Group hike up Mount Pilatus
For our annual trip we chose higher peeks and climbed Mt. Pilatus. At over 2000 metres, we enjoyed a fantastic view over Lake Lucerne.
Simon's keynote lecture
At the XX. Sagamore Conference, Simon held a keynote lecture on quantum crystallography in Delhi, India.
Simon to talk at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
At the department of chemistry, Simon has been invited to the research seminar to speak about "Super-electrophilic anions that bind noble gases".
Reunion at the University of Bremen
Five years after leaving the University of Bremen, Simon returned for a reunion with Lorraine Malaspina, Maksym Ponomarenko, Pim Puylaert, Malte Fugel, Dylan Jayatilika, Florian Kleemiß and Emanuel Hupf.
Simon new President of the Swiss Society for Crystallography
At the SSCr Annual Meeting in Basel Simon was voted its new president by the general assembly. He follows Pascal Schouwink and is excited to lead Swiss crystallography.
Annual BBQ with AG Grabowsky & friends
Every summer, Simon invites his group, their families as well as Georgia and her group to a BBQ. Everyone enjoyed the diverse contributions to the buffet - from homemade Italian foccacia to Korean watermelon Hwachae.
Maibummel at Reichenbach Falls
For our annual team excursion we followed in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes and hiked to the Reichenbach Falls in Berner Oberland.
Kang's strong first year
Just in time for his first anniversary at the University of Bern, Kang had a major breakthrough in postdoc project.
Welcome Back, Eduardo!
For his masters thesis, Eduardo Metry has returned to our group and is happy to have received the chemicals for his project.
Public lecture at BioChemie am Samstag
Simon held a public lecture for more than a hundred people on electrons and how to make them visible. Many school students took the opportunity to get a taste of university science and ask questions.
New Trends in Microscopy
As a new member of the Microscopy Imaging Center, Simon attended the symposium in Bern and listened to Nobel Prize laureate Stefan Hell's talk.
Zukunftstag: Children at work
For this year's national Zukunftstag, Simon had a visitor at work who built a glucose model, smashed leaves and searched for honey crystals under the microscope.
The first diffractometer
At Deutsches Museum in Munich, Simon inspected the original Ewald/Friedrich/Knipping diffractometer from 1912.
Talking quantum crystallography at IUCr keynote lecture
Simon held a compelling keynote lecture on quantum crystallography in front of more than 300 scientists at the International Union of Crystallography in Melbourne.
Working at the University of Western Australia
For a week, Simon returns to UWA as a visiting scientist.
Taking quantum crystallography to the US
With session chairs Yu-Sheng Chen, Florian Kleemiss and Krzysztof Wozniak, Simon presented the latest trends in quantum crystallography at the annual meeting of the American Crystallographic Association in Baltimore.
Simon keynote speaker at the IUCr2023 in Melbourne
As one of the keynote speakers, Simon will travel to the 26th Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography in Melbourne.
Beamtime in Grenoble
Lorraine, Simon and Yaser joined forces with Florian Kleemiß (now RWTH Aachen) and Florian Meurer (Uni Regensburg) to perform synchroton X-ray diffraction experiments. To work around the clock at the ESRF in Grenoble, at least one person always had to catch up on sleep - in this case Florian Meurer missed the photo.
Bernese Chemical Society's archive
The Bernese Chemical Society's archive dates back to 1887. From now on, the State Archive of the Canton of Bern will preserve documents and make them available for research.
Deepening international collaboration
Thanks to a Hans Sigrist Foundation Supplementary Grant, Dylan Jayatilaka of the University of Western Australia could join Simon Grabowsky of the University of Bern. Half way through the stay, they have furthered crystallographic research.
Live Programming with Alessandro Genoni
Alessandro Genoni from the Université de Lorraine joined Dylan Jayatilaka's live programming
Maibummel to Trümmelbach Falls
For this year's traditional May excursion, we went to Trümmelbach Falls in Bernese Oberland. Our whole group and visiting scientist Dylan had a fantastic day out.
Dylan Jayatilaka visiting University of Bern
Australian quantum crystallographer Dylan Jayatilaka has come to Bern for an extended scientific stay.
Beamtime at SPring-8
Together with Georgia Cametti, Yaser, Lorraine and Simon travelled to Japan for round-the-clock beamtime at SPring-8.
First guest to our growing work group
Jens Beckmann was the first guest to our group of eight scientists including Prof em. Hans-Beat Bürgi. Together we enjoyed a night out at the Irish Pub in Bern.
Jens Beckmann in Bern
Professor for inorganic chemistry, Jens Beckmann from the University of Bremen talked about donor-free pnictogenium ions to the Bernese Chemical Society... and to Albert Einstein.
Welcome Kang
Kanghyun Chu has joined our team as postdoctoral researcher and will work on quantum crystallography under periodic boundary conditions.
Celebrating 100 papers
Since starting as a PhD student in 2006, Simon has published 100 peer-reviewed papers. A great reason to celebrate with today's team.
Anomalous dispersion in Regensburg
Simon and Hans-Beat went to Regensburg to discuss theoretical and practical questions of anomalous dispersion with Michael Bodensteiner, Florian Kleemiß and Florian Meurer.
Escape Christmas
For our Christmas party, we puzzled outside the box and escaped thanks to our mechanical skills.
New diffractometer
Rigaku setting up our new diffractometer for crystallography and mineralogy
Ethics in Chemistry
Simon moderated the meeting of the Bernese Chemical Society. Prof. Edwin Constable and Prof. Antonio Togni discussed ethical question like equating integrity with best practice and orchestrating relevance as a questionable trait of modern publication culture.
SSCr Conference in Bern a success
This year's annual meeting of the Swiss Society for Crystallography was a success - especially because we could finally see each other and discuss in person again.
Versailles Conference: ECM 2022
To meet colleagues from across the continent, Simon and Lorraine travelled to the European Crystallographic Meeting in Versailles and felt quite royal.
Hans-Beat and his festschrift
For his 80th birthday, Hans-Beat Bürgi was presented with a festschrift of Acta Crystallographica B. Colleagues honour his work with contributions on "Structure correlation and dynamics in crystals".
Lorraine teaching crystallography
For two weeks, Dr Lorraine A. Malaspina taught young researchers at the Zurich School of Crystallography to understand and conduct routine crystal and molecular structure determination of small molecules by single-crystal X-ray crystallography ... with the help of apples.
Aarhus with Dylan
During the International Charge Density Meeting, we visited the the rainbow panorama at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum with our Australian colleague Dylan Jayatilaka.
traditional Maibummel
For a traditional Swiss Maibummel (May stroll) we took a cruise across three lakes from Biel.
Prussian blues: Andrew Goodwin in Bern
Prof Andrew Goodwin of Oxford University gave a talk on the structural complexities in Prussian blues to the Bernese Chemical Society. It was also an opportunity for him to meet Andreas Ludi, professor emeritus of Uni Bern and pioneer of Prussian blues.
Congratulations, Dr Simone!
Simone Dolabella successfully defended his PhD thesis on novel monolithic Si NEM at the Université de Fribourg with Simon Grabowsky assisting in the defense committee.
New Book
Order now: Simon Grabowsky's edited volume "Complementary Bonding Analysis" gives an up-to-date overview of the different concepts and methods to describe chemical bonds, including software examples.
Amsterdam
For a fortnight, Simon works with F. Matthias Bickelhaupt's group as HPC-Europa visiting professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Beamtime in Grenoble
At the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, we measured our crystals under high pressure at the ID15-B. Anna Makal from the University of Warsaw helped make our beamtime a success.
Schynige Platte with our colleagues from Regensburg
After the conference in Fribourg, we took Michael Bodensteiner and Florian Kleemiß (University Regensburg) as well as Michelle Ernst (Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies) as local guide, up to Schynige Platte. After enjoying spectacular views of Eiger, Mönch and (cloudy) Jungfrau, we ended the day with our annual BBQ.
PhD prize for Florian's thesis
Congratulations to Dr Florian Kleemiß who won the 2021 PhD prize of the Swiss Society of Crystallography. He accepted the award at the society's annual meeting in Fribourg. The thesis "Development of Quantum-Crystallographic Methods for Chemical and Biological Applications" was completed in our group last year.
Welcome Sinas!
Sinas Furan from the University of Bremen has joined our team while Ravish Sankolli has finished his project with us. Sinas will look after our lab as research associate. Welcome to Bern!
Group Outing in Areuse Gorge
We had a wonderful day hiking through the magnificient Areuse gorge in Neuchâtel's Jura range.
Farewell and welcome!
While our trusted technician Dr Michał Andrzejewski will join the Paul Scherrer Institute, Yaser Balmohammadi has commenced his PhD studies in our group. We wish both them all the best for their ventures.
New book
Simon Grabowsky's new book "Complementary Bonding Analysis" has arrived in print. Thank you to all contributors for turning the 2019 workshop "Tools of Chemical Bonding" into a fantastic book!
Welcome Ravish!
Ravish Sankolli has joined our team for a post-doc project.
Congratulations Florian!
Florian Kleemiß has successfully defended his thesis in a video conference followed by scientists across four continents.
Sylwia Pawlędzio in Bern
Sylwia Pawlędzio from the University of Warsaw has come to Bern and spoke about her PhD project.
Welcome Lorraine!
Lorraine Andrade Malaspina has joined our group and will work as a technician for the single crystal X-ray diffraction.
Moving to Bern
The group of Prof. Simon Grabowsky will be moving to the DCB at the beginning of August 2019.
