She got her dream job

From the hot, bustling Bangkok streets to student life in Linköping. Chariya Virojanadara came to Linköping University to study a master’s programme. Fourten years later she is still here, researching graphene.

“I love life in Linköping. Everything is close, everyone is friendly, everything is well-organised and as a sports freak I have every opportunity to quench my sporting thirst.”

Chariya Virojanadara, from Thailand, is employed as a post-doctoral research fellow at LiU and researches graphene. She is one of several students on the master’s programme in Materials Physics and Nanotechnology who has moved on to research.

Virojanadara was studying physics at the high-ranking Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok when she and her classmates started discussing where they were going to get their master’s degrees.

“It was never really a question of whether I would go abroad, that’s just something you do, and the Scandinavian countries have a good reputation, the universities are top notch and the teaching is held in good English.”

Virojanadara came into contact with three former students at her university who have earned their International master’s degrees in Linköping. Their experiences of good education combined with good access to laboratories clinched the deal. She was going to LiU!

So one August day a few months later, there she was in Linköping, jet-lagged and slightly lost, but looking around with interest. The contrast to the bustle, the sounds and the smells of the Bangkok streets was striking.

Her first few months in the new country did provide a few culture shocks.

“But everyone is so friendly and helpful. If I was standing in town looking lost, someone always came up to me and asked if I needed help. People are very open here.”

It was easy to find a place to live and people to socialise with. The group attending the master’s programme in Materials Physics and Nanotechnology quickly became a close-knit bunch and the programme exceeded her expectations.

“I think that is because the education is handled differently here. In Thailand you mostly learn from books. Here it is about experience, the teachers give demonstrations, the students do laboratory work and the teachers are much better at explaining things in their own words. It’s easy to keep up!”

She is also enjoying the great selection of leisure pursuits on offer.

“It’s so easy to get out and do sports! I go to the Campushallen Sports Hall, play tennis and badminton, and go skiing and ice-skating in the winter. During summer I play a lot of golf.”

Virojanadara even played second division hockey in Norrköping for a while.

“It took a bit too much of my time, but it was great fun.”

Taking up hockey is probably quite symptomatic. Chariya Virojanadara is hardly afraid of new challenges. If she is curious about something, she tries it. So it’s no surprise that laboratory work and experiments are her great passion.

“I love the feeling of being confronted with an experiment and wondering what will happen. That’s absolutely the best thing about this job.”

Once she had completed her master’s, Virojanadara stayed at LiU for five years of doctoral studies. Following that she worked as a research fellow for a year before she moved to Stuttgart in Germany for further post-doctoral research.

“I developed research on silicon carbide and the different substances that can be grown on its surface.”

However Virojanadara didn’t feel that her time in Linköping was over. She received a scholarship and went back to LiU for two more years of research. She researched how to create graphene, a layer of graphite one atom thick, by growing it on the surface of silicon carbide.

Graphene is a hot research topic; it also won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010. The “supermaterial” is chemically stable, elastic and extremely strong but above all it has extraordinary electronic properties.

“I am interested both in the properties of graphene made in different ways and in the functionalisation of graphene, i.e. how to change its properties for example by exposing the material to hydrogen or other atoms and molecules,” says Virojanadara.

Nevertheless her LiU story wasn’t over yet. Facing stiff competition, she was accepted as a LiU research fellow for four years and will now put together her own research group.

“This is my dream job. I always have a long list of brilliant ideas I want to try,” she laughs.

“At the moment we are testing how lithium, sodium and rubidium interact with graphene. How it grows and how the electrons are affected.”

Last year she married the love of her life and they bought a house in Linköping.

“In ten years I hope that I am still living and working here. A lot depends on the team that you work with, but if things continue to work as well as they currently do then I want to continue on here.”

Text Sofia Ström Bernad
Photo Göran Billeson
From LiU magazine no 2 2012

• Name Chariya Virojanadara
• Age 34
• Misses from Thailand Thai food
• Student memory Fun teamwork (studies and sports).
• Favourite music Classical, especially Mozart, and pop, anything happy and energetic.