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Erica Wanless
University of Newcastle, Australia
Erica Wanless is a colloid and interface scientist based at the University of Newcastle (Australia). Erica graduated from the Australian National University with a first class honours degree in chemistry, and then a PhD in surface science. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Otago where she used atomic force microscopy to reveal the nanostructure of adsorbed surfactant aggregates.
At Newcastle she has conducted extensive research on surfactants, polymers and colloidal particles at interfaces including particle stabilised foams and emulsions. Her recent research focus has been on stimulus responsive polymers, notably polymer brushes as an excellent platform to investigate, and thus advance understanding of specific ion effects in aqueous and non-aqueous solution. Techniques such as neutron reflection, ellipsometry, and quartz crystal microbalance are regularly used to quantify the impact of electrolyte solutions on these surface coatings. In the past 5 years these measurements have been conducted in parallel with computational efforts at Newcastle and complementary experiments at the ANU and Flinders universities. Erica is the immediate past-president of the Australasian Colloid and Interface Society.