Dean Sheppard

My position at Trinity involves teaching half of the undergraduate Physical Chemistry course. I hold tutorials for small groups of students (typically two or three) where we discuss the lecture course material in detail to expand on their understanding. We also meet in larger groups for thematic revision classes to prepare the students for their Final Honours School exams. I am also currently the College Dean, responsible for student discipline.

In the Chemistry department, I deliver the first-year lecture courses on Electrostatics, Properties of Gases, and Reaction Kinetics, and synoptic revision lectures to all years. I am also one of two examiners for the Preliminary Examination in Physical Chemistry, which all students sit at the end of their first year. Every September I teach on the Opportunity Oxford and MPLS Bridging programmes, which are aimed at supporting students from under-represented backgrounds immediately prior to starting their course here. As the first person in my own family to go to university, I consider my teaching on these courses as among the most valuable that I do.

My DPhil research was concerned with the photochemical spin dynamics of proteins, suggested to be the basis of the magnetic sense in some animals. My project involved the development of a range of highly sensitive optical cavity-enhanced techniques to detect very small changes in the reactivity of proteins in solution caused by a weak external magnetic field.

‘Broadband Cavity-Enhanced Detection of Magnetic Field Effects in Chemical Models of a Cryptochrome Magnetoreceptor’, J. Phys. Chem. B., 118, 4177, (2014)

‘Millitesla Magnetic Field Effects on the Photocycle of an Animal Cryptochrome', Sci. Rep., 7, (2017)