Thermodynamic Stability of Boron Allotropes"! See a photo here (photo).
Congratulations to Philippe Tremblay (Honours project 2008-9) on acceptance to the Medicine program at Dalhousie!
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, "Thermal Conductivity of Nacre and Modified Nacre" (co-authors Mike Johnson and Philippe Tremblay) at the 33rd International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites, Daytona Beach, Florida, in January.
Welcome to Dr. Ran Chen as a new postdoctoral fellow. Ran received his PhD last year from the China Institute of Petroleum, on "Synthesis, Characterization and Catalytic Performance of Novel Mesoporous and Supermicroporous Zeolites Based on Porous Silica". Ran joined us in January 2010.
Welcome to Emma Neynens, Jessica Frison, Kristianne Galpin, three Dalhousie Integrated Science Program (DISP) research students, who joined us in January 2010.
Congratulations to Mike Jakubinek as he starts in January as a Research Associate at the Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences [link], National Research Council, Ottawa. We bid a fond farewell to Mike in December (photo).

2009

In September 2009, Cathy attended the 6th International Workshop on Auxetics and Related Systems in Bolton, England and gave a talk: "Thermal Properties of Orthorhombic Y2Mo3O12 and Related Materials".
In October 2009, Cathy attended the COMSOL Conference in Boston and gave a poster: "Negative Thermal Expansion Materials: Thermal Stress and Implications for Composite Materials".
Mary Anne White and Kim Miller attended Discoveryfest, a celebration of science held at the Truro campus of the Nova Scotia Community College on November 3, 2009. Mary Anne presented the keynote address, "Science in Our Lives" and Kim held visitors' attention with chemistry demonstrations at the Dalhousie Chemistry table. (see photos)
Congratulations to Mike Jakubinek on his graduation with his PhD on October 18. (photo)
Welcome to Anthony Cerqueira, a new Masters student who started in September 2009. Anthony received his BSc in Chemistry from University of Manitoba in the spring.
Welcome to Alex Bourque a new PhD student who started in September 2009. Alex completed his BSc at Dalhousie in 2007, including an honours research project in our group. He has just submitted his Masters at Universite de Montreal.
Congratulations to Mike Jakubinek on completion of his PhD in Physics, August 2009. Mike's thesis title was Thermal and Electrical Conductivity of Carbon Nanotube Materials. (photo)
Welcome back to summer student Patrick Murray who has been visiting McMaster University to grow crystals for use in his 2009-10 honours project.
In late July, we welcomed Dr. Suad Bahammam from the Princess Nora-Bint Abdul Rahman University in Saudi Arabia. Dr. Bahammam visited the lab for a month to learn more about advanced techniques to investigate thermal properties of solids.
In July 2009, Cathy Whitman traveled to Ottawa for discussions on heat storage materials.
Congratulations to Kim Miller on passing her PhD Qualifying Exam in Chemistry, July 2009.
Mary Anne White traveled to Banff, Alberta in July 2009, where she presented an invited talk: "Thermal Properties of Materials: Opportunities for Coordination Chemistry" at the Japan-Canada Coordination Space Symposium.
Mary Anne White and Mike Jakubinek traveled to Moncton, NB in June 2009 for the Canadian Association of Physicists Congress. Mary Anne gave an invited talk: "Thermoelectric Materials for Power Generation" and Mike gave a talk: "Thermal and Electrical Conductivity of Carbon Nanotube Materials."
In June, Mike Jakubinek attended the 22nd Canadian Congress of Applied Mechanics in Halifax and gave a talk: "Negative Thermal Expansion Materials: Thermal Stress and Implications for Composite Materials."
In June 2009, Mary Anne White and Andrew Ritchie traveled to Hamilton, Ontario for the Canadian Chemical Society Conference. Mary Anne gave two talks: "Thermal Transport in Nanoscale Composites and the Public Understanding of Chemistry: Experiences with Public Broadcasting." and Andrew gave a talk: "Local Structure and Electronic Property Elucidation of Sodium Containing Silicon Clathrates Through X-ray Absorption Studies."
In June 2009, almost everyone in the group presented a poster at the Annual General Meeting of the Institute for Research in Materials.
In June 2009, Mary Anne White traveled to Toronto for the annual meeting of the Solar Building Research Network.
We have a new grant, from NSERC, in the Inter-American Collaboration in Materials Research (CIAM program), to collaborate with Dr. Bojan Marinkovic and his colleagues, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, on negative thermal expansion materials.
Congratulations to Philippe Tremblay on graduation with his BSc (Honours Chemistry) in May 2009 (photo). Philippe is now studying at Université Moncton.
Mary Anne White gave a presentation, "What's hot about cold?" at the Ontario Science Centre in February, 2009. As part of the presentation, she showed the audience how to make six-pointed snowflakes. For details, click here.
Mary Anne White presented an invited talk, "Thermal Conductivity of Light-Cured Dental Composites: Importance of Filler Particle Size" (co-authors Mike Jakubinek and Richard Price) at the 33rd International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites, Daytona Beach, Florida, in January.
In January, three DISP (Dalhousie Integrated Science Program) students, Yasmin Abdalla, Kelsey Harding and Alexandra Reda, began a research project on the physical properties of hair.
In January, Yousef Alattar, joined our group. Yousef is a co-op student in the Chemical Engineering program at Dalhousie University.

2008

Mike Jakubinek traveled to Boston for the 2008 Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society in December. He gave an oral presentation, "Thermal Conductivity of Carbon Nanotube-Epoxy Composites with Covalent Nanotube-Matrix Bonding".
Mary Anne White traveled to Japan in November/December. While there, she attended the 4th International Symposium on the New Frontiers of Thermal Studies of Materials in Yokohama, where she presented an invited talk, "Negative Thermal Expansion Materials and Their Related Thermal Properties" and the poster "Thermal Properties of Nano-Scale Materials". While in Japan, she visited the Toshiba Research & Development Center in Kawasaki, and presented a lecture, "Thermal Properties of Materials".
Mary Anne White visited Washington, DC in November. During that trip, she spend a day at the NIST Center for Neutron Research, where she gave a talk "Thermoelectrics: New Materials by Design?", and two days at an NSF-funded workshop ("Global Nano Science and Engineering Education Workshop") where she gave an invited poster "Thermal Properties of Nano-Scale Materials."
Albert Pumpkinstein (photo), carved by Kim Miller, took the best pumpkin prize at the Department of Chemistry's annual pumpkin carving contest.
Rong Sun (MSc, 2004) has now successfully completed his PhD at MIT, and has obtained a position with a Boston-area startup company in the telecommunication equipment business.
Mary Anne White was a moderator at a panel discussion on "Policies for Sustainable Prosperity" at the Power of Green conference in Halifax in October.
In October, Mike Jakubinek attended the 2008 COMSOL Conference in Boston, where he participated in workshops on finite element method modeling and presented a poster entitiled "Temperature excursions at the pulp-dentin junction during the curing of light activated dental restorations".

In September, Mary Anne White visited McGill University and Université de Montréal, where she was a lecturer for the Centre for Self-Assembled Chemical Structures (CSACS). Her seminar was entitled "Molecular-Based Design Rules for Reversible Thermochromic Mixtures.>
Congratulations to Andrew Ritchie on the award of a Douglas E. Ryan Prize in Chemistry for 2008. The award is for "overall excellence in graduate work in Chemistry at Dalhousie University."
Congratulations to Kim Miller on successfully defending her MSc thesis, "Synthesis and characterization of surface modified chitosan with polyaza macrocycles", in Chemistry at University of Prince Edward Island.

Mary Anne White presented a lecture "Materials Research: Materials Designed with Conscience" for the Shad Valley Program, Dalhousie University, July 2008. At the end, she and Andrew Ritchie made liquid nitrogen frozen yogurt, always a hit with these high school students after an evening lecture in July!
Mike Jakubinek spent most of the month of July at the Steacie Institute for Molecular Science of the National Research Council in Ottawa, working with Dr. Benoit Simard's group on carbon nanotube materials.
Congratulations to Mike Johnson and his wife Laura, on the birth of their son, Marc Michel Johnson (photo) on June 22, 2008.
Andrew Ritchie visited the Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon in June, where he carried out experiments on thermoelectric materials.
On June 25th the Halifax Chronicle Herald published "The real costs of air conditioning", an opinion piece by Mary Anne White. The article is based on a presentation given by Mary Anne at the 5th Science Centre World Congress held in Toronto the previous week.
Mary Anne White received a Doctor of Science (honoris causa) from McMaster University on June 10, 2008. See the story in DalNews, and a photo from the convocation.
Hong Tang and David James received MSc and BSc (Hon) degrees at the Dalhousie University Spring Convocation (photo).
In May, Mary Anne White visited Queen's University Belfast, where she presented a lecture, "Molecular-Based Design Rules for Reversible Thermochromic Mixtures".
Mike Jakubinek was awarded a Walter C Sumner Fellowship for 2008/09.
Philippe Tremblay joined the group as a summer research student.

Congratulations to former group member Alex Bourque on award of an NSERC graduate scholarship.
Mike Jakubinek was awarded a Killam Memorial Scholarship for the 2008/09 year.
Kimberly Miller joined the group as a PhD student in Chemistry.

2007

Hong Tang successfully defended his MSc thesis, "Use of Ink-jet Combinatorial Techniques to Investigate Thermochromic Materials" on December 6. Hong has taken up a position as a chemist with Bebbington Industries, Dartmouth. Congratulations, Hong!
In late November, Mary Anne White attended the Materials Research Society meeting in Boston, and presented a talk: "Reduced Thermal Conductivity by Low-Frequency Optic Modes that Give Rise to Negative Thermal Expansion: Opportunities for Thermoelectrics."(co-author Catherine Whitman)
In November 2007, Mary Anne White visited University of Victoria and UBC, where she presented the lectures, "Thermoelectrics: New Materials by Design" and "Molecular-Based Design Rules for Reversible Thermochromic Mixtures," respectively. On her way there, she visited McMaster University where she presented two lectures "Molecular-Based Design Rules for Reversible Thermochromic Mixtures" and "Materials Science in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum" She also stopped in Edmonton and received the McNeil Medal for Public Awareness of Science from the Royal Society of Canada (photo).
In early November, Mary Anne White traveled to Boston with delegates from Atlantic Canada who were selected to increase interactions between our region and the north-eastern US. While there, she presented a lecture at MIT, "Thermal Properties of Materials: From Teeth to Solar Building Materials" and had a chance to meet with Rong Sun, an MSc graduate from our lab who is now studying for his PhD at MIT (photo).
In late October, 2007, Mary Anne White visited Alberta, and presented two seminars: "Thermoelectrics: New Materials by Design" at University of Alberta, and "Molecular-Based Design Rules for Reversible Thermochromic Mixtures." at University of Calgary.
In early October, 2007, Mary Anne White visited southern Ontario. While there she presented two seminars: "Thermoelectrics: New Materials by Design" at University of Western Ontario, and "Molecular-Based Design Rules for Reversible Thermochromic Mixtures" at University of Waterloo.
In September 2007, Mary Anne White gave an invited lecture, "The Implications of Negative Thermal Expansion for Thermal Conductivity" (co-author Cathy Whitman) at "Negative Materials - Fourth International Workshop on Auxetics and Related Systems" Malta. This talk, presented in the public session, showed the link between negative thermal expansion and thermal conductivity, with possible connections to auxetic behaviour.
David James and Yaoting Zhang joined the group as Honours Research Project Students.

Mary Anne White attended the 62^nd Calorimetry Conference, held jointly with The Japan Society of Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis, on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. Mary Anne was co-chair of the Symposium on Materials, and also presented two lectures "Heat Capacity of Er₂Ti₂O₇ in Magnetic Fields up to 9 Tesla" and "Quantum Design PPMS for Accurate Heat Capacity Measurements" and, together with Rob White, a poster "Thermal Properties of Amino Dicarboxylic Acids."
Alex Bourque and Steve Cook left the group to begin graduate studies at Université de Montréal and San Diego State University.
Mary Anne White has been selected as the 2007 recipient of the McNeil Medal of the Royal Society of Canada for Public Awareness of Science. Click here to read the announcement. She will receive this award at the meeting of the Royal Society of Canada in Edmonton in November.
The group attended the IRM Annual General Meeting and Research Day.
Steve Cook attended the 2nd Canadian Solar Buildings Conference in Calgary.
The group attended the International Defense Applications of Materials Meeting in Halifax where Mary Anne White gave a keynote lecture, Advances in Thermoelectric Materials.
Hong Tang and Andrew Ritchie attended the 90th Canadian Chemistry Conference in Winnipeg where they presented the posters Using Thermal Bubble Inkjet Printer to Investigate Thermochromic Materials and Towards More Efficient Thermoelectric Materials, respectively.
Steve Cook was accepted to the MS program in the Chemistry Department at San Diego State University starting September 2007.
Andrew Ritchie participated in the 7th Canadian Powder Diffraction Workshop at Université de Quebec Trois-Riviés.
The group participated in the IRM Materials Characterization Workshop at Dalhousie.
Alex Bourque was accepted to the Masters program in the Chemistry Department at Université de Montréal starting September 2007.
Alex Bourque was awarded the degree BSc (honours) in Chemistry from Dalhousie.
Mike Jakubinek was awarded a Walter C Sumner Fellowship for 2007/08.
Alex Bourque won the E. Gordon Young Memorial Prize for Best Physical and Theoretical Chemistry presentation at the APICS Student Chemistry Conference at Acadia University in May.
Mary Anne White gave an invited talk, Thermal Properties of Materials: From Teeth to Solar Building Materials to the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto.
Amit Gandhi has joined the group as a summer student.
Mike Jakubinek attended the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting in San Francisco and gave an oral presentation, Thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube/epoxy composites.
Mary Anne White gave a guest lecture, Principles of Crystal Growth, at Frantic Films, a Winnipeg-based computer animation company.
Cathy Whitman joined the joined the group as a Research Associate. Cathy comes from Imperial Oil and completed her PhD in the MA White group at Dalhousie in 2005.

Andrew Ritchie and Alex Bourque participated in the Maritime Inorganic Discussion Weekend at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick.
Mary Anne White gave an invited talk, Thermoelectric Materials, at the International Workshop on Materials Issues in the Development of Power and Energy Systems in Halifax.
Mike Jakubinek was awarded an Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship for the 2007/08 year.
Mary Anne White presented an invited lecture, Novel Physical and Chemical Properties of Zeolitic Nanomaterials, at the American Chemical Society Conference in Chicago.
Dr. Suzanne Fortier, President of NSERC, and Dr. Eliot Phillipson, President of the Canada Foundation for Innovation visited our lab (photo).
A TA Instruments Q200 Differential Scanning Calorimeter was installed in our lab (photo). This instrument is part of the IRM's Facilities for Materials Characterization (click here for more info).
Mike Jakubinek was awarded the Leiper Prize by the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science in recognition of his ability to communicate physics to the general public and his enthusiasm and dedication to outreach programs.

2006

Steve Cook joined the group as a Research Scientist. Steve completed his BSc in Chemistry at Dalhousie in December 2006.
Mike Jakubinek was profiled by the Killam Trusts in the scholar profiles section of their new website.
Andrew Ritchie passed his PhD qualifying exam in Chemistry.
Mike Jakubinek passed his PhD preliminary exam in Physics.
Mary Anne White visited the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manitoba and presented a seminar, Molecular-Based Design Rules for Reversible Thermochromic Mixtures.
Mike Jakubinek's NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship was renewed for the 2006/07 year.