Dr Struan Simpson

Struan graduated with a first-class honours MChem degree from the University of Aberdeen in 2018, earning numerous prizes including the William Rudolph Center Medal for Most Distinguished Graduate in Chemistry. After undertaking a six-month Erasmus placement at the ICMCB in Bordeaux, France, he was awarded a prestigious PhD scholarship from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland to continue his studies at the University of Aberdeen. Under the supervision of Professor Abbie Mclaughlin, he studied structure-property relationships in a range of new quantum materials including magnetic hexagonal perovskites and exotic layered oxyarsenides. This work combined X-ray and neutron diffraction techniques in addition to physical and magnetic property measurements, with the aim of elucidating the sensitive interplay between structural, magnetic, and electronic degrees of freedom in these materials. Struan joined the Senn group in 2022 to discover and design new multiferroic materials based on a novel symmetry-motivated approach.