I realized already how much there is to do with my project! This week I had the chance to meet Professor Abrahams previous advisor, Professor Richard Robson. Professor Robson still does research at the university, but is currently retired. We had a nice chat about Caltech because he worked there for a few years back in the 60s! I was impressed that Professor Robson remembered all of the street names so well, but he told me that he looked up the names of the streets he used to live on when he heard that there was someone at Uni Melb from Caltech! It was so nice of him to do that! I was able to tell him and Professor Abrahams a little bit more about my research experience back home and as a result we have a meeting coming up to add more/modify my project! I'm excited to get to work on a few more things!

Earlier this week I was working on a straight forward synthesis for my ligand, since I had used it all to get the crystals I posted about earlier. The ligand is the more organic part of our molecule (ie. it contains carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms). I finished making it today and got a really nice white powder that I can use to make more crystals next week.

The postdoc I work with, Tim, was able to take a look at some of my crystals and figure out the unit cell. He was hoping that we would see interpenetrating copper sheets, but we only got copper chains. Regardless, I still thought it was cool to see the structure. Hopefully I'll get to take a look at some of the other crystals I have soon as well!

I don't have any other chemistry pictures right now, so I'll say goodnight with this skyline picture I took from downtown Melbourne. 

Stephanie