Previous Meetings

ECCo 2025

ECCo took place at Aston University, Birmingham, 12^th-13^th June 2025.

Our keynote speakers were Dr Sian Fussell (Albotherm), telling us the story of her greenhouse coatings start-up, and Dr Arwen Tyler (University of Leeds), with advice from her academic career. The conference closed with a Q&A session with our keynote speakers.

New this year was a session of talks from Katharine Burr Blodgett award winners (Dr Clare Rees-Zimmerman, University of Oxford – 2023, Dr Joshua Lawrence, University of Cambridge – 2024); this is the prize for the best PhD thesis from the Joint Colloids Group. We are delighted to showcase this award at our conference, and look forward to continuing this tradition next year with the 2025 winner.

Furthermore, we hosted 5 contributed talks and 4 posters. Also new this year was a poster prize from Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing. This year’s winner was Lan Nan, University of Cambridge. We are pleased to announce that this poster competition will take place again at our next two years’ conferences.

The conference dinner was held at the swish Aston University conference centre. Special thanks to our local organisers, Dr Matt Derry and Dr Sam Wilson-Whitford, as well as the rest of the committee, for making this conference happen!

Finally, thanks very much to our sponsors: IOP Liquids and Complex Fluids Group, the Royal Society Publishing, Julabo, Asynt, Biolin Scientific, Aston University and the RSC-SCI Joint Colloids Group.

ECCo 2024

ECCo 2024, hosted at UCL School of Pharmacy, 20^th-21^st June, was a success! we had 10 contributed talks spread over three sessions. We also enjoyed 6 posters, each advertised by a flash presentation, including hearing a little from IOP Publishing about Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter.

Our keynote speakers were Prof. Stefan Bon (University of Warwick), who shared tips from his career for early career researchers, and Dr Tiffany Wood (Dyneval), who shared how she made her research have an impact – and they both mixed some cool colloid science into their talks! Attendees had the opportunity to ask more advice from the keynote speakers in a panel discussion. The conference dinner was held at a nearby Mexican restaurant: Mestizo Camden. This, along with several refreshment and exhibition breaks during the conference meant there was plenty of time to get to know the other attendees and sponsors.

We are very grateful to our event sponsors: Lubrizol, Syngenta, Anton Paar, RSC Publishing (RSC Applied Interfaces, PCCP, and Soft Matter) and IOP Publishing (Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter)

ECCo 2023

We were delighted to have ECCo 2023 back in person, held over 2 days, 10-11^th May, at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Visitor Centre in Didcot, Oxfordshire. We welcomed keynote talks from Dr Susanne Klein (University of the West of England) and Prof. Alex Routh (University of Cambridge), sharing insights from their careers. The programme also comprised of 6 contributed talks and 7 posters, and some publishing tips from the RSC. The poster prize was awarded to Daniel Williams (University of Leeds). With the city of Oxford to enjoy in the evening, the conference dinner was held at The Folly, beside the River Thames. Participants were lucky to have the option of a facility tour of RAL: Central Laser Facility (CLF), the Diamond Light Source, and the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source.

Thanks very much again to the event sponsors: Lubrizol, Nikon, RSC Publishing (RSC Applied Interfaces, PCCP, and Soft Matter), Wasatch photonics, and the Central Laser Facility (CLF).

ECCo Live 2021

ECCo Live 2021 was held online over two half days on the 15th and 16th September. The line up included plenary talks from Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy (University of Reading) and Sarah Rogers (STFC) and invited talks from Spyridon Varlas (University of Sheffield), winner of the Katharine Burr Blodgett Award, and Catherine Hodges (Royal Society of Chemistry). We also had 14 contributed talks from a range of PhD students, PDRAs and academics from 7 countries (incl. India and Australia) and open discussions on on career opportunities/challenges for early career scientists.

ECCo Live 2020

The ECCo meeting moved online in 2020 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The half-day webinar on 10th September comprised presentations from keynote speaker and delegates. We had the pleasure of the keynote speaker, Cecile Dreiss from Kings College London presenting her work on ‘The colloid science of bile salts and lipid digestion – and other colloid stories‘. Other speakers included James E. Hallett (University of Oxford), Thomas M. McCoy (University of Cambridge), Katherine Macmillan (Heinrich Heine University), Guido Bolognesi (Loughborough University), Timothy J. Murdoch (University of Pennsylvania) and James W. Hindley (Imperial College London).

2nd Annual Early Colloid Meeting 2019

The 2nd Annual Early Colloid Meeting 2019 was held at Loughborough University on 16th – 17th September.

Our plenary speakers included Dr peter Shaw (Synthomer) and Karen Edler (University of Bath) and panel members included Dr Marianne Rolph (EPSRC), Gabrielle Newson (UKRI), Garima Sharma (RSC).

The meeting was organised by the Early Career Colloid Group Committee, which consists of Dr Tim Snow (Secretary, Diamond Light Source), Dr Lee Fielding (Treasurer, University of Manchester), Dr Ben Cheesman (Treasurer, Aqdot Limited), Dr Kirsty Stark (Webdesign and Social Media, Battelle, UK) and Dr David Growney (Industry Liaison, Lubrizol Limited), alongside our local organisers, Dr Fiona Hatton and Dr Nacho Martin-Fabiani (Loughborough University).

Dr Brianna Knowles was the Australasian Colloid and Interface Society/UK Joint Colloids Group (RSC/SCI) bursary recipient and presented her work on Using Functionalised Silica Nanoparticle Colloids to prepare Antifouling Surface Coatings. David Brossault was the winner of our poster prize sponsored by Soft Matter and RSC books. Runner up prizes went to Ataulla Shegiwal and Tom Wilks.

Thanks again to all the sponsors of the event: Adaptive Instruments, Postnova, Lubrizol, Anton Paar, RSC, RSC Books, Polymer Chemistry, Soft Matter, Journal of Materials Chemistry B.

Inaugural Early Career Colloid meeting 2018

The Inaugural ECColloid meeting 2018 brought together early career colloid scientists from industry and academia and provide a forum for discussion, networking and facilitate knowledge exchange.

This 2-day meeting was held in Sheffield on 17-18th September with the aim to join newly appointed (within 10 years of first appointment) academics and industrialists, research fellows and postdocs, and will include plenary and contributed talks, a poster session and panel discussions (providing advice on careers and how to ‘bridge the gap’ between academia and industry).

Our Plenary Speakers included Professor Steve Armes (University of Sheffield) and Professor Peter Dowding (Infineum UK Ltd) and our panel members included Dr Laura Fisher (RSC Journals), Dr Sarah Rogers (ISIS STFC) and Dr Lien Ngo (Innovate UK).

The meeting was organised by Dr Fiona Hatton, Dr Gemma-Louise Davies, Dr Lee Fielding and Dr Kirsty Stark and generously sponsored by the RSC, SCI, Soft Matter, Polymer Chemistry, Unilever, Analytik, Postnova, Simadzu, Sanderson technology and Synthomer. Dr Long Yu from the University of Queensland gave a presentation thanks to the Australian Colloid and Interface Society exchange bursary and Dr Alison Savage (University of Liverpool) was announced as the recipient of a JCG bursary to attend the 2019 ACIS meeting in Tasmania. Betül Aldemir Dikici (University of Sheffield) was awarded the Postnova-sponsored poster prize.