Rate My Professor Emily Draper

Professor Emily Draper is the Professor of Soft Materials in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. She obtained her MChem and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Liverpool, completing her doctorate in 2015 under Professor Dave Adams on photoresponsive hydrogel materials and receiving the Best Thesis award from the RSC Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry group. Following her PhD, she undertook postdoctoral research at Liverpool on multi-component gelators before joining the University of Glasgow in October 2016 as a postdoctoral research associate working on gelator systems for solar cell applications. In September 2017, she was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship alongside a Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Leadership Award, enabling her to establish an independent research group focused on supramolecular self-assembled materials for flexible electronics. She progressed to Lecturer in November 2018, Senior Lecturer in August 2022, and Professor of Soft Materials in August 2024.

Draper's research centers on designing and characterizing self-assembled organic supramolecular materials for practical devices, including flexible pressure and light sensors for wearable applications, electrochromic materials for smart windows, and viscosurgical agents for ophthalmic surgery such as cataract procedures. Her group employs techniques like small-angle neutron scattering, rheology, and in situ electrochemistry to understand and control assembly processes in real-time. Notable awards include the EPSRC New Investigator Award in 2019, BTM Willis Prize in neutron scattering in 2020, UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2021, Royal Society of Edinburgh Lady Margaret Moir Medal in 2023, German Chemical Society Hildegard Hamm-Brücher Prize for Equal Opportunities in Chemistry in 2023, and the Leverhulme Trust Prize in 2025. Key publications feature 'Low-Molecular-Weight Gels: The State of the Art' (Chem, 2017), 'How should multicomponent supramolecular gels be characterized?' (Chem, 2018), 'Controlling photocatalytic activity by self-assembly – tuning perylene bisimide photocatalysts for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction' (Adv. Energy Mater., 2020), 'Photothermal perylene bisimide hydrogels' (Chem. Eur. J., 2023), and 'Application of quasi solid electrolytes in organic based electrochromic devices' (Chem. Eur. J., 2024). She is a founding member of Women in Supramolecular Chemistry and contributes to university committees on diversity and doctoral training.