The School of Chemistry welcomes new Research Fellow

The School of Chemistry is very pleased to welcome a new member of academic staff; Dr Louis Morrill joins the School as a University Research Fellow.

Dr Louis Morrill - Louis obtained his MChem degree (1^st Class Honours) from the University of St Andrews, including a one-year industrial placement at AstraZeneca (Charnwood). He completed his Masters research project in 2010 with Professor Andrew Smith. Staying at St Andrews, he completed his Ph.D. under the direction of Professor Andrew Smith entitled "Organocatalytic Functionalisation of Carboxylic Acids Using Isothioureas", funded by a prestigious Carnegie-Caledonian Scholarship (2010-2014). This work expanded the utility of isothioureas in Lewis base catalysis and demonstrated the first intermolecular bond-forming reaction of carboxylic acid-derived ammonium enolates.

For his postdoctoral research, he moved to UC Berkeley to join the research group of Professor Richmond Sarpong, entering the world of complex molecule synthesis. Specifically, he was part of a team that developed highly efficient and concise total syntheses of diterpenoid alkaloid natural products. In 2015, he was appointed as a University Research Fellow in Synthetic Organic Chemistry at Cardiff University and began his independent research career. He is specifically interested in exploring new frontiers in organocatalysis.