Speaker
Robert Phipps, Ph.D.
Speaker's Institution
University of Cambridge
Date
2021-11-18
Time
4:00 PM
Location
Chemistry A101
Mixer Time
3:45 PM
Mixer Time
Chemistry B101E
Calendar (ICS) Event
Additional Information

About the Seminar:

Non-covalent interactions play a crucial in all manner of chemical and biological processes. In recent times, the incorporation of non-covalent interactions into the design of small molecule catalysts has revolutionised the field of enantioselective catalysis. Our research is centred around applying catalyst designs incorporating non-covalent interactions to tackle selectivity challenges in synthetic chemistry, concerning both positional selectivity and enantioselectivity. This talk will discuss work in which such an approach is used to direct reactive transition metals through the use of novel bifunctional ligands. It will also cover non-covalent strategies for control of enantioselectivity in radical reactions.

About the Speaker:

Robert received his undergraduate degree from Imperial College London in 2006. He moved to the University of Cambridge to complete his PhD (2010) with Prof. Matthew Gaunt. In 2011, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley on a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship with Prof. F. Dean Toste in the area of asymmetric fluorination using chiral phosphoric acid catalysts. In 2013 he returned to Cambridge for the return year of the Marie Curie Fellowship and in 2014 he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, which allowed him to commence independent research from October 2014. In 2017 was awarded an ERC Starting Grant and in 2019 was a recipient of the RSC Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize. He was appointed as an Associate Professor at Cambridge in October 2021.