Profile: A Chemistry Graduate Scholar

Daniel Bein
Daniel Bein

I was awarded a Merton Chemistry Scholarship in conjunction with a Clarendon Scholarship in 2022, which I was very happy to accept. Merton is a great place to study because of its facilities, the historic buildings, the Dining Hall and the very supportive staff, and because of the scholarship I never had to worry about funding.

In Hamburg (Germany), I completed my bachelor's degree in Chemistry, but I realized very early on that I was also passionate about Physics, which is why I completed almost all of the Physics modules of a bachelor's program as well. At the end of my undergrad, I completed research in Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Potsdam to write up my bachelor’s thesis, and then I changed to the Freie Universitaet Berlin for my masters, where I could focus even more on the scientific area between Chemistry and Physics. 

The research, which is funded by the Merton Scholarship at the moment is a self-initiated joint-project between the Chemistry Department at Oxford University and the Physics Department at the Freie Universitaet Berlin and therefore perfectly fits to my scientific background so far. It concerns how to theoretically describe collisions between molecules on a quantum mechanical basis, and how those can be influenced by external electric fields. In the long run, the goal is to understand and control the main mechanisms of chemical reactions. 

But apart from the great scientific support Merton has to offer, the college also cares a lot about social aspects. These range from affordable formal dinners several times a week to a big graduate community for networking and wellbeing activities. Moreover, Merton provides a lot of additional funding to support scientific travelling or sport activities.