Theoreticians in the Bavarian alps (courtesy of A. Alexandrova). From left to right: D. Glowacki (Bristol), T. Jacob (Ulm), T. Miller (CalTech), A. Alexandrova (UCLA), A. Tkatchenko (Berlin), B. Strodel (Julich), and L. Jensen (Penn State)

It’s all been hectic (more on why later!) so my posts have been delayed. But I wanted to mention a fantastic conference that I attended in August, held at the Kloster Seeon monastery in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Jointly sponsored by the Royal Sociey of Chemistry (RSC), the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh).

The aim of the meeting was to bring together some exciting early-career chemists across the UK, USA, and Germany in order to facilitate international networking across diverse chemistry disciplines. The venue was amazing: Kloster Seeon is the site of a 10th century Benedictine monastery, located on an island in the middle of a pristine lake in the Alpine foothills, where I took early morning swims.

I presented in a session entitled ‘Applied Theory’, and had the opportunity to hear loads of amazingly talented scientists discuss their research across biochemistry, materials science, soft matter, theory & computation, organic chemistry, etc. One particular morning, I took a lovely early-morning bicycle ride through the Bavarian countryside along with some fellow theoretical chemists – Alexandre Tkatchenko (Berlin), Anastassia Alexandrova (UCLA), and Thomas Miller (CalTech). The latter two I will be visiting shortly in Los Angeles!

I took the scenic route back to Bristol, through the Austrian alps (passing through Salzburg and Villach) en route to Venice, where I wandered the city exploring the 2013 Biennale. I eventually made my way to Milan to fly back to Bristol.