Students&Colleagues

I am very grateful to my current and past research students, postdocs, visitors and colleagues for their excellent work. If you are interested in pursuing postgraduate research work under my guidance, please send me an email (g.schroeder-turk@murdoch.edu.au)

Current students, postdocs and visitors

• Michael Hough, PhD student, working on molecular carbon sieves for natural gas purification (principal supervisor: Piotr Kowalczyk)
• Dr Anna-Lee Jessop, postdoctoral fellow on an ARC-funded project to analyse butterfly nanostructure formation.
• Allan Millsteed, PhD student, working on ordered and disordered microstructure formation and function in sea urchins (joint supervision with Annie Jessop and Artur Deditius)

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Completed students and past visitors

Doctorate students (completed)

• Dr Tobias Hain, “Structure formation and identification in geometrically driven soft matter systems”, co-tutelle joint PhD degree, Murdoch University and University of Potsdam, joint supervision with Prof Myfanwy Evans, 2022
• Dr Azin Azadi, PhD student, “A ’dynamic’ tissue model of glomerular filtration barrier maintenance, adaptation and potential pathways to failure” (I was a minor co-supervisor; principal supervisor: Prof Bruce Gardiner), Murdoch University, 2022
• Dr Philipp Schönhöfer, “Entropically driven self-assembly of pear-shaped nanoparticles”, Murdoch University / FAU Erlangen (co-tutelle arrangement), joint supervision with Dr Matthieu Marechal and Doug Cleaver, 2019 (distinction “summa cum laude”)
• Dr Simon Weis, PhD thesis, Structural analysis of particulate systems using X-ray tomography, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (joint supervision with Dr. habil. Matthias Schröter), 2015-2018 (final exam 8 Nov 2018).
• Dr Fabian Schaller, “The Structure of Disordered Random Packings”,  Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (joint supervision with Matthias Schroeter), 2017
• Dr Matthias Saba, PhD thesis, “Photonic crystals with chirality — Group theory, algorithmic tools and experimental approaches for Gyroid-like photonic material”, 2015 (distinction “summa cum laude”)
• Dr Sebastian Kapfer, PhD thesis, Morphometry and Physics of Particulate and Porous Media, Apr. 2008-Dec. 2011. Shortlisted for the national SKM-thesis prize of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. (joint supervision with Prof Klaus Mecke), (distinction “summa cum laude”)
• Dr Susan Nachtrab, PhD thesis, “Percolation and Elasticity of Networks: From Cellular Structures to Fibre Bundles”, Apr. 2008-Dec. 2011, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (joint supervision with Prof Klaus Mecke)

Doctorate students for whom I was an informal advisor or a close collaborator (but not a formal supervisor)

• Dr Mark Turner, PhD thesis, “Chiral photonic crystals and metamaterials”, Swinburne University of Technology, Jan. 2010-Sept 2012. (supervisor Prof. Min Gu). Mark’s now at Prosint Laser Technology, San Jose, CA.
• Dr Walter Mickel, PhD thesis, “Geometry-controlled Phase Behaviour of Nanowetting and Jamming“, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and Universite de Lyon, 2011 (supervisors: Prof Klaus Mecke and Thierry Biben). Walter’s now at d-fine GmbH
• Dr Michael Klatt, PhD thesis, “Morphometry of random spatial structures in physics“, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nuremberg (supervisor: Prof Klaus Mecke).

Masters / Diplom / Honours students

• Allan Millsteed, Honours student, Murdoch University, joint supervision with Prof Bruce Gardiner (2023)
• Loughlan Weatherley, Honours thesis, “Modelling the properties of structurally coloured butterfly wings”, Murdoch University, 2019
• Johannes Hielscher, Masters thesis, “Circular Dichroism of Distorted Structure-Photonic Materials“, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (joint supervision with Matthias Saba), completed April 2015. Awarded the Ohm-Prize 2015 by the FAU Department Physik. [pdf]
• Simon Weis, Masters thesis, “Einfluss der Reibung auf strukturelle und mechanische Eigenschaften von Kugel- und Ellipsoidpackungen”, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (joint supervision with Matthias Schröter and Fabian Schaller), completed March 2015
• Michael Fischer, Masters thesis, “Thermodynamic stability of the novel tricontinuous 3ths(5) structure in self-assembled melts of triblock star-copolymers”, completed March 2014. Awarded the Ohm-Prize 2014 by the FAU Department Physik.
• Fabian Schaller, Diplom-Physik thesis, Jammed packings of ellipsoids – random close packing and anisotropy by tomography, May 2011-Apr. 2012
• Matthias Hoffmann, Diplom-Physik thesis, Loop percolation, July 2010-July. 2011 (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke)
• Matthias Saba, Diplom-Physik thesis, Band structure analysis for Gyroid photonic crystals, May 2009-April 2010. (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke)
• Markus Spanner, Diplom-Physik thesis, Anomalous Transport in Porous Media near the Percolation Transition, May 2009 – April 2010 (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke and Thomas Franosch)
• Stefan Kuczera, Diplom-Physik thesis, Grand Canonical Monte Carlo Simulation of Confined Hard Sphere Fluids, Aug 2009 – Aug 2010 (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke and Roland Roth)
• Christian Scholz, Diplom-Physik thesis, Morphology of Experimental and Simulated Turing Patterns, Aug 2008 – Aug 2009. (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke)
• Holger Mitschke, Diplom-Physik thesis, Auxetic deformations of periodic plane skeletal structures, Aug 2008 – Aug 2009. (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke)
• Walter Mickel, Diplom-Physik thesis, Charakterisierung anisotroper Strukturen mittels Minkowski-Tensoren, Feb 2007 – Feb 2008. Awarded the Ohm-Prize 2008 by the FAU Department Physik. (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke)

Bachelor theses (3 months research theses, at end of 3rd year)

• Thomas Scheel, Bachelor project, Experiments and simulations of single cell models for diffusive foam coarsening’, Jul-Nov 2014 (joint supervision with Dr Myfanwy Evans who was the principal supervisor)
• Benedikt Decker, Biophotonic Diamond Membranes: Effect of anisotropic dilectric constants, FAU, July-October 2014
• Tobias Hain, Rheology, geometry and polydispersity in planar foams, Bachelor thesis, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, submitted 23 January 2014
• Michael Fischer, Bachelor project, Packing frustration in tri-continuous mesophase geometries for mikto-arm copolymers (pdf), July 2011-October 2012. Awarded the Ohm-Prize 2012 by the FAU Department Physik.
• Michael Stauber, Bachelor project, Finite Difference analysis of Electrostatic potentials in layered graphene/SiC substrates under an STM tip, May 2011-August 2012 (joint supervision with Prof Alexander Schneider)
• Johannes Zirkelbach, Bachelor project, Structure and dynamics of simulated liquid foams, May-August 2011 (joint supervision with Myfanwy Evans, Andy Kraynik & Klaus Mecke)
• Richard Schielein, Bachelor project, Structural properties and anisotropy of crystalline sphere packs, May-July 2011
• Michael Schmidt, Bachelor project, Robust Medial Surface of porous structures, June – Sept. 2010.
• Nicola Kleppmann, Bachelor project, Anisotropy of Potts Model Foams during Coarsening and of Metal Foams, May – August 2010. Awarded the Ohm-Prize 2010 by the FAU Department Physik. (joint supervision with Klaus Mecke)
• Anna-Lena Robisch, Bachelor project, Bikontinuierliche C(Y)-Strukturen als photonische Kristallmodelle mit Händigkeit, May – August 2010.

Past International visitors and project students

• Max Scharf, Visiting Student under DAAD RISE internship program (Aug-Oct 2017), working on 3D models for tissue structures and on 3D structure analysis of kidney glomeruli distribution.
• Manon Marchand, Murdoch University from Apr-Jul 2016 from University Paris-Sud XI, working on membrane-templated growth and diffusive transport in complex membrane shapes. (Manon is now a PhD student at Universite Paris-Sud 11, Orsay)
• Jakov Lovric, visiting PhD student from the Ruder Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, cellular models for dividing and growing biological cells (at Murdoch from Sept – Dec 2016)
• Thomas Pigeon, Murdoch University from Jun-Aug 2017, visiting from University Paris-Sud XI, working on 8-srs material visualisation and 3D printing, with a view to new photonic materials
• Michelle Gardiner, AMSI summer scholar program, Computational construction of disordered minimal surface sponge models, Dec 18 – Feb 19

Past Post-Doctoral Fellows

• Myfanwy Evans : following on from her postgraduate studies at the Australian National University, Myf spent 2 or so years in Erlangen, working as a post-doc for the research group “Geometry and Physics of Spatial Random Systems” on foam physics and as a Humboldt fellow on entangled material designs. Myf is now an Emmy-Noether group leader at TU Berlin – and has recently received the Berlin Science Prize. Congratulations Myf!
• Adil Mughal : spent one year (in 2013-14) in Erlangen working as a post-doc for the research group “Geometry and Physics of Spatial Random Systems” on area-minimising cellular systems on curved (particularly negatively-curved) structures. He is now a faculty member at the Prifysgol Aberystwyth University.