Chemistry expansion: two new members of academic staff appointed
11 June 2014
The School of Chemistry is expanding and it is pleased to announce the appointment of two new members of academic staff.
Dr Duncan Browne and Dr Rebecca Melen will join the School later this summer before the start of the 2014-15 academic year. Everyone in the School is looking forward to welcoming them and working with them in the future. More details of Dr Browne's and Dr Melen's biographies are given below:
Dr Duncan L. Browne studied Chemistry at Sheffield University and finished his PhD degree on Cycloaddition Chemistry there in 2009. He continued his research as an EPSRC doctoral Prize Fellow and, in 2010, he joined the research group of Prof. S. V. Ley in Cambridge. He has been working on various aspects of flow chemistry and was involved in the development of novel techniques for continuous processing. He was appointed as a Fellow and Director of Studies at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 2013. He will join the School of Chemistry in Cardiff in September 2014.
Dr Rebecca Melen studied Natural Sciences at Magdalene College Cambridge in 2004. She then completed her PhD in p-block chemistry with Prof. Dominic Wright, investigating the reactivity of p-block amido-bases. After completing her PhD, Dr Melen moved to the University of Toronto to work with Prof. Doug Stephan, developing new Frustrated Lewis Pairs (FLPs), i.e. molecules containing both Lewis basic and Lewis acidic sites and examining their use in catalytic hydrogenation reactions. In 2013 she was awarded the Dalton Young Researchers Award (http://www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/Awards/DaltonYoungResearchersAward/2013-Winner.asp). In 2013 Rebecca moved to the University of Heidelberg as an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow to work in the group of Prof. Lutz Gade before joinng the academic staff at Cardiff University in 2014. Her research interests are in the catalytic reactivity of p-block elements, including Lewis acidic group 13 compounds to promote organic transformations and the synthesis of novel p-block metal complexes for catalysis.