Nina Notman
Science writer and editor
After finishing my organic chemistry PhD at the University of Bristol, I had come to realise that I didn’t have the patience required to be a good bench chemist. I started looking around for a career than allowed me to indulge my love for science while not being lab-based, which led me to join the journals team at the Royal Society of Chemistry with a focus on guiding papers through the peer review process. I was also given the opportunity to write magazine-style articles about some of the papers we published, something I relished. I then joined the Chemistry World team, first as a science correspondent and later as the features editor. In 2012, due to a family relocation, I went freelance and now write for a range of different chemistry and science education publications.
FeatureThe science of distilling gin
Do you know your cold compound from your London dry? Nina Notman sorts through the botanicals to find the perfect cocktail
CareersMaintaining the UK's nuclear deterrent
The scientific challenges of working on a weapon that can never be tested
FeatureMOFs find a use
Nina Notman takes stock of the first products containing metal–organic frameworks to hit the shelves
FeatureHow ketamine could help treat severe depression
Nina Notman looks at how the party drug ketamine may hold the key to treating patients with severe depression
FeatureUrban air pollution
Nina Notman meets the chemists breathing fresh air into urban air pollution research
FeaturePersonalised skincare
Nina Notman explores some of the latest scientific approaches skincare companies are using in the quest to develop high-earning anti-ageing cosmetics
FeatureActivating C–Hemistry
Meet the organic chemists intent on breaking bonds that are generally considered to be unreactive
FeatureExplosive science
Nina Notman learns the role chemistry plays in monitoring volcanoes and understanding the impact of their eruptions
CareersThe offshore chemist
Catriona Gebbie talks to Nina Notman about life as the only analytical chemist on board a North Sea oil production platform
PodcastGrubbs catalyst
Nina Notman describes the dance of olefin metathesis, and how the tempo is set by Grubbs’ catalysts
NewsUS to restart chemical weapon neutralisation
Remainder of US cold war chemical weapons set to be destroyed by 2023
FeatureFrom screen to cell
Nina Notman finds out how liquid crystals are moving into the biotechnology and pharmaceutical toolbox
CareersThe mothers of invention
Nina Notman profiles four researchers successfully balancing an academic career with family life
FeatureIt's a bloody business
Determining the role drugs and poisons may have played in death is the responsibility of forensic toxicologists. Nina Notman reports
CareersThe changing face of the PhD
Universities in the UK are exploring the European approach of building a thesis from published papers, finds Nina Notman
FeatureImaging the future
Doctors and pharmaceutical companies are beginning to open their eyes to the power of mass spectrometry imaging, finds Nina Notman
CareersThe kitchen chemist
Nina Notman finds nothing half-baked about the chemistry demonstrations that Stephen Ashworth whips up
CareersShow and tell
Nina Notman explores the performance-based communication competitions turning researchers into raconteurs
CareersThe space junky
Sending her experimental polymers into space was a career high for Lenore Rasmussen. But space is just one part of the story, Nina Notman finds
