New PhD student Bengi Şentürk

Bengi obtained her BSc degree in Chemistry from Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey in 2018. She did her internship in the laboratory of Dr. Stellios Arseniyadis at the Queen Mary University of London, where she studied palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation reactions. Her interest in organic synthesis led her to continue with her MSc degree in Chemistry at METU. While working on the synthesis and optical characterization of chiral spiropyran photoswitches, Bengi also investigated the atropisomerism of Schiff bases.

After obtaining her MSc degree in 2021, Bengi started her PhD research under the supervision of Prof. Željko Tomović and Dr. Fabian Eisenreich. As a chemist, her motivation in contributing solutions to plastic pollution, which is an urgent global environmental issue, has led her to pursue a PhD in polymer recycling. Bengi focuses on developing novel strategies to make and break polymers with (sun)light.