2026 Hallett Memorial Scholarship Winners
Congratulations to the 2026 Ross Hallett Memorial Scholarship Winners; Ashish Joy and Ricky Summerlin!
This graduate scholarship was established in memory of Professor Ross Hallett to honour his contributions to research in biophysics, as well as the academic life of the Department of Physics, the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, and the University of Guelph. Selection is based on academic achievement and demonstrated ability and/or potential in biophysics research.
Ashish Joy
Ashish Joy is a PhD researcher in soft condensed matter physics currently working under the supervision of Anand Yethiraj at the University of Guelph. He began his doctoral research at Memorial University of Newfoundland before continuing his research at Guelph.
Ashish obtained an integrated master’s degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati, India. During his undergraduate and master’s studies, he investigated the effects of alcohol and salt on the phase behavior of aqueous Laponite suspensions under the supervision of Ravi Kumar Pujala. For his final-year master’s project, he joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, where he studied colloidal glass transitions in two- and three-dimensional systems under the supervision of Vijayakumar Chikkadi.
These research experiences fostered his strong interest in soft matter physics, particularly in nonequilibrium colloidal systems. His current research focuses on colloidal systems driven out of equilibrium through toggled dipolar interactions and steady depletion interactions, with an emphasis on understanding the rich phase behavior that emerges across these interaction regimes. He is also interested in the ordering of crystalline and amorphous states in colloidal systems and in exploring how varying the toggling parameters can enhance structural ordering and self-organization, through both experiment and computer simulation.
In 2024, Ashish published a research article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters on an unusual charge reversal in PMMA colloidal suspensions with varying salt concentration. The study revealed behavior analogous to the charge reversal observed in proteins under varying pH conditions, along with effects associated with counterion condensation and charge regulation. Ashish has presented his research at national and international conferences, including the APS March Meeting 2023, the ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium 2024 at the University of Washington, and the Biophysical Society of Canada (2025) at McMaster University.
Ashish has received several awards and recognitions. He was awarded the INSPIRE Scholarship for the duration of his five-year integrated master’s program and received the Best Research Poster Award from the Department of Physics at Memorial University. He also served for one year as the Graduate Student Union representative for the Department of Physics at Memorial University.
Outside of research, Ashish enjoys playing badminton and soccer in his free time.
Ricky Summerlin
Ricky Summerlin obtained his Honours BSc in Physics from the University of Guelph in 2023. Ricky excelled in his academic courses, demonstrating a real passion and aptitude for learning, winning an impressive number of in-course scholarships.
During his undergraduate degree, Ricky joined the Dutcher Lab as a Research Assistant in the summer of 2021, working closely with a PhD student, Hurmiz Shamana. In this project, Ricky performed a comprehensive rheology study of the mechanical properties of aqueous dispersions of a modified version of phytoglycogen (PG), which is a polysaccharide that is produced as highly branched, compact nanoparticles in the kernels of sweet corn. His measurements of the viscosity of aqueous dispersions of cationically-modified PG (GTAC-PG), in which the zero-shear viscosity increases dramatically with PG concentration, revealed a beautiful, monotonic dependence of the results on the concentration of added salt. The salt screens the electrostatic interaction between the particles such that, at high salt concentrations, the results are very similar to those obtained with the unmodified PG particles. Ricky gave a talk on his work at the 2022 American Physical Society March Meeting (online presentation due to COVID restrictions).
Ricky continued his research part-time during the 2021-2022 academic year and worked full-time during the 2022 summer semester, extending his work to another modification of PG obtained by covalently attaching octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA), which is both hydrophobic and negatively charged at neutral pH. This combination of hydrophobicity and charge produces a rich rheological behaviour, which manifests as a non-monotonic dependence of the viscosity results on the amount of OSA that is attached to the PG particles (degree of substitution DS).
For his MSc in the Dutcher Lab, Ricky has focused on obtaining a detailed understanding of the complex rheological behaviour of both GTAC-PG and OSA-PG. This has involved performing the chemical modification procedures several times to further extend the range of DS values, doing more rheology measurements, and it has required new, in-depth approaches to the analysis of the data, for which he has achieved impressive progress. We will submit a paper on the GTAC-PG work this summer, with Ricky as second author. Another paper on the OSA-PG work, with Ricky as co-first author, is currently in preparation.
Ricky has presented his work at many different conferences including the 2022 and 2025 American Physical Society March Meeting, the 2025 Biophysical Society of Canada Meeting and the 2026 Canadian Association of Canada Annual Congress. Ricky has also been actively involved in various committees within the department and the college and served as co-Chair of the 2022 Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference at Guelph, which was very successful.
Ricky also has a deep passion and talent for music, writing music and playing bass in the band MINUTIA, which has its roots in folk, punk, and psychedelia.