Promotions in Chemistry
Five new professors have been appointed in Chemistry at the University of Southampton. The promotions recognise the achievements of Andrew Hector, Bruno Linclau, David Read, Chris Skylaris and Ali Tavassoli in research and teaching at one of the UK’s leading departments.
Head of Chemistry, Professor Phil Gale says: “I am delighted that Chris, Bruno, Andrew and Ali have been promoted to personal chairs; this reflects the great success of our department across the breadth of chemistry. I am also pleased that David has been promoted to Professorial Fellow in Chemical Education. I am very proud of the our Education Section and David’s leadership in this area is recognised by this promotion.”
Professor Andrew Hector: “I joined the University of Southampton 20 years ago; a big part of my research over the last 15 years has focused on the development of metal nitrides in controlled morphologies. We have made real progress in this area and we’re currently working on applications in batteries and catalysis. We also work extensively on using electrochemistry to make nanomaterials.”
Professor Bruno Linclau: “Since we began our investigations in organofluorine chemistry 15 years ago, we are very pleased that some of our novel types of compounds have become of great interest for the development of practical applications, such as in diagnostics. Our work in this field is underpinned by fundamental investigations related to how fluorination affects molecular properties, and I am very proud that my group, often in an interdisciplinary collaboration context, has made key discoveries in this field.
Professor David Read: “I was delighted to be awarded a Professorial Fellowship as recognition of my contribution to enhancing our students’ learning. When I first came to Southampton as a former school teacher in 2007, I was pleased that colleagues were keen to join me in exploring new ways of teaching. My promotion proves there is a good career path for teaching fellows at the University.”
Professor Chris Skylaris: “Since arriving at the University of Southampton nine years ago, I have been grateful for its support to allow me to develop my embryonic ideas about large-scale quantum chemistry simulations into a major project which has attracted both research grants and collaborations with industry. My research group is using computational chemistry to tackle real-life problems of technological and industrial importance.”
Professor Ali Tavassoli: “My laboratory team is involved with challenging interdisciplinary research and I’m pleased we have achieved key results. They include several first in class inhibitors against some of the most challenging drug targets and we have shown for the first time that non-natural DNA linkers are tolerated by living systems. I am also very proud of the students and postdocs that have been trained in my lab.”