Nyholm Prize for Inorganic Chemistry 2016 Winner

Awarded for his pioneering work in magnetic metal-oxo clusters and the discovery of numerous single-molecule magnets

About the Winner

George Christou was born on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, raised in London, England, and obtained his BSc and PhD degrees at Exeter University. His PhD was in organic chemistry, under the supervision of H N Rydon, and involved the synthesis by classical methods of cysteine-glycine polypeptides and their use as ligands to iron-sulfur clusters to model the ferredoxin proteins. 

After a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship with R H Holm at Stanford and Harvard Universities in bioinorganic chemistry targeted at the Mo/Fe/S cluster of the nitrogenase enzyme, he took up his first independent position at Imperial College, London, and initiated his interest in manganese chemistry that continues to this day. He then moved to Indiana University, Bloomington, where he rose through the ranks to Blough Professor. In 2001, he moved to the University of Florida to take up his present position as the inaugural holder of the Drago Chair of Chemistry, and was subsequently also promoted to University Distinguished Professor. 

He has received a variety of awards and honours over the years, including both the 1986 Corday-Morgan Medal and the 2000 Award for Chemistry and Electrochemistry of Transition Metals from the RSC. He has published over 560 peer-reviewed publications, of which 70 are in the physics literature, and has been selected to both the Highly Cited Researchers 2014 and 2015 lists. He is Editor of the journal Polyhedron and an Honorary Professor at the London Centre for Nanotechnology and University College, London. He is married with two children.