In 2010, Grobert was promoted to professor of nanomaterials and made permanent at the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. She is also a fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a visiting professor at the BioNano Electronics Research Centre at Toyo University, Japan. Prior to her current post at Oxford, she was offered a chair at a Russell Group University and a chair (Première Classe) and directorship at a French university and research institute.
Research
As a professor of nanomaterials, Grobert her research is focused on the "synthesis, processing, and characterisation of novel carbon and non-carbon based nanomaterials, including nanoparticles, nanotubes, nanorods, graphene and other 2D nanomaterials".[6] In collaboration with international industries, her research is geared towards engineering multifunctional hierarchical nanostructures for their application in the healthcare, the energy sectors, and in structural applications.[7] In 2016, she led the theme Smart Materials of the International Consortium of Nanotechnologies.[6] Grobert’s work is highly cited and has been published in over 150 articles and six patents.
Moreover, Grobert is a founding member of the Young Academy of Europe - an international, non-governmental association of individual scientists and scholars who are experts and leaders in their respective fields, as recognised by their peers and in 2015 she was elected to the chair of the academy. In her role as chair of the YAE she also represented the YAE at the Academia Europaea Board. Through the AE and SAPEA, the Young Academy of Europe directly engages with Science Policy and the Science Advice Mechanism at the European Level. In 2017, she has been elected to the advisory board of the Young Academy of Europe.
Selected research evaluation committees and panels include:
The Royal Society University Research Fellowship Panel
The Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Committee
The Royal Society Newton International Fellowship Selection Committee
The Royal Society Commonwealth Science Conference Follow-on Grants
Board Member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Saarbruecken, Germany
Engaging with industry
Over the years, as part of her research activities Grobert has also engaged with internationally leading industries. Her work features widely across the world-wide-web on blogs, in videos, and press releases about her research articles have attracted much interest and as a delegation of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skillsvisited Grobert’s research Laboratory in November 2015 in order to discuss challenges faced in commercialising research outputs and how government policy could help to remove barriers to industrial take-up.
Public engagement
In 2008, Grobert was invited to join the Board of Trustees of the Vega Science Trust - an educational charity, which has made and streams free on the Internet more than 300 Science programmes – 75 of which have been shown on the BBC. To date Nicole has produced two EU sponsored films aimed at encouraging the uptake of science, in particular nano- and materials science, and several other educational clips.
In 2015, as a result of her research, she featured on BBC2 Newsnight and she has given TED-like and Pecha-Kucha 20x20 talks at the World Economic Forum and at meetings organised by internationally leading industries such as Bayer, Deloitte, and Solvay S.A. In addition, she has played a key role in European Science in Society Networks on women in science (WomenInNano, and DIVERSITY) and was one of eleven founding members of the Sci-Generation COST Network. In 2013, Nicole was invited to speak at the Hay Festival chaired by Professor John Sulston FRS NL (and again in 2017). In the following year (2014), she was invited to the SciFoo organised by O'Reilly Media, Digital Science, Nature Publishing Group and Google Inc. In 2017, she presented at the Estonian Presidency Research Policy Conference (European Research Excellence – Impact and Value for Society) in Tallinn in 2017.[8]
Diversity
Since 2006, more than 80 members (post-docs, DPhil, Masters, and visiting students) have been part of Grobert’s research team focusing on establishing ‘Growth systematics for the controlled generation of nanostructured materials'.
Her team is an international with group members coming from almost 30 different countries. The gender balance of her team averages to 50% women and men over the years. Close to 100% of her former group members have either stayed in academia (and have become permanent faculty), research institutions or have continued their careers in science-related posts.
Honors and awards
Nominated Rosalind Franklin Award
Young Scientist 2013, World Economic Forum Dalian, China[7]
Selected by the ERC as one of two grantees to present ERC research at the Alpbach Technology Forum
Winner of EPSRC Sandpit: INSPIRE Robust Biocatalysis for Energy Solutions
Merit Award, Department of Materials, University of Oxford
Nominated for Royal Society Kohn Award
Senior Research Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Future Leader 2008, Science and Technology in Society Forum in Kyoto Japan
Visiting Professor Bio-Nano Electronics Research Centre Toyo University, Kawagoe, Japan
Nesta CRUCIBLE Awardee 30 annual Crucible Fellowships are given to promising interdisciplinary scientists working across the UK
Outstanding individual - a testament to Britain’s scientific potential and the dynamism selected by the Royal Society