Two 3 Year Ph.D. positions at University of Warwick, UK: Disentangling 
deactivation pathways in DNA bases and model systems using femtosecond 
time-resolved velocity map ion imaging and three-pulse techniques  

Vacancies exist for two, 3 year doctoral positions in the Department of 
Chemistry at Warwick University. The posts are EPSRC funded studentships 
(UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council). The candidates 
must be UK or EU citizens and have strong interests in experimental physical 
chemistry or chemical physics. Experience with modern mass spectrometry and 
lasers would be advantageous but not necessary. The projects will be 
supervised by Dr Vasilios Stavros. The student stipend is £13,290 pa. The 
posts are available from January 2010.   

Two 3 Year Ph.D. positions at University of Georgia, US: Disentangling 
deactivation pathways in DNA bases and model systems using femtosecond 
photoelectron and photoion coincidence techniques and H-atom detection

Vacancies exist for two, 3 year doctoral positions in the Department of 
Physics and Astronomy at the University of Georgia. The posts are funded by 
the National Science Foundation. The candidates should have strong interests 
in experimental physical chemistry or chemical physics. Experience with 
modern mass spectrometry and lasers would be advantageous but not 
necessary. The projects will be supervised by Dr Susanne Ullrich. The student 
stipend is $41200 pa. The posts are available from January 2010.   

Prospective applicants should make informal contact by email or telephone:

Dr Vasilios Stavros
Department of Chemistry
University of Warwick
Gibbet Hill Road
Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 24 76150172 
Email: [log in to unmask]

Web: 
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/chemistry/research/physicalchemistry/stav
ros/

Dr Susanne Ullrich
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30605, USA
Tel: +1 (706) 542 0344
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.physast.uga.edu/people/fac-su.html

Project Details  

Processes which involve the absorption of light play an integral role in our day-
to-day lives. Nature has carefully chosen our molecular building blocks so that 
the potentially devastating effects of ultraviolet radiation are by-passed. The 
nucleic bases, adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine, which constitute the 
building blocks of our genetic code, DNA, absorb ultraviolet radiation very 
readily. Once absorbed, this energy is very efficiently diffused through 
harmless molecular relaxation pathways reducing the risk of molecular 
breakdown and therefore photochemical damage. The timescales of these 
photoresistive pathways must be very fast for them to compete effectively 
with the detrimental paths. It is becoming interestingly clear however that, 
although ultrafast measurements with lasers reveal very fast relaxation 
pathways, more refined experiments are required to test the ever increasingly 
sophisticated calculations that model the theory behind these pathways. The 
projects involve interrogating these molecules with sequences of ultrafast 
laser pulses to identify and completely characterize these pathways using 
state-of-the-art spectroscopic techniques such as femtosecond time-resolved 
velocity map ion imaging and photoelectron photoion coincidence techniques. 
The projects are of collaborative nature and students will spend a few weeks 
per year abroad working in the foreign collaborator’s group. 

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