2026 China-Europe School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering

USYD: Prof. Brendan J. Kennedy

Brendan Kennedy is Professor of Solid State Chemistry at the University of Sydney. He has a particular interest in the study of crystallographic phase transitions in metal oxides, the impact of local scale distortions in functional oxides in areas including photocatalysts and nuclear waste form hosts, understanding the role of 6s2 lone-pair electrons in oxides and the structural basis if instabilities in halide perovskites. He makes extensive use of both high-resolution Synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction and neutron powder diffraction, often supplementing such measurements with X-ray spectroscopic studies. He has as supervised and mentored over 30 PhD students and an equivalent number of postdoctoral and early-career researchers. He served on the committees responsible for the design of the powder diffractometers at Australia’s OPAL neutron source and at the Australian Synchrotron.