Lecturer in Chemistry, Dean and Fellow by Special Election

Dean Sheppard

  • I am the Departmental Lecturer in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry.

  • Alongside teaching for Trinity, I am also the Director of Studies for Chemistry at Lady Margaret Hall and the Tutor in Physical Chemistry at Somerville College.

  • I studied for my MChem degree at Magdalen College (2008-12) before moving to New College for a DPhil in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry under the supervision of Professor Stuart Mackenzie.

  • I am the first person in my family to go to university.

Dean Sheppard

Teaching

My position at Trinity involves teaching half of the undergraduate Physical Chemistry course. I hold tutorials for small groups of students where we discuss the lecture course material in detail and expand on their understanding. We also meet in larger groups for problems classes to cover the more numerical aspects of each topic, and I offer thematic revision classes to prepare the students for their Final Honours School exams.

In the Chemistry department, I deliver the 1st year lecture course on Electrostatics and synoptic revision lectures to all years. I am also an Examiner for the first year Physical Chemistry Prelim paper.

Research

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

Selected Publications

‘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)

Subjects
Chemistry
Dr Sheppard
dean.sheppard@trinity.ox.ac.uk

Millitesla magnetic field effects on the photocycle of an animal cryptochrome