A new Research Engineer for the NMR division of the advanced characterization platform

Andrew RANKIN is the new Research Engineer (IGR) (December 1, 2021), recruited for the NMR platform of the Chevreul Institute. Andrew will notably be in charge of maintenance and operation of the future 1.2 GHZ NMR spectrometer as well as the technical and scientific support of users in the frame of the national Research infrastructure, Infranalytics. He will also provide support to local users for other spectrometers, in collaboration with engineers from the NMR platform.

Andrew is from Scotland, UK, and grew up on the West coast town called Troon, which is approximately 60 km from Glasgow. He did his PhD studies in the research group of Prof. Sharon Ashbrook at the University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK), from 2013 to 2018. His thesis focused on the applications of multinuclear solid-state NMR spectroscopy to the characterisation of catalysts and related “advanced materials” used in industrial contexts. In January 2018, he joined the NMR team at UCCS, University of Lille as a postdoc working with Profs Olivier Lafon and Jean-Paul Amoureux, until December 2019. This allowed him to further improve his skills in solid-state NMR spectroscopy applied to materials, and gain experience in the area of NMR method development. In January 2020, he started a second postdoc at LCMCP, Sorbonne University, Paris, working with Prof. Christian Bonhomme. There he worked on development of innovative methods for NMR sensitivity enhancement (e.g., microcoils) and implementation of advanced solid-state NMR techniques in studies of nanoparticles and biomaterials, until November 2021. During that time, he also worked as a CNRS researcher (CDD), helping to oversee the operation of the LCMCP’s 300 MHz solid-state NMR spectrometer and providing technical advice to instrument users regarding experimental design, execution and analysis.