The IYCN Newsletter - Issue 16

Meet some of our Active Members

Arish Naim

Sub-committee/Position: International Society Liaison, Committee Lead

Arish Naim received her BS in Industrial Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University (India) in 2019, and worked at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan, Canada) as a Visiting Research Scholar afterwards. She established the American Chemical Society students’ chapter at her university in India during her bachelors and served as its Secretary. Arish represented her university at the 257th ACS National Meeting in Orlando, USA.

Passionate about research and development in material sciences, focusing specifically on sustainable bio-based novel materials. Received an award from a non profit USA based organisation for her meritorious academic record and extracurricular engagements in college.

Awards:

Sir Syed Scholar Award, SSGSA USA, 2019
Shastri Indo Canadian internship award, 2019
American Chemical Society Students’ chapter Travel award, 2019

Shahrul Nizam Ahmad, ChM, Ph.D.

Sub-committee/Position: Public Outreach Committee, Co-Leader

Shahrul Nizam Ahmad, is a certified chemist under Chemistry Institute of Malaysia. He has working experience in both academic and industry, cumulatively more than 10 years. He is now a Senior Lecturer at School of Chemistry and Environment, Faculty of Applied Sciences, UiTM Shah Alam, Malaysia. He is a council member of Institute of Materials Malaysia (IMM), an affiliate member of Young Scientist Network-Academy of Sciences Malaysia and International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

His main research interest is synthesis and characterization of new ligands and metal complexes. He has been studying the properties of palladium, nickel as well as lanthanum complexes as a homogenous catalyst in vital organic reactions other than the biological activities of the compounds as antibacterial and anticancer agents.

He is a passionate science communicator who has been actively sharing fun science facts on social media and mainstream media. He loves writing, researching, teaching, and above all, educating.

Yamkela Nomngang, Graduate Student

Sub-committee/Position: Conference Presence, Committee member

Yamkela Nomnganga graduated with a National Diploma in Analytical Chemistry from Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in 2017 and a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) in Chemistry the following year. She is currently completing her Master of Applied Sciences in Chemistry at the same institution as well as working as a Laboratory Intern in the AgriFood Technology Station in the Department of Food Technology and Sciences at CPUT. She will begin working as a Laboratory Assistant at the University of Cape Town, Chemistry Department in February 2022.

Her research interests include, biomass, crystal engineering, drug discovery and development and medicinal chemistry. She sees herself advancing her career as a researcher and reaching out to the less disadvantaged communities to educate and inspire the young scholars. Yamkela worked as a tutor for Organic Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry in the Chemistry Department during her undergraduate studies, and she also tutored Chemistry 1 in the Civil Engineering Department. In 2019-2020,she oversaw the crystallography research laboratory, where she trained and gathered data for research students using the PXRD. Yamkela is a member of the South African Chemical Institute (SACI) as well as the International Young Chemists Network (IYCN). The National Research Foundation (NRF) awarded her a research scholarship for the academic year 2019-2021.

Apart from her academic obligations, she also plays an important role in community development as a mentor to high school students. Yamkela is committed to programs that seek to develop and improve the quality of education and social well-being of the young people in South Africa and across the African continent.

Guido Zichittella

Sub-committee/Position: Finance, Committee member

Guido Zichittella is postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Yuriy Román at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, where he is currently focused on developing catalytic technologies for plastic waste upcycling. In 2019, he received his Ph.D. in heterogeneous catalysis at ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Javier Pérez-Ramírez, where he focused on halogen-mediated light alkanes functionalization to develop sustainable technologies for the production of chemicals from natural gas. For his doctoral work, he received several honors and awards at national and international level, including the ETH Medal and the ABB Research Award for outstanding doctoral thesis as well as being nominated in 2019 among the 30 most influential scientists in Europe under the age of 30 by Forbes magazine. He is a chemical engineer by training, and his filed of expertise expands to material science as well as as operando spectroscopy in heterogenous catalysis.

Karla Corsino

Sub-committee/Position: Governance, Committee member

Karla Corsino received her B.S. in Engineering in Biotechnology from the Universidad Veracruzana at Mexico in 2021 and has an specialization in Environmental ecology to the listening of the Amazon. She participated last year as a delegate at the LCOY MX 2021, in the Climate Bootcamp 2021 from the British Embassy and in Olascoaga as a Mentor in the WILL Program Women take the lead ed.9. She is a certified Climate Reality Leader, a member of YOUNGO, the BioScience Club YT Logistics coordinator and she is working in the Laudato Si´ Movement as the Hispano-America volunteer coordinator and Special Projects Assistant.

2019 - Programa Delfín Scholarship for a 2-months stay at ITSON, involving in the Microbial Resource Biotechnology Laboratory with the project "Development of a microbial inoculant from the BPCV Bacillus subtilis TE3"
2020 - Scholarship for a 6-months stay at Universidad Santo Tomás in the Environmental engineering program
2020 - Participation in the Tropical Research Center of the Universidad Veracruzana with the project "Monitoring my region from space"

Manuel Pühringer

Sub-committee/Position: Social Media, Committee member

Manuel Pühringer received his bachelor in chemistry and chemical technology at JKU Linz in 2017 followed by his master’s degree in 2019. He began his PhD thesis at the institute of organic materials at JKU Linz in April 2019, working on biomimetic adhesives specialising in polymer synthesis. In 2014 he was a member of the student council for chemistry and chemical technology and switched to the student council for PhD students after his graduation of the master’s program. He became a member of the “Jungchemiker” (Austrian young chemists) in 2016 as a regional representative of Linz before resignation in 2018 of this function to become “just” a member of the group.

The International Younger Chemists Network

The IYCN was represented at the Frühjahrssymposium 2022

Meet some of our Active Members