Anthony Phillips

I've got a post-doctoral research position available at Curtin University (Western Australia) starting 2026.
The project involves computational prediction of crystal structures, their growth, and their properties for organic minerals on Titan (moon of Saturn).

staff.curtin.edu.au/job-vacancie...

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Turing Test | Royal Society An event celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Turing Test, held at the Royal Society on 2 October 2025.

You might imagine that an event celebrating 75 years of the Turing Test would be all "Wasn't he prescient, and look, now we really do have machines that think!" Mercifully, this event yesterday was close to the opposite. /1
royalsociety.org/science-even...

Screenshot. King's College London page. Examples of effective practice The following scenarios follow the above guidelines and offer insights into ways that academic staff can use AI transparently and in an assistive capacity, always ensuring human oversight and judgment remain central. Scenario A – Scaling feedback while maintaining quality Lecturer A is responsible for marking over 100 essays within a two-week window. Conscious of the limitations this workload places on the depth of individual feedback, they adopt a hybrid approach using their university’s approved or supported LLM tool, Copilot. Without ever uploading student work directly, Lecturer A composes an anonymised summary for each student, noting which marking criteria were met and the approximate percentage achieved for each. They input this summary alongside the official rubric into Copilot, prompting it to generate supportive, criterion-referenced feedback. This feedback is then carefully reviewed, adapted, and personalised before being uploaded to the marking platform. Students are made aware of this process in advance and shown a demonstration, reinforcing transparency and trust.

Simply astonishing. Maybe Lecturer A should not have to mark over 100 essays in a two-week window in the first place? Invest in qualified staff and reduce impossible workloads FFS www.kcl.ac.uk/about/strate...

How competition propels scientific risk-taking Kevin Gross∗ Department of Statistics North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC USA Carl T. Bergstrom† Department of Biology University of Washington Seattle, WA USA (Dated: September 9, 2025) In science as elsewhere, attention is a limited resource and scientists compete with one another to produce the most exciting, novel and impactful results. We develop a game-theoretic model to explore how such competition influences the degree of risk that scientists are willing to embrace in their research endeavors. We find that competition for scarce resources—for example, publications in elite journals, prestigious prizes, and faculty jobs—motivates scientific risk-taking and may be important in counterbalancing other incentives that favor cautious, incremental science. Even small amounts of competition induce substantial risk-taking. Moreover, we find that in an “opt-in” contest, increasing the stakes induces increased participation—which crowds the contest and further impels entrants to pursue higher-risk, higher-return investigations. The model also illuminates a source of tension in academic training and collaboration. Researchers at different career stages differ in their need to amass accomplishments that distinguish them from their peers, and therefore may not agree on what degree of risk to accept.

1. What does a Cold War-era game theory problem known as the silent duel have to do with high-risk research strategies, publication in Cell/Nature/Science glamor journals, and the academic job market?

Kevin Gross and I tackle these questions in our latest arXiv preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.06718

PhD position available in Experimental and Computational Organic Materials Discovery at Imperial College London on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - PhD position available in Experimental and Computational Organic Materials Discovery at Imperial College London, listed on FindAPhD.com

📣 PhD position now open for Oct 2026 start based at @imperialchemistry.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/PhDFDF. An interdisciplinary project combining experimental
& computational materials discovery in a collaborative Royal Society-funded team. Co-supervised by @beckylgreenaway.bsky.social.

Second, we’re looking for a researcher with an interest in text mining and language analysis to join a project led by Prof. Chris White, developing new ways to measure and demonstrate the societal impact of fundamental science: qmul-jobs.tal.net/vx/appcentre...

Please do circulate and/or apply!

Two very different opportunities are currently open for postdoctoral researchers to join my group in London.

First, I’m looking for a materials chemist or physicist to come work with us on materials for environmentally friendly cooling and refrigeration: qmul-jobs.tal.net/vx/appcentre...

Research Fellow in Theoretical Quantum Chemistry at UCL Apply for the Research Fellow in Theoretical Quantum Chemistry role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

New PostDoc opportunity in #CompChem at
@uclchemistry.bsky.social

Join our exciting research to develop novel wavefunction theory for open-shell ground and excited states in molecules. Find out more about our group at www.hughburton.com

Please share widely!

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOE518/r...

Computational discovery of novel oxide-based X-ray detectors at University of Birmingham on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Computational discovery of novel oxide-based X-ray detectors at University of Birmingham, listed on FindAPhD.com

PLEASE REPOST: We have a 4-year, fully funded PhD studentship focussed on using computational chemistry to find new and improved oxides for X-ray detection, to start in October 2025. findaphd.com/phds/project.... This is open only to UK nationals.

Spinger Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro

New from The Strain Team:
🎊 Springer Nature Discovers MDPI 🎊

Springer Nature has spawned a copycat journal series called "Discover" mimicking #MDPI journal titles and citation behaviours. We even made a browser game to prove it (see 🔗).

Gross! 😀 1/n

#ResearchIntegrity #SciPub #AcademicSky

UK university funding crisis could shrink talent pipeline and shut down spinouts, experts warn Rising costs and a decline in foreign students have exacerbated the shortfall in university funding, putting innovation at risk.

The rout of UK universities threatens the entire economy, including the web of spinouts that have been so successful, along with high-end talent and recruitment. Nothing will be done. sifted.eu/articles/uk-...

We're hiring!🚨Our lab is looking for two new postdocs for our drug discovery program:

1) Synthetic/Med Chem (small molecule hit-to-lead)🧪
usyd.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/USYD_E...
2) Chemical Biology (peptide inhibitors)🦠
usyd.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/USYD_E...

Pls spread the word!🙏

A Decade of Crisis The UK's universities are in crisis. Dave Hitchcock on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be understood as an interdependent system.

We've got to tell the truth: British Higher Education is experiencing a rapid unscheduled disassembly, streaking across the sky like a rocket smashing into the atmosphere.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk/education/a-...

The UK’s academic recession is in full swing This university crisis is a grim scrabble for numbers

NEW from me in the FT today... The UK's university 'system' is now in freefall. How on Earth did the disaster unfold? Read all about it: www.ft.com/content/0ec7...

Just spent day reading about the collapse of the British car industry.

The lack of vision, the managerial incompetence, the strategic insularity, the complacent reliance on ‘world-class’ marques, the constant short-termism, bad labour relations.

And I thought: yup, there go our universities too.

Our statement on the ICE arrest of Palestinian activist and Columbia University student protest leader, Mahmoud Khalil:

You also geek out on disordered & defective materials? I and @hannabostroem.bsky.social are organizing a dedicated session at the coming 35th European #crystallography meeting: we'd love to see and showcase your research ✨

Submissions are open at ecm35.org until 30th April, consider joining us!

Please share this fact sheet on Ukraine with anyone who needs it

understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

…and, in both, with (over)use of SQUEEZE?

Born #OnThisDay in 1903 was crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale FRS. She was one of the first two female scientists to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, along with Marjory Stephenson. She discovered the structure of benzene, and was a committed pacifist. #WomenInSTEM

This is why you don't design curricula around "jobs of the future".

We can't predict the future but we do know what general skills and knowledge will be valuable whatever job you do.

A 3-Year PhD Studentship in Data-driven analysis of excited states in metal-organic frameworks at University College London on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - A 3-Year PhD Studentship in Data-driven analysis of excited states in metal-organic frameworks at University College London, listed on FindAPhD.com

I have a PhD scholarship (UCL-A*STAR) in "Data-driven analysis of excited states in metal-organic frameworks". This is a collaboration with @mbsullivan.bsky.social. See the details of the scholarship following this link: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Postdoc in Computational design of disordered crystalline materials (2024-224-06155) A postdoc position in computational materials chemistry is available to design sustainable materials with tailored disorder using computational chemistry and...

📣 Postdoc position in computational materials chemistry available

I am looking for a postdoc to join my group and work on computational design of disordered crystalline materials

Read more and apply here: www.vacancies.aau.dk/scientific-p...

Repost are highly appreciated!

#compchem

The idea that you can somehow hyperoptimize the results of research by explicitly saying that "these" types of science will lead to the desired outcomes while "those" types won't, is, quite frankly, ridiculous. And must be an opinion from someone who's never actually been a researcher. 🧪

Want to work on oxides for power electronics? We have a 3.5 year DPhil (PhD) project on gallium oxide available in our group starting Oct 25 🙌 Do get in touch if you have any questions 💡

chem.web.ox.ac.uk/sitefiles/re...

Predictive text models do not ever "answer your question"

They predict what an answer to your question would probably look like.

Which is very, very, very different

Not refining a model, or not saying exactly which parameters were refined.

Soft & Crystalline Composite Materials: Developing Total Scattering Workflows for the Interrogation of Structure. at University of Birmingham on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Soft & Crystalline Composite Materials: Developing Total Scattering Workflows for the Interrogation of Structure. at University of Birmingham, listed on FindAPhD.com

I see your immediate vacancy and call with one of my own!

Immediately available PhD studentship (Home fees & stipend) on a MOF/polymers/neutrons/computational project with ISIS, Cardiff and the Ada Lovelace Centre. Original student unable to start so post re-advertised.

#ChemSky spread the word!

OK #chemsky do your thing. I have an immediate PhD vacancy working on a MOF / crystallography / electron diffraction project with Syngenta. Home fees and stipend are covered. Spread the word!

#Hiring: TWO #postdoc #positions in Dorothea Golze group #ERCStG Photomat at TU Dresden for 1+ year starting 1.2.25. Apply by Dec 10th!
Topic: develop tools for excited-state simulations in #materials

www.verw.tu-dresden.de/StellAus/ste...

#chemsky #compchem #chemistry #phd #chemjobs #science #job