Adam Sapnik (Balliol 2014) has been awarded the 2026 Physical Crystallography Prize by the British Crystallographic Association. The award is given every two years for ‘the best recently published work by a person in the early stages of their career, working in the field of Physical Crystallography, whose research is expected to make a significant impact’.
Adam, a postdoctoral researcher in Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, received the prize for his contributions to the study of amorphous metal-organic frameworks and the development of advanced total scattering methods. As part of the award, he was invited to deliver a lecture at the British Crystallographic Association’s Spring Meeting, held at the University of Leeds.
Reflecting on the award, Adam said: ‘It is a real honour to receive the British Crystallographic Association’s prize in Physical Crystallography. The award is especially meaningful to me because it recognises work carried out across several years on amorphous metal-organic frameworks and on advancing ultrafast total scattering methods. In particular, the development of these methods has been a hugely collaborative effort involving many researchers across Europe, including some whom I first met during my time at Balliol, and I have been very privileged to contribute to that wider work. In my current research in Copenhagen, I use X‑ray scattering to study the formation of tiny nanoclusters, with the aim of understanding how complex materials assemble at the earliest stages and ultimately help to develop new functional materials.’