1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I suppose the reason I opted to apply for chemistry at university was the idea that it was the ‘central’ science, somehow sitting in between biology and physics. I soon realised that viewing the natural sciences like this is in some ways rather limiting, but once I started it was too late! I actually found the degree very challenging — there was so much to learn both in theory and in practice — but after some initial difficulties I enjoyed it. I chose to study at UCL because at the open day I went to, Andrea Sella (@sellathechemist) gave a talk in which he blew up loads of things and that made quite an impression.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

Honestly, I don’t think I can call myself a chemist these days, at least not in front of other chemists. I got very interested in magnetism during my PhD, and I started to gravitate towards physics and statistical mechanics in particular. In that sense you can say that I chose to change jobs already! My two main spheres of interest as a teenager were football and music, and being either a footballer or a rockstar wouldn’t be bad, I guess. In moments of idle pensiveness I sometimes think I would like to be a writer, but deep down I think I would trade that all in to score a winning goal in the world cup final for Italy.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

Right now I am working with some colleagues on a long term editorial project focusing on the historical milestones that have defined the field of crystallography. It’s a field with a long and distinguished history and it really cuts across all the scientific disciplines. I’m hoping that once we publish it next year it will help raise awareness of its importance, especially to young aspiring scientists. I also deal with submissions in the fields of spintronics, magnetism and superconductivity at Nature Materials, but what that will lead to I couldn’t possibly say.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

There are tonnes of scientists I would like to meet, Ludwig Boltzmann in particular, but Julius Caesar would be hard to beat as a historical figure. He was so many things: a military commander, a politician (well, a dictator eventually, but let’s not split hairs), not to mention a writer and orator with a lasting legacy. I would just like to meet and get a feeling for the character of a figure of such towering importance. I would also ask him if the Gauls really drove him round the bend, like Asterix teaches us. And why not invite Cleopatra along too? That would be a great night out, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra!

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

That would be sometime in early 2010 in Uppsala, Sweden, where I was helping some colleagues measure the magnetic response of a laser beam shining off a thin magnetic film, a phenomenon known as the magneto-optic Kerr effect. We established that the magnetism of our films displayed all the hallmarks of being dimensionally confined, and we confirmed that I am a terrible experimentalist. I had very patient colleagues. If we’re talking about a chemistry experiment, then we would have to go back to 2003, in the last year of my degree: I tried very hard to synthesise crystals of a funny magnetic material called hydronium jarosite. Instead, I successfully made millions, if not billions, of really tiny particles of what goes by the generic name of ‘rust’. But I did make them in a really original and expensive way.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

I would have to go for one of those timeless books with a certain amount of depth to it, I suppose, something like War and Peace or Don Quixote. If I had some advance warning I was about to be shipped off to the island for ever, I would also make sure I learned the Inferno from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy by heart, like my grandfather does. As for the music album, I don’t think I would be too fussy. I always find that Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers periodically ends up back on my stereo, so I think I would go for that.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

I often find that people don’t always appreciate how the tools that underpin analytical chemistry — spectroscopy and crystallography in particular – are used in all sorts of fields that aren’t immediately thought of as ‘chemistry’. So there are ‘chemists’ that work as restorers of fine art, others that work as solid-state physicists in disguise, and some that even brew beer for a living. I would like to see such people interviewed here. Also, three chemists I have fond memories of as great teachers and scientists at UCL are Andrea Sella, Willie Motherwell and Steve Bramwell.

Andrea Taroni is an Associate Editor for Nature Materials; he goes by @TaroniAndrea on Twitter.

Felice Grandinetti is in the Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest systems (DIBAF) of the Università della Tuscia, Italy, and works on the computational investigation of the structure, stability, and reactivity of simple inorganic species. The studied systems are in general of fundamental interest, and play also an active role, for example, in environmental and plasma chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I was always fascinated by the atomic theory of matter, and by the possibility of interpreting macroscopic observations by the properties of invisible objects. However, when I had to choose my University courses, I initially ruled out chemistry. I believed that it was essentially a practical science, and I am not so able with my hands! However, I learned about theoretical and computational chemistry, and the possibilities offered by these disciplines. I therefore decided to attempt the road of computational chemistry. On the way, however, I realized that the most exciting opportunities come from the combination between theory and experiment.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

I always had, and I still have, a great passion for classic languages, especially Latin and Greek. Thus, if not a chemist, I would like to be a classic philologist. Besides their intrinsic interest, these languages open the direct fruition of literary masterpieces. In addition, as a Roman citizen, it is nearly impossible to resist the temptation to learn Latin!

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

I am now working on the chemistry of the noble gases, especially by theoretical methods but also in collaboration with experimental teams. I think that the chemistry of these elements is still posing fascinating questions, and I hope in particular to find novel compounds and bonding modes.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Among chemists, I would certainly choose Linus Pauling. He was able to combine simple chemical intuition with rigorous theoretical and computational methods, and I believe that he had a greatest impact on the modern view of chemistry. He was also a really special person, and the winning of two Nobel Prizes (Chemistry and Peace) is a clear witness. Among non chemists, I would like to meet Socrates. He did not write anything, but his life and thought have permeated the western culture.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

I did an experiment a couple of years ago in collaboration with colleagues working in the field of mass spectrometry and ion chemistry. Inspired by theoretical calculations, we were so fortunate to observe a first example of chemical species with a xenon-germanium bond: an exciting experience of predictions and observations working in concert.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

I would take the “Auto da fé” by Elias Canetti and the 32 Sonate for Piano by L. van Beethoven.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

I would like to see interviewed chemists who make reactions under less conventional environments such as the gas phase, the cold matrices, and superfluid helium. The results obtained under these conditions are somewhat different from those obtained in solution, and I feel that many “classical” chemists are still unaware of the exciting opportunities which come from these alternative methodologies.

Catherine Renouf is a PhD student in the Department of Chemistry at The University of St Andrews, and studies the separation of olefin mixtures using metal–organic frameworks using adsorption-based and structural techniques — she is also one of the winners of our In Your Element writing competition, with her essay on indium.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

At school I was always good at science, and I found all of science interesting and rewarding. However, I found chemistry both more challenging and more fascinating than the other sciences, probably due to one particular chemistry teacher. He was the only teacher in my school with a PhD, and he was fantastic at communicating his excitement for the subject. He made us do a lot of experiments during chemistry classes, and that really held my interest.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

I love baking, which is really just chemistry in a different disguise, so maybe I would have been a professional baker. However, I am very passionate about communication, and particularly about the communication of science, so I would also have been very happy as a writer.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

I’m nearing the end of my PhD now, so I’m mainly working on my thesis! A large part of my research was developing an environmental gas cell to use in single crystal X-ray crystallography at the ALS in Berkeley. Over the past three years it has improved to a stage where we can see gases inside our MOFs which has been a significant and exciting development. Hopefully, with more time and development, the gas cell will become a standard piece of equipment available on end stations at synchrotrons throughout the world.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

I think it would have to be W. L. Bragg, the youngest Nobel laureate and one of the discoverers of Bragg’s law. He was the director of the laboratories where Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA using X-ray diffraction, so he certainly knew how important his discovery had been, and hearing about the early years of his field (and hearing his views about recent developments, such as quasicrystals) would be fascinating.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

A couple of weeks ago I recorded an adsorption and desorption isotherm of propylene on a metal-organic framework using home-built gravimetric adsorption apparatus. It was nothing particularly exciting by that point – just a repeated measurement for inclusion in my thesis appendices.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

I would take Ben Goldacre’s newest book, Bad Pharma. I love reading popular science books, but I haven’t had the time while finishing up my PhD. Music-wise, I would take something relaxing and inspiring, possibly some Elgar.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

Someone who does something a little different with their chemistry – perhaps a beamline scientist at a national facility, a teaching fellow at a university or a writer for a science magazine.