Mars Poxon and Emily Brogden clinch top honors at Warwick Chemistry postgraduate symposium

The Chemistry Department at the University of Warwick organizes a postgraduate symposium each year, where final year PhD researchers present their work with a talk, second year PhD researchers and MRes researchers present their work with a poster and where the winner of the Science, Engineering, and Medicine (SEM) Faculty for the best PhD thesis is announced.

At this year’s event, final-year PhD researcher Mars Poxon won a best PhD talk award for their work on degradable polymers (left image below). Mars showed two synthetic strategies for polymers produced by radical polymerization that can reduce their average molecular weight at end-of-life, thereby facilitating end-processing or environmental degradation.

Emily Brogden won the 2026 University of Warwick SEM faculty prize for best PhD thesis on innovative approaches to improve pressure-sensitive adhesive performance (right image above).

Prof. dr. ir. Stefan Bon says: “I am incredibly proud of both Mars and Emily for their achievements, and their dedication and commitment to their scientific research and the team. These awards are a great recognition of the research we do and fantastic news for everybody who is part of BonLab.”