Fiona Meldrum

Career and research Meldrum was appointed a postdoctoral research fellow at Syracuse University, where she worked on nanoparticle assembly with Janos Fendler. Whilst there, she contributed to the book Biomimetic Materials Chemistry.

Meldrum was a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, working on crystallisation using surface plasmon spectroscopy with Wolfgang Knoll. She explored chemical deposition of PbS on gold using self-assembled monolayers. Following this position, she worked at the Australian National University on biomineralisation.

Meldrum joined Queen Mary University of London as a lecturer in 1998. In 2009 Meldrum was appointed as a Professor at the University of Leeds. Her fellowship considers confined crystallisation in biological systems. Confined crystallisation can be used to control the polycrystalline structure of crystals. Supported by the Leverhulme Trust, Meldrum showed that even nanoscale confinement can template crystallisation. Meldrum looks to use biology to guide crystal growth, demonstrating precipitation with mould and via an amorphous precursor phase. She also looked how water-soluble block copolymers can influence the crystallisation of barium sulfate and calcium carbonate.

Meldrum's work uses nature as an inspiration for materials design. She focuses on biominerals such as bones, teeth and shells. Meldrum uses nanoparticles as additives in crystal growth, using the particle surface chemistry to tune particle occlusion. Amongst several organic additives, Meldrum has incorporated amino acids into calcite. The choice of additive is guided by genetic algorithms, resulting in the production of crystals with desired properties. She has evaluated how the surface topography impacts ice crystallisation, showing acute geometries give rise to a confined crystalline, which is followed by the formation of a bulk phase.

The Meldrum group develop microfluidic devices to monitor crystallisation processes.

Awards and honours Meldrum was appointed lead editor of the Materials Research Society (MRS) Bulletin in 2016. In 2017, she was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Interdisciplinary Prize.