Emily is currently a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Dr. Draper’s interests particularly are the characterisation and control of supramolecular structures. She enjoys using small angle neutron scattering, rheology and electrochemistry, and trying to combine them all to monitor changes in situ, with the aim to understand and control what processes can occur in these organic supramolecular systems.
Dr. Emily Draper was born in Liverpool UK, where she studied for her MChem, completed a Masters Project at the Department of Chemistry working on the post-functionalisation of polymers and using SET-LRP in Prof. Steve Rannard’s nanomedicine group. After her masters, Emily continued at the University of Liverpool for a PhD in Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Dave Adams, working on photoresponsive hydrogel materials. Emily received the ‘Best Thesis’ award in 2016 from the RSC Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry group for her thesis work. She received her PhD in Dec 2015, and then started a post-doctoral research associate position working on multi-component gelators. In October 2016, Emily then moved to the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow for a PDRA where she worked on using multi-component gelator systems for solar cell applications.
In September 2017 Emily was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and a Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Leadership Award from the University of Glasgow. Emily then set up her own research group working on flexible electronic materials made from supramolecular self-assembled materials. This has now expanded into chromic devices, ophthalmic devices, and materials for specialised cell culture and differentiation.
In November 2018 Emily became a Lecturer in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. Emily was awarded an EPSRC New Investigator Award working on chromic windows for smart applications starting in Nov 2019. The Draper group works closely with industrial partners in delivering materials and protocols to be used in the production of functional devices and materials as a result of this award.
In 2020 Emily received the BTM Willis prize in neutron scattering from the U.K. neutron scattering users group, a RSC Faraday Division and Institute of Physics group for her work on characterisation on supramolecular materials using neutrons.
Emily was awarded a prestigious Future Leaders Fellowship from the UKRI in October 2021, to develop and use predictive models to design devices using organic self-assembled materials. This works combines experimental data with computational models to predict behaviors and performance off self-assembled organic materials for specific devices. Emily was promoted to Senior Lecturer in August 2022.
In January 2019 and July 2021 Emily had baby daughters and took six months maternity leave for both and is currently trying to manage her time as both an academic and a mother to two young children.
Within the School Emily currently teaches the 2nd Year ‘Organic Synthesis’ and final year ‘Supramolecular Chemistry’ courses, demonstrates 2nd synthesis labs and is a 2nd organic tutor. She sits on the Chemistry Athena Swan committee and is on the management committee of Glasgow’s EPSRC LifeTIME CDT.
Outside of Glasgow Emily in a committee member of the Women in Supramolecular Chemistry group. In particular she helped set up mentoring groups for early career chemists, and now has set up a Parents Group. She is currently involved in many projects aiming to improve diversity within the supramolecular community and STEMM in general, a subject she feels very passionate about.
Draper Research Group 