Kim E. Jelfs is a computational chemist based at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

who was one of the recipients of the Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prizes in 2018. She develops software to predict the structures and properties of molecular systems for renewable energy.

Early life and education

Jelfs studied chemistry at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. For her final year project, Jelfs worked at the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

. She earned her PhD in 2010, working with Ben Slater on modelling the growth of zeolitic materials.

Research and career

After completing her PhD Jelfs joined the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona (official name in ; UB), formerly also known as Central University of Barcelona (), is a public research university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was established in 1450. With 76,000 students, ...

, working with Stefan Bromley. She moved to the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

, working as a postdoctoral researcher with Matthew Rosseinsky and Andrew Ian Cooper. At the

Jelfs characterised the structure of porous materials. She was funded by an

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British UK Research Councils, Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical scienc ...

Programme Grant. In 2013 she joined

as a

Royal Society University Research Fellow __NOTOC__ The Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) is a research fellowship awarded to outstanding early career scientists in the United Kingdom who are judged by the Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society ...

. In 2015 she was awarded a

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

Starting Grant, which provides €1.5 million funding for five years of materials discovery. Her research will consider porous molecules, organic small molecules and polymers. She uses computational models to predict the relationships between structure and properties. The models can also be used to predict the properties of amorphous frameworks and porous molecules. Her group identified the 20 most probable topologies for porous cage molecules, which can be synthesised through

dynamic covalent chemistry Dynamic covalent chemistry (Commonly abbreviated to DCvC or DCC) is a Chemical synthesis, synthetic strategy employed by chemists to make complex molecular and supramolecular assemblies from discrete molecular building blocks. DCvC has allowed acc ...

. In 2018 Jelfs was awarded the Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize from the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...

. She was also awarded an

President's Award for Outstanding Early Career Research. In 2019, she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Chemistry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jelfs, Kim computational chemists living people year of birth missing (living people)