The Department Celebration begins! Here's @clairecarmalt.bsky.social ready to welcome all our staff and students to the new academic year!

Happy first day of the new academic year. Fantastic to welcome all the new undergraduate chemistry students to the department @uclchemistry.bsky.social this morning. Looking forward to meeting all the new postgraduate students later today!

What a lovely way to spend the evening seeing all our @uclchemistry.bsky.social students graduate. Lots of happy faces, clapping & great views from the Royal Festival Hall. Nearly 20K steps done due to the underground strike but it was worth it 🎓👩‍🎓👨‍🎓

We are excited to announce details for the upcoming USIC & Scottish Dalton conference on the 28th and 29th of August at the University of Strathclyde. We have lectures from invited speakers @clairecarmalt.bsky.social @evaheviagroup.bsky.social and Dr Andrew Jupp. www.rsc.org/events/detai...

Happy to be at #Dalton2025 conference. Gave my talk yesterday and was presented with my shiny medal 😊 #Chemsky

Thinking about doing a masters degree in Chemistry? Applications are still open. Read more here: www.ucl.ac.uk/chemistry/st... #chemistry #postgraduate

I’m sharing the many faces of my lovely daughter Tory as we miss her on what would have been her 23rd birthday. I love & miss her so much. So many beautiful happy memories but her life was sadly cut short aged 20. Happy Birthday my beautiful angel 🕊️💔❤️ #grief

One of the perks of my job is that I’m going to Lincoln university to given an invited lecture & a bonus is that my daughter R is at uni there so can see her & make pancakes for her & her friends 😆! Wish I could do the same with Tory but my Robin was there before I left. ❤️

Yay it’s officially the weekend now. Henry is having a little think about what to do this weekend. He might do a few runs on his wheel 😆🧡

Love this photo of UCL that I captured earlier today 🧡

It’s been a tough few weeks with my grief feeling very raw, don’t know what triggered it. Time of year? Being 2025 so into the 3rd year since losing Tory? Seeing lots of happy families during half term hols? Not sure but I’m hoping a long walk today will help #grief #childloss

One advantage of getting up at silly o’clock for a very early train to go up north to give a lecture is to see this beautiful sunrise. It’s distracting me from my work but it’s good for the soul #grief

A chilly but lovely walk around the lakes near us today. A little Robin friend followed us for a bit, we saw a heron and we got all our ducks in a row 😆

After telling hubby that I missed going in the lab & seeing if any crystals had grown (something I did daily when I was doing my PhD) I got a crystal growing kit for Xmas 🤣. Look at these beauties that I have grown. It even came with a little light up platform to sit them on 😆 #ChemSky

On a walk through the woods today a little Robin followed us all the way round. It was misty & a little gloomy but the Robin brightened me & made me feel like Tory was with us . I love this bright photo of Tory from 2020 out on a walk. I wish she had been with us today 🩵 #grief

My boys & I are very happy it’s Friday evening ❤️! The Guinea pigs have been popcorning around their playpen while I’ve been watching a film tucked up under a warm blanket (it’s so cold 🥶)!!

Well that’s it, 2025 has got off to a bad start. Someone has taken my tree away, I just don’t know where to sleep and I’m depressed…thinks Trixie 🐈‍⬛ 🤣

Beautiful brisk sunny & cold walk today. Just what I needed today 😊

My brilliant new blanket, perfect for someone who loves chemistry 😆. A great pressie from hubby 👩‍🔬🧪⚗️ #ChemSky

The 3rd Christmas without you, my lovely daughter Tory. How I ache to cook, laugh, hug, sing & dance with you this year. But you sent me a little sign with 2 robins appearing in the garden, perhaps letting me know you’ve got a special friend. Happy Xmas all ❤️ #forever20 #grief

I love how much Trixie appears to be enjoying the Queen movie. I thought she might start clapping her paws when Radio Ga Ga came on 🤣

Trixie is delighted to have her Christmas 🎄 bed back again for another year. I am delighted that work has finished and I have 2 weeks off 🎉🥂🍾😊❤️

Good Christmas lunch out earlier in the week. Nearly time to finish for Christmas……one more day….just one more day…..😊

R is home from uni 💗💗💗. We got the tree & decorations up. Felt tearful without lovely Tory with us but R & I put the Christmas music & Santa hats on & smiles on our faces. Now it’s bright & shining like my beautiful girl always was which I like. Tory would approve ❤️ #grief

Nice to have Henry pop out and say hello before I headed to work this morning 😊❤️

Last year twins Nan & Fang did their masters project in my research group (far end of the table in the photo!). Both worked super hard & Nan’s paper has just been published on transparent & conductive thin films pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/.... Now keeping my🤞🏼that Fang’s paper gets accepted 😊 #chemsky

A brilliant festive sodium acrylate snowman in our teaching lab ☃️

The ChemisTree is up! It is officially festive season in the Turner Lab. Can you guess the molecule on top of the tree?

A little surprise bunch of flowers from hubby on getting home tonight. Just what I needed to give me a little lift. Bright and beautiful 🌸🌺🌼❤️ #grief

A busy work week so little time to think. Good in a way as tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of Tory’s funeral. Planning & going to your daughter’s funeral is utterly devastating. I miss her & her future. Only memories now like this one from 2003 of Tory & I 🩵 #grief #forever20

Yay our fab department is now on Bluesky. Please give us a follow 😊

I really must love my job. Left my house 1.5 hours ago and I’m actually only 2.8 miles from home. Gave up on the underground & trying the overground. Finally on a train…..It’s a squash & a squeeze is all I can say 😆

A thing when you’re talking to a fellow person who’s been through a traumatic event like a child dying is how often you have to hold back when talking to regular people. Not wanting to make them uncomfortable or bring them into something they can’t fully understand. It’s isolating, in its own way.

I thought it was time to introduce Charlie & George to you all. Charlie is the tufty one who is scared of his own shadow & George is the loopy orange coloured one who loves ‘popcorning’ around 🧡

Who needs a clock when you’ve got a cat. 10 pm on the dot every night this little one comes & sits in front of me hinting that it’s nighttime feed time 😊

UCL Chemistry annual lab dinner tonight. Trying to ensure I don’t have too many glasses of wine before giving my speech in about 20 mins 😆

👋We are here and excited to start sharing highlights and updates from UCL! Here's a magical shot of winter star trails over the UCL Wilkins Building taken by BSc Geophysics student Weixiang Bao - the winner of our 2023/24 #LoveUCL Student Photo of the Year Competition.

UCL was looking rather lovely on my way back from giving my lecture earlier today. Not the best photo as I had to take it really quick in between the traffic 😆 @uclofficial.bsky.social

University College London has joined Bluesky today! Give them a follow - great to see academic institutions joining the platform as well as academics! bsky.app/profile/uclo...

Introduce yourself by telling us what your favourite element is & why #ChemSky I’m Claire & mine is Bismuth. My first experiments when I was a PhD (long time ago) was making new bismuth compounds. It’s also very pretty & one of my hamsters was called Bismuth ❤️

Fully funded PhD in biomaterials and polymer chemistry. Come join us at UCL 😊 rhoresearchgroup.uk www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Introduce yourself with some jobs you've done apart from what you do now: Testing blood & urine samples in a hospital biochem lab 🤮🤢 Worked on a kibbutz during my post school, pre-uni travels 🍌🍉 Worked in the Strawberry pub opposite Newcastle united footie club and got to serve Kevin Keegan 😆

Bluesky tip for newbies: Bluesky has no real algorithm. Likes here do nothing but show the poster that you enjoyed their content. That kindness is always going to be appreciated by creators, but if you want to help to boost something here, you have to repost it so others see it. 🙂

It’s snowing here this morning. Spoke to Mum last night & she said I mustn’t go to work if it’s snowing 🤣 so don’t tell her that I’m on the train. Tory as a little girl would always say ‘put your hattie on Mumma’ in snow so my hat is on meaning a dry but hat hair day today 😆 #grief

I'm building a Starter Pack for grieving parents. We helped each other on the other site, so I feel Bluesky would be even better. Please suggest adds and message if you'd like to be removed. Thanks! go.bsky.app/4pVkT1R

Chemistry degrees have some of the highest values of any degree and are vital if we want to build a competitive high-tech nation. But they are expensive, and so if universities want to save money quickly they will just ignore national priorities and close them. www.chemistryworld.com/news/univers...

Monday morning 😴. The station car park was strangely empty & the platform was deserted, there are lots of free seats on the train……Did I forget a public holiday or is something going on that I don’t know about 🤔? Bit weird!

Hi All, this is my daughter Tory who died age 20 on 28/10/22 from a traumatic pulmonary embolism. She was a 3rd year medical student who filled our world with kindness, love & laughter. I talk about my grief journey & how I try to maintain positivity through work, nature, animals & gardening #grief

I made a podcast about glues! "Bonkers but Fascinating" are some of things people are not saying about it, but secretly thinking. search.app?link=https%3...

I’ll do a proper intro soon but just trying out my first post on here 😊. Here’s Henry having a little wash before he goes on a little run around 🐹. Looking cute as always 🧡