Our team

  • Shrestha Banerjee

    RESEARCH FELLOW

    Shrestha joined the group in February 2024. She received her PhD from Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands). Her work focuses on solid-state NMR of new materials for optoelectronics.

  • Luis Simbari

    PhD STUDENT

    Luis joined the group in October 2025. He graduated from the University of East Anglia and works on synthesis and characterization of new metal halide perovskites.

  • Benny Gallant

    VISITING FELLOW

    Benny joined the group as a Research Fellow in August 2023. His previous work has focused on metal halide perovskites for photovoltaics, with stints at the University of Oxford and Advanced Technology Institute (University of Surrey) as a postdoctoral researcher investigating scalable green processing methods for perovskite solar cells. He completed undergraduate studies in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before going on to investigate new materials for organic photovoltaics at the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne. Returning to the UK, he completed his PhD in the group of Prof. Henry Snaith in the Department of Physics, University of Oxford, where he developed new methods for the production of highly stable lead halide perovskites. Currently, he focuses on solid-state NMR of metal halide perovskites and green approaches to materials synthesis using mechanochemistry.

Excellence is collective — every idea, every background, and every discussion counts.

From the left: Emily King, Sophia Nathanael, Shrestha Banerjee, Giovani Henrique Soares, Dominik Kubicki, Guillermo Sierra-Villegas

Here, ideas, people, and purpose come together. Ambition drives our science — and integrity defines it.

From the left: Maisie Budge, Sophia Nathanael, Georgia Cowdell-Smith, Giovani Henrique Soares, Dominik Kubicki

Visit at the MAS DNP facility at the University of Manchester (website of the facility) - 400 MHz MAS DNP in the background

Work with final year students at the NMR facility at Warwick - 500 MHz in the background

Visit at the UK High-Field Solid-State NMR Facility (website of the facility) - 850 MHz in the background

Visit at the UK High-Field Solid-State NMR Facility (website of the facility) - 1 GHz in the background

Alumni

2024/2025

  • Kate Anderson (MSc, final year project student)

  • Michael Walters (MSc, final year project student)

  • Francesca Nerli (visiting PhD student, supervised by prof. Marco Taddei in the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry at the University of Pisa, Italy)

2023/2024

  • Valentina Walls (summer project, RSC summer bursary, UoB)

  • Guillermo Sierra-Villegas (summer projects, UoB College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Enhancement Scholarship)

  • William Burston (summer project, UoB School of Chemistry summer bursary)

  • Joshua Holloway (summer project, research grant funding)

2022/2023

  • Anya Fairhurst (MSc, UoB)

  • Kaja Glazer (MSc, UoB)

  • Andrea Scarperi (visiting PhD student, supervised by prof. Marco Geppi in the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry at the University of Pisa, Italy)

  • Dhruv Ganatra (MSc, UoW)

  • Rahil Haria (MSc, UoW)

  • Levi Dean (BSc, UoW)

2021/2022

  • Jan Sovíček (BSc, UoW)

  • William Su (BSc, UoW)