Lighting the Spark: Our Year 10 Encounter at the Kathleen Lonsdale Schools’ Lecture

This exciting event is held in honour of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, a groundbreaking chemist, crystallographer, and the first female professor at UCL.

Lonsdale is best known for her pioneering work using X-ray crystallography to determine the flat structure of the benzene ring, an achievement that helped shape modern organic chemistry. She was also one of the first two women elected as Fellows of the Royal Society in 1945.

The lecture itself was an unforgettable experience. UCL postgraduate students, along with a guest scientist, delivered engaging talks and live chemical demonstrations that brought real science to life. From spectacular colour changes to eye-catching reactions, and even a few loud bangs and explosions, the experiments were dramatic and exciting, brilliantly illustrating key ideas in chemistry while keeping the audience captivated.

Students were amazed not just by the experiments, but also by how clearly the scientists explained the chemistry behind them. The atmosphere was full of curiosity and excitement; exactly the kind of inspiration Dame Kathleen Lonsdale would have championed.

The visit gave our students a glimpse into the world of university-level science and showed how chemistry can be creative, explosive, and truly awe-inspiring.