Chidimma is a Chemistry student at the University of Manchester. She will spend her industrial placement year as an internship student working at Paragraf.

“When I considered the companies I could work for during my placement year, one of my main covets was a forward-thinking company working on novel ideas. When I did my research about Paragraf, this was what stood out to me the most. Paragraf is a leader in what they do. They seem to be a company that is united by a single goal, which has fostered a uniquely collaborative environment in which there is an eagerness to impart knowledge and work cross functionally. I looked for a company with ideas that would challenge me and a culture that allowed for growth. I can fulfil these at Paragraf – the resulting academic and personal advancements are what I am most excited about during my time here.”

Thus far in her degree, Chidimma has explored analytical characterisation techniques such as Raman and Infrared Spectroscopy that has provided her with a strong foundation on which she can build during her time at Paragraf. She has also worked on a project that tracked zeolite crystal growth using programming. This has allowed her to understand possible defects resulting from growth and has given her other knowledge, such as introducing her to Atomic Force Microscopy, that she can apply when considering graphene growth and characterisation.

Chidimma concludes: “During my internship, I will be working on growth characterisation using spectroscopic and microscopic analytical techniques similar to those I have used in previous academic years. This characterisation is crucial across all of Paragraf’s projects as one of the company’s major goals is to produce commercially viable, graphene-based devices, and high-quality graphene is at the crux of this. I will also be assisting the Fundamental Understanding of Graphene team in discerning how we can better exploit graphene’s potential, which in turn will further refine Paragraf’s technologies”.

Chidimma Umeh

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