Professor Stefan Bon has been honoured by McMaster University with the prestigious Les Shemilt Lectureship for his achievements in chemical engineering.

The Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University (Ontario, Canada) has awarded Prof. dr. ir. Stefan Bon, University of Warwick, the 2025/2026 Les Shemilt Lectureship. This prestigious Lectureship is an annual lecture series that highlights speakers who have made significant contributions in chemical engineering and is reserved for their most distinguished speakers. Professor Stefan Bon's work in developing functional and sustainable polymers for a wide variety of applications in chemical engineering makes a perfect fit for this series.

Professor Stefan Bon said:

"I am absolutely honoured to have been selected by McMaster University as the Les Shemilt Lecturer for the coming academic year. I am proud of all the work my research team, BonLab, has done over the years in the area of polymer and colloid chemical engineering. I am very much looking forward to the visit and meeting the people at the Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster's".

About Les Shemilt

Leslie Shemilt (1919—2011) received his PhD from the University of Toronto, started his academic career at the University of British Columbia, was the founding Head of the University of New Brunswick’s Department of Chemical Engineering, served as Dean of Engineering at McMaster from 1969 to 1979, and was subsequently active at McMaster as an Emeritus Professor. Among many other contributions and achievements, Les was the editor of the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering for seventeen years, and was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineers, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Liming Li wins best poster award at the SCI Rideal 2026 Symposium

On 8 April 2026, we travelled with 9 people from BonLab to the SCI headquarters in London to celebrate the achievements of Prof. Joe Keddie (The University of Surrey) at his Rideal award symposium. It was a memorable day full of fantastic polymer colloid science.

Liming Li, a 2nd-year PhD researcher from BonLab at the University of Warwick, won a best poster award for his work on predicting the glass transition and release kinetics of deep eutectic systems.

Prof. dr. ir. Stefan Bon said: “I am immensely proud that the scientific jury has selected Liming’s work to be given this prize. It gives him the recognition for all the hard work he has done in his PhD research and provides him with the motivation to excel. It is fantastic for the team!”

Awards for Alex Fletcher and Mars Poxon

Alex Fletcher, a 4th-year PhD researcher working on sustainable polyester dispersions and a team member of BonLab, won best research talk at the annual Department of Chemistry symposium at the University of Warwick. At this event, all final-year PhD students present their accomplishments.

Alex Fletcher and Mars Poxon arriving at Montpellier Airport in France.

Both Alex Fletcher and Mars Poxon from BonLab were awarded a Surfex Bursary by OCCA, the Oil & Colour Chemists’ Association. Mars is a 2nd year PhD researcher and works on the synthesis and environmental fate characterization of. degradable polymer dispersions, a project sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council. Both will be presenting their work at the 2025 conference of the International Polymer Colloids Group, in Sète, France, from 20 June to 27 June.

Prof. dr. ir. Stefan Bon said: “It is fantastic to see the hard work of Alex and Mars recognised. As a mentor and coach I am extremely proud of what they have achieved.”