Mark Sims is an Assistant Professor in Computational Chemistry in the Department of Applied Sciences.

He graduated with an MChem degree from the University of York in 2011, where he also obtained his PhD. He was appointed a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the groups of Dr. John Moore and Prof. John Goodby in 2015, working on combining experimental and computational studies of ordered systems, primarily dye-doped liquid crystals, in order to develop design methods to aid in identifying synthetic targets. In 2017 he was appointed to his current role at Northumbria University.

Research website.

My research primarily focusses on understanding self-assembly processes in ordered materials, and rationalising experimental trends in ordered systems using computational methods. A recent project has yielded novel insights into the structure of ferroelectric liquid crystals, specifically in the nature of the structural change at the SmC - SmA phase transition.

Additional research has also involved calculations to rationalise trends in reaction kinetics of novel bioorthogonal reagents in collaboration with Dr Valery Kozhevnikov, and calculating binding properties of ligands designed for actinide extraction in collaboration with Dr Frank Lewis.

See "Key Publications" below for further details.