Emilia joined my group after having completed a first class chemistry degree at the University of Sheffield in October 2018. Born in Krakow in Poland, she came to England as a young girl. Emilia had a variety of interests as a child, but one has been with her for years. Emilia tells me that she has always wanted to be an archaeologist – that's Indiana Jones for you – but in the end studied chemistry. In the final yeat of her chemistry degree, she decided that she wanted to do a PhD and applied for the Polymers, Soft Matter, and Colloids Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT). These studentships require industrial co-sponsorships, and unfortunately there were none left. Fortunately, at the eleventh hour Lonza Chemical stepped in with funding for me to support a PhD studentship on the CDT. (Arxada since took over that part of Lonza.) I was delighted that Emilia had been through her interview and offered her the place, the fiftieth studentship funded by the CDT, out of a total of fifty studentships. This does not mean Emilia came fiftieth! Anyway, during her PhD, Emilia was looking at how biofilms grow on surfaces and in different environments using a quartz crystal microbalance as well as fluorescence and scanning force microscopy. Of course, I have fled Sheffield for sunny Newcastle, and so we worked together with Andy Parnell in Sheffield who provided co-supervision, and a cheery nature. The PhD was the most pandemic-affected that I have been involved in, but nevertheless, on September 23, 2024, Emilia successfully defended her thesis in front of her examiners, Professor Patrick Fairclough (University of Sheffield) and Dr Margarita Staykova (Durham University). Emilia still has corrections to do though, so not quite there just yet! The photo shows Emilia in December 2022 at the final CDT showcase event, where she presented her work.
Publications
E. M. Hudzik, A. J. Parnell, J. Petkov, and M. Geoghegan "Quartz crystal microbalance experiments reveal structural changes in the Staphylococcus aureus biofilm in the presence of savirin" Results. Surf. Interfaces 19 100535 (2025)