About the Dalton Division

Robert Mulvey was born in Glasgow, Scotland and obtained both his BSc and PhD from the University of Strathclyde, where he has held a Professorship since 1995 and currently holds the 1919 Chair of Inorganic Chemistry. His research has been recognised through many awards including a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (2017), a Peking University-Eli Lilly Lectureship (2015), the GDCh Arfvedson Schlenk Prize (2013), the RSC Main Group Chemistry award (2001) and Meldola Medal and Prize (1988), and Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit (2009) and Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship awards (2004), and was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2001). His research centres on developing the special synergistic chemistry of polar organometallic compounds with emphasis on alkali metal mediation in synthesis and catalysis. He has published approaching 300 research papers.

Rosalyn received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry (MChem) from the University of Oxford in 2013. She then moved to the University of Bristol for her PhD, where she joined the Chemical Synthesis Doctoral Training Centre. Under the supervision of Dr. Chris Russell and Prof. Doug Stephan, Rosalyn undertook research on the activation of small molecules by main group aromatic compounds, which included a placement at the University of Toronto in Canada.

After completion of her PhD, Rosalyn moved to the University of Edinburgh, where she is now a postdoctoral research associate with Dr. Michael Cowley and is working on synthesising novel aluminium compounds.

James Wilton-Ely received his BSc and PhD (with Prof. Tony Hill) in Chemistry from Imperial College and remained there as a Fixed-Term Lecturer for a year. He spent two years as a von Humboldt Fellow with Prof. Hubert Schmidbaur at TU Munich before returning to the UK to work with Prof. David Cole-Hamilton at the University of St. Andrews. He started his independent career as a Ramsay Fellow at UCL (2003-5) before moving in 2005 to Oxford University as Fitzjames Fellow in Inorganic Chemistry (Merton College). In 2009 he was appointed to his current position at Imperial College London, where he is currently Reader (Associate Professor) in Inorganic Chemistry and Director of the MRes in Green Chemistry. His research interests focus on multimetallic complexes and functionalised nanoparticles applied to sensing, imaging and catalysis.

Ian Fairlamb began independent academic research at the University of York in 2001, following post-doctoral research in Bristol (2000/01, with Prof. G.C. Lloyd-Jones) and a PhD in Manchester (1996/2000, with Dr Julia Dickinson). He was a Royal Society University Research Fellow (2004-12), promoted to full Professor in Chemistry in 2010 (in York). He was a recipient of the RSC Meldola Medal (2003), Astra-Zeneca research award (2007-10) and RSC Corday-Morgan Prize (2016). His research focuses on the use of transition metal complexes in applied catalysis, chemical synthesis, therapeutic design and nanotechnology. He very much enjoys helping young scientists realise their full potential (recognised by a University of York award in 2015); assisting them in their development as early career researchers, for both academia and industry, is very dear to him. He has had a warm relationship with the RSC throughout his career and is delighted to be part of Dalton Council

Eva Hevia received both her MSci degree in Chemistry and her Ph.D. degree from the Universidad de Oviedo (Spain) in 1998 and 2002 respectively. The latter was under the supervision of Professor Victor Riera and Dr Julio Perez. After a three-year position at the University of Strathclyde working as a Marie Curie Fellow with Professor Robert Mulvey, in 2006 she took up a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and Lectureship there. Subsequently she was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2010, Reader in 2011 and to Full Professor in 2013. Since February 2019 Eva holds a chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Research in her group focuses on polar organometallic synthesis and catalysis, at the crossroads of inorganic, organic, and green chemistry. Some of her recent contributions include the use of cooperative bimetallic compounds for the activation of pharmaceutically relevant organic molecules, as well as the advancement of new methods that replace the use of toxic organic solvents in this chemistry by more sustainable and biorenewable systems.

James Walton completed his PhD in 2012, under the supervision of Prof David Parker at Durham University, studying emissive lanthanide complexes. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof Jonathan Williams at the University of Bath, studying ruthenium complexes in catalysis. Since 2014, he has been an Assistant Professor at Durham University. His research focusses on the synthesis and application of organometallic complexes as therapeutics and in catalysis. In particular he has studied Ru complexes as HDAC inhibitors and organometallic complexes in catalytic C-H activation reactions. In 2015, he spent a short research visit in Switzerland at the EPFL, working with Prof Paul Dyson, funded through the RSC JWT Jones Travelling Fellowship. He was awarded the 2017 Inorganic Reaction Mechanisms (IRM) Young Investigator Award and is currently the treasurer of the IRM Group.

Charlie O'Hara received his BSc(Hons) and PhD (with Prof. Robert Mulvey) in Chemistry from the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde in 2000 and 2004 respectively. He remained there as a Fixed-Term Lecturer for one year, before taking up a PDRA position with Prof. Matthew Davidson at the University of Bath. He then returned to Strathclyde as a lecturer and was awarded an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship in 2011 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Research in his group focuses on the synthesis and utility of polar organometallic complexes, particularly those which contain two distinct metals.

Pooja Goddard was born in Kenya and obtained an MChem in Chemistry from Coventry University. Her interest in Computational Materials Science originated during PhD studies at the University of Warwick with the late Mark Rodger. She subsequently moved to Uppsala University (Sweden) to Olle Eriksson’s Group, where she worked on a number of spin-induced magnetic ordering systems, followed by a research officer position with Saiful Islam looking at various materials for energy applications such as Fuel Cells and Batteries. In 2015, she was offered a lectureship at Loughborough University where she is currently Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry.

She has been involved for many years with the work of the RSC and sat on the Solid State Chemistry Group, during which time she organized the national AGM in 2016. She is also an elected member of the SEIB and PACN boards

Dr. Rebecca Melen studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge for her undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences, majoring in Chemistry. She continued at Cambridge, completing her PhD in 2012 in Main Group Chemistry under the guidance of Prof. Dominic Wright. Her research focused on catalytic and stoichiometric dehydrocoupling reactions using main group compounds. She then moved to Canada to work with Prof. Douglas Stephan at the University of Toronto where she explored the synthesis and reactivity of boron Lewis acids. In 2013 she was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship to study in Heidelberg with Prof. Dr. Lutz Gade before taking up her current position in 2014 at Cardiff University. Dr Melen's interests lie in diverse aspects of main group chemistry and catalysis. Her work has been recognised through a variety of awards including the RSC Dalton Young Researcher Award (2013), the European Young Researcher Award (2014) and the RSC Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize (2019). In addition Dr. Melen was highlighted in Scientific American’s “30 under 30” who “represent the future of chemistry”. For more information about Dr. Melen please visit her group webpage.

Anna Peacock obtained her MChem from the University of York in 2003, and her PhD with Peter Sadler FRS at the University of Edinburgh for her work on the design of osmium(II) arene anticancer complexes, in 2007. She then moved to a post-doctoral position at the University of Michigan with Vincent Pecoraro to work on the de novo design of metallopeptides. In 2009 Anna took up a lectureship in the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham, where she is currently a Reader in Bioinorganic Chemistry. Anna’s research group focuses on bioinorganic chemistry and in particular metallo-peptide and protein design.

Cinzia Imberti completed her M.Sci degree in Chemistry at the University of Padova (Italy) in 2012. She then moved to the UK to undertake a PhD at King’s College London, working on the development of new radiometal-based radiopharmaceuticals under the supervision of Prof. Philip J. Blower. On completion of her PhD she was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship and joined the group of Prof. Peter J. Sadler FRS at the University of Warwick in 2018. Her current research focuses on the mechanism of action of metal-based anticancer agents, with particular emphasis on photoactivatable platinum complexes, and combines medicinal inorganic chemistry and radionuclide imaging.

Anne McGrogan received her MSci in Chemistry from Queen’s University Belfast in 2019. Her degree pathway included a placement year at General Electric, working as a product development scientist. After her graduation, she decided to pursue her research interests and joined a PhD programme at QUILL Research Centre (Queen’s University Ionic Liquid Laboratories), under the supervision of Dr Swadźba-Kwaśny. Both her MSci and PhD project were at the intersection of ionic liquids and main group chemistry (developing borenium ionic liquids and studying frustrated Lewis pairs in ionic liquids). Her research spans from inorganic synthesis and main group catalysis to synchrotron-based studies (Diamond, ISIS and BESSY II) giving insight to Lewis acidity and liquid structure of her compounds.

Russell Morris gained B.A. and D. Phil degrees at the University of Oxford and is currently Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews. His research interests lie in the synthesis, characterisation and application of porous and layered materials including zeolites and metal-organic frameworks. His recent work on developing the ADOR approach to the preparation of zeolites offers routes to exciting materials that would not be possible using standard techniques. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW). He is currently Chair of the Dalton Transactions Editorial Board. He is the recipient of several awards including the Royal Society Brian Mercer Award for Innovation, The Baron Axel Cronstedt Prize from the European Federation of Zeolite Associations (2017) and the Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize (2019).