Roy L. Johnston
Position: Professor of Computational Chemistry
Office: Haworth 204n
School of Chemistry,
University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT.
+44 (0)121 414 7477
+44 (0)121 414 4403
r.l.johnston@bham.ac.uk
Research Area: Theoretical Chemistry 
Research Summary
1. Biologically-Inspired Computational Chemistry
-
Ant Colony Optimization
Artificial Neural Networks
Artificial Immune Systems
Elemental Clusters
Nanoalloys
Oxide Nanoparticles
3. Model Studies of Protein Folding
5. Theoretical Structural Chemistry
Contributor to RSC Book:
The Age of the Molecule
Author of Book:
Atomic and Molecular Clusters
Author of Dalton Perspective:
Evolving better nanoparticles: Genetic algorithms for optimising cluster geometries
Editor of Volume:
Applications of Evolutionary Computation in Chemistry (Structure & Bonding, Volume 110).
Co-editor of Volume:
Nanoalloys: From Theory to Application (Faraday Discussions, Volume 138).
Co-author of Review:
Nanoalloys: From Theory to Applications of Alloy Clusters and Nanoparticles
(Chem. Rev. 2008, 108, 845-910.)
Local Research Links
Theoretical Chemistry Group
Current & Recent Research Grants
EPSRC Grant (EP/G070326/1) "Towards an Atomic-scale Understanding of the 3D Structure of Size-selected Clusters on Surfaces" (2009-13) - with Dr Ziyou Li & Prof. Richard E. Palmer (Nanoscale Physics, Birmingham) and Prof. Jun Yuan (York).
EPSRC Programme Grant (EP/I001352/1) "Simulation of Self-Assembly" (2010-15) - with Prof. Daan Frenkel, Prof. David Wales & Dr Mark Miller (Cambridge) and Dr Jonathan Doye (Oxford).
EPSRC Critical Mass Grant (EP/J010804/1) "TOUCAN: TOwards an Understanding of CAtalysis on Nanoalloys" (2012-17) - with Dr Gabor Csanyi and Prof. David Wales (Cambridge), Dr Francesca Baletto (Kings College London), Dr Jon Doye (Oxford) and Prof. Chris. Pickard (University College London).
EPSRC E-infrastructure Grant (EP/K000128/1, EP/K000233/1) "MidPlus: A Centre of Excellence for Computational Science, Engineering and Mathematics" (2012-13) - with Prof. Mark Rodger (Warwick), Prof. Jonathan Hirst (Nottingham) and Prof. Martin Dove (Queen Mary, London).
EPSRC Software Infrastructure Grant (EP/K038958/1) "Knowledge Led Structure Prediction for Nanostructures" (2013-18) - with Dr Scott Woodley and Dr Martijn Zwijnenburg (University College London).
Member of the EPSRC-funded UK Materials Chemistry HPC Consortium - coordinated by Prof. Richard Catlow and Dr. Scott Woodley (University College London).
European
COST Action MP0903 "NANOALLOY - Nanoalloys as Advanced Materials: From Structure to Properties and Applications" (2010-14). Vice Chair and Working Group Leader.
Host of Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow [Dr Ivailo Atanasov] (PIEF-GA-2010-272790) "PhDBiNA: Computing Phase Diagrams of Binary Nanoalloys" (2011-13).
HPC-Europa2 Transnational Access Programme - cpu allocations and travel funds for collaborations with: R. Ferrando (Genoa, Italy); A. Fortunelli (Pisa, Italy); J. Akola (Tempere, Finland); H. Arslan (Zonguldac, Turkey); J. C. Schoen (Stuttgart, Germany).
Co-workers and Collaborators
Johnston group (August 2017)
Johnston group (December 2012)
Johnston group (2009)
Johnston group (2004)
Johnston and Knowles groups (1997)
Current Group Members
- Helen Abbott (1st Year PhD)
- Marcus Taylor (4th Year PhD)
- Heider Hussain (4th Year PhD)
- John Hey (3rd year PhD)
Former Group Members
- Dr Ivailo Atanasov [Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellow 2011-13] (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
- Dr Andy Bennett [PhD 2009]
- Dr Eugene Cheung [PDRA 2003-06] (Senior Scientist, Amgen Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA)
- Dr Hazel Cox [PDRA 1994-95] (Senior Lecturer, University of Sussex)
- Dr Graham Cox [PhD 2007]
- Dr Ben Curley [PhD 2008]
- Dr Jack Davis [PhD 2015]
- Dr Ilker Demiroglu [PDRA 2014-16]
- Dr Richard Gilham [PhD 2005]
- Dr Scott Habershon [PhD 2004] (Assistant Professor, University of Warwick)
- Chris Heard [PhD 2014] (PDRA, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
- Dr Ramli Ismail [PhD 2013] (Lecturer, University Malaysia of Computer Science & Engineering)
- Dr Paul Jennings [PhD 2014] (PDRA, Stanford University, USA)
- Dr Lesley Lloyd [PhD 1999, PDRA 2002-05]
- Dr Andy Logsdail [MRes 2008, PhD 2012] (Research Fellow, University of Cardiff)
- Dr Tom Mortimer-Jones [PhD 2005]
- Dr Sridhar Neelamraju [PDRA 2013-15] (Research Fellow, Bangalore, India)
- Dr Mark Oakley [PDRA 2011-14]
- Dr Oliver Paz Borbon [PhD 2009] (Assistant Professor, Institute of Physics, UNAM, Mexico)
- Faye Pittaway [MRes 2007]
- Dr Chris Roberts [PhD 2001]
- Dr Gareth Rylance [PhD 2007]
- Dr Sumet Sakulsermsuk [PhD 2010]
- Dr Jose Samaniego-Reyna [PhD 2002]
- Dr Lewis Smeeton [PhD 2015]
- Dr Nicola Toto [PhD 2007]
- Dr Dung Trung Tran [PhD 2010]
- Dr Giles Turner [PhD 2002] (Tessella Support Services plc)
- Dr Julia Uppenbrink [PDRA 1992-93]
- Dr Paul West [PhD 2013]
- Dr Nick Wilson [PhD 2000] (Fujitsu, UK)
Graduation Pictures
Giles Turner (2002)
Graham Cox and Gareth Rylance (2007)
Oliver Paz-Borbon (2009)
Lewis Smeeton & Jack Davis (2015)
Past Visitors
- Freddy Fernandez Guimaraes (UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) [August 2000-January 2001]
- Dr Alvaro Posada-Amarillas & Dr Dora Borbon-Gonzalez (University of Sonora, Mexico) [August 2005-January 2006]
- Dr Fuyi Chen (Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xian, China) [July 2006-June 2008]
- Abhishek Gupta (Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India) [May-July 2007]
- Dr Haydar Arslan (Zonguldak University, Turkey) [June-August 2008; March 2011; July-September 2011]
- Sara Nunez (University of Valladolid, Spain) [May-August 2009]
- Josafat Guerrero Jordan (Department of Physics, University of Sonora, Mexico) [June-September 2010]
- Sven Heiles (Technical University Darmstadt, Germany) [October 2010-March 2011]
- Ali Shayeghi (Technical University Darmstadt, Germany) [April-December 2012]
- Mikail Aslan (Zirve University, Turkey) [May-August 2014]
- Deepak Sharma (IIT Bombay, India) [May-July 2015]
- Fernando Buendia (UNAM, Mexico) [July 2015]
- Tian-E Fan (Xiamen University, China) [October 2015-March 2016]
- Marc Jaeger (Technical University Darmstadt, Germany) [June-November 2017]
- Alejandra Granja Del Rio (University of Valladolid, Spain) [September-November 2017]
- Dr Rajesh Raju (Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India) [November 2017-July 2018]
Collaborators at the University of Birmingham
International Collaborators
- Dr Jadson Belchior
(Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
- Professor Fuyi Chen (Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China)
- Professor Riccardo Ferrando (University of Genoa, Italy)
- Professor Alessandro Fortunelli (CNR, Pisa, Italy)
- Professor Julius Jellinek(Argonne National Laboratory, USA)
- Professor Peter Lievens & Professor Ewald Janssens (K. U. Leuven, Belgium)
- Dr Laurent Piccolo (CNRS, University of Lyon, France)
- Dr Alvaro Posada Amarillas (Universidad de Sonora, Mexico)
- Professor Dr Rolf Schaefer (Technical University Darmstadt, Germany)
- Professor Dr Christian Schoen (Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany)
- Professor Stefan Vajda (Argonne National Laboratory, USA)
Current Teaching
- Years 1 & 2 - Physical Chemistry Tutorials
- Years 2 & 3 - Physical Chemistry Labs
- CHM3A3-I - Spectroscopy of Diatomic Molecules
- CHM4M3-I - Metal Clusters & Nanoalloys
Administration
Organization of Conferences etc.
- Co-organizer of
Royal Society Discussion Meeting The Metal-non-metal Transition in Macroscopic and
Microscopic Systems
(5-6 March 1997).
- Co-editor of the proceedings of the above meeting
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London 1998, 356, 1-278.
- Organizer of
CCP5 Annual Meeting 1999 Simulation of Clusters and Interfaces (6-8 September 1999).
- Director of
RSC Theoretical Chemistry Group - Theoretical Chemistry Summer School 2000:
Theory and Simulation of Clusters and Nanoparticles
(29 August - 6 September 2000)
- Co-organizer of RSC-TCG/CCP5 Meeting
Modelling of
Materials: Atomistic and Ab Initio Approaches Mansfield College,
Oxford (9-10 April 2003).
- Organizer of meeting Theoretical and Experimental Inorganic Chemistry (A meeting to celebrate the 60th birthday of Professor D. Michael P. Mingos, FRS) St. Edmund Hall, Oxford (21 August 2004). (Photo)
- Chair of Faraday Discussion 138: Nanoalloys - From Theory to Applications University of Birmingham (3-5 September 2007).
- Co-chair of
BEAR Postgraduate Research Computing Conference 2010, 2011, 2012 University of Birmingham.
- Co-organiser of COST Action "NANOALLOY" Working Group Meeting "Nanoalloy Phase Diagrams", Brno, Czech Republic, 2-3 April 2012.
- Chair of The 7th International Conference on the Theory of Atomic and Molecular Clusters (TAMC VII) University of Birmingham (15-20 September 2013).
- Co-organiser of Symposium K (Multiscale modelling of nanoalloys and metal-based nanohybrids) at 8th International Conference on Multiscale Modelling of Materials, Dijon, France, 9-14 October 2016.
- Co-organiser of International Workshop: Nanoalloys on Atomic Scale, University of Birmingham, 5-6 December 2016.
- Co-organiser of 4th Thomas Young Centre Energy Materials Workshop / EPSRC- TOUCAN Critical Mass Conference: "Shaping Nanocatalysts", King's College London, 14-16 December 2016.
Some Chemistry Links
Theory and Simulation of Clusters and Nanoparticles
Publications
