The most recent Group Photo is here.
Current Group Members
Jonathan Tennyson
Jonathan is founder and principal investigator of the ExoMol projects. He has been at UCL since 1985 as "New Blood" Lecturer and by 2011 was Head of Department. In the interim period his group started computing molecular line lists at the rate of about one every 3 years. In 2011 he stepped down from Head of Department to lead the ExoMol project.
Sergey Yurchenko
Sergey is manager of the ExoMol project. He is a developer of the polyatomic general variational code TROVE and diatomic program Duo. Sergey is a senior lecturer at Physics and Astronomy UCL currently teaching Mathematical Methods to undegraduates.
Christian Hill
email | www | @scipython3
Christian has been a member of the ExoMol group since 2010 and has been involved in the creation of several line lists. He also wrote and maintains this website.
Barry Mant
Barry did his undergraduate degree in chemistry at The University of Aberdeen. He then went on to do a PhD with Dr Mark Law with the title, "Antimatter Chemistry". Barry joined the ExoMol project in 2016. His research is in investigating and applying methods of calculating line lists for hydrocarbon molecules.
Oleg Polyansky
Katy Chubb
Katy has been a PhD student with the ExoMol group since September 2014. She has a background in astrophysics where she gained an interest in quantum mechanics. She is working towards a hot linelist for acetylene for use in characterising exoplanet and cool star atmospheres and is interested in the singularities relating to linear molecules. She is also currently working with the Twinkle team on the ORBYTS project and the Mayors Fund for London Astronomy Club.
Phillip Coles
Phil is a PhD student at Exomol. He is working on constructing accurate, high temperature line lists for the NH3 and AsH3 molecules.
Tom Rivlin
email | www | @tomrivlin
Tom is a PhD student working under Jonathan Tennyson. He graduated in 2015 from Imperial College with an MSci in Physics with Theoretical Physics. Currently, he is writing code to simulate heavy particle scattering using the R-Matrix methodology. In 2014 he did a summer project with the ExoMol group, generating the full rovibronic spectrum of Sodium Hydride, NaH.Former Group Members
Andrey Yachmenev
Andrey was a postdoc with the ExoMol group since April 2013. His background is in molecular physics, theoretical chemistry and spectroscopy. His role in the ExoMol project has been to develop the variational methodology employed in the computer program TROVE to improve the computational performance in applications to polyatomic molecules, beyond four-atomics, and for calculations of high-energy spectra.
He has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship in 2014 for the project RichMol, aimed at the development of new theoretical and computational methods for comprehensive modelling of the rovibrational dynamics of polyatomic molecules in the presence of external electric (laser) fields.
He is currently a theory team leader in the experimental group of Jochen Kuepper at Center for Free-Electron laser Science at DESY
Laura McKemmish
email | www | @laura_mckemmish
Lorenzo Lodi
Emma Barton
email | www | @EJ_astrogeo
Emma was a PhD student at Exomol. Her work included calculation of diatomic line lists (SiO, NaCl, KCl and contribution to CS), analysis of FTIR absorption spectra (NH3, CH4) and computation of pressure broadened cross-sections from the ExoMol line lists. The cross-sections are intended for implementation in Tau-REx, a new spectral retrieval code from the Exoplanet group at UCL.
Emma is now a Research Scientist for INCOMPASS based at Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford. Her research interests include understanding land-atmosphere interactions using aircraft and satellite observations.
Ahmed Al-Refaie
Ahmed was a PhD student at Exomol. He computed hot line lists for the H2O2 and H2CO molecules. He also developed the GAIN and ExoCross programs.
In 2017 Ahmed was a research associate in UCL physics with Jonathan Tennyson, working on parallel algorithms for constructing Hamiltonians as part of the UKRMOL project.
Ahmed is now a Post doctoral researcher in the controlled molecule imaging group at DESY in Hamburg.
Emil Żak
Emil was a PhD student supervised by Jonathan Tennyson. His project was the computation of highly accurate ro-vibrational line lists for isotopologues of carbon dioxide. These may serve as theoretical reference model for precise measurements of atmospheric concentration of this greenhouse gas. His research interests range from nuclear motion theory of electronic excited states, through quantum electrodynamics of ultra-cold molecules, to fundamental concepts as the geometric phase in Quantum Mechanics.
Emil is now a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Clara Sousa-Silva
email | www | @clara__ss
Clara was a PhD student at Exomol and a science teacher as part of the Researchers in Schools (RIS) initiative. For her PhD, Clara simulated the hot spectra of the phosphine molecule. Alongside her research, Clara works as an advocate for encouraging more girls into STEM fields. With the support of Goldman Sachs, RIS and UCL, she is responsible for the educational programme for the Twinkle space mission, EduTwinkle. Most recently, Clara has set up ORBYTS (Original Research By Young Twinkle Students). She has spoken, taught and researched at many institutions including the Josef Stephan’s Institute, the ULO Observatory, Downing St, Edinburgh University and MIT.
In September 2016 Clara joined MIT as a post-doc in the EAPS (MIT) department working with Sara Seager. Clara's interests lie in the molecular characterization of extra-solar planets and making science a more inclusive world, particularly for girls.
Alec Owens
Alec was a PhD student with Exomol but carried out much of his research at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. He calculated accurate theoretical potential and dipole moment surfaces for the molecules CH4,SiH4,CH3Cl and CH3F.
Alec is now a postdoctoral researcher in the controlled molecule imaging group at DESY in Hamburg. His research is focused on high-accuracy simulations of the rovibrational dynamics of small molecules in the presence of external electric fields. Currently he is interested in molecules subject to extreme rotation, so-called molecular super-rotors, and the novel behaviour and properties that emerge.
Daniel Underwood
Dan was a PhD student in Exomol working on hot line lists for SO2 and SO3 molecules.
He is now a research associate based in the Computer Laboratory. He is currently involved in the Isaac Physics Project, with an interest in data-driven research to facilitate outreach and engagement of school students learning physics, as well as on-going development of the online web platform.
Maire Gorman
email | www | @MaireNeilsonG
Maire started her PhD in the ExoMol group in October 2012 in which she calculated linelists for the diatomic hydrides of CrH and MnH. During her time in London she tutored for The Brilliant Club in East London and worked as a PostGraduate Teaching Assistant in the department and at ULO. She is now a permanent Teaching Fellow at Aberystwyth University, Wales.