Author: domwillcox

  • PhD positions available

    Liam Donnelly and I are recruiting two PhD students for projects focused on developing new catalytic processes that use Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) to transform waste plastics into high-value chemicals and materials. The projects are in close collaboration with Johnson Matthey and include the opportunity for industrial placements in JM labs. ✅ Fully funded 3.5-year…

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  • Welcome to Jordann!

    The group welcomes Jordann Wells who joins as a 3-year PDRA looking at the synthesis of silicon-containing building blocks in collaboration with Enamine. We also say goodbye and thank you to Lewis and Alice who completed placements in the group over the summer.

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  • Welcome to Lewis and Alice!

    Welcome to Lewis who joins the group for a Carnegie-funded summer project using DFT to study ambiphilic silane reactivity. Also welcome to Alice, who joins both our group and Dr Liam Donnelly’s group as a visiting student from France to develop new nitrogen-insertion skeletal editing methodologies.

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  • Modular access to bicyclic boronates

    In collaboration with Michael Ingleson, we have recently published a new paper in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. using boron trifluoride etherate and various nucleophiles to access bicyclic boronates. This work started during my PDRA with Mike, and Laura did an excellent job with it! I enjoyed probing the mechanism of this reaction and I look…

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  • PhD Opportunity Available

    ❗ PhD Opportunity Available ❗ In collaboration with Liam Donnelly we have a competition funded PhD studentship available focused on developing nitrogen insertion reactions using automation and machine learning. This 3.5-year studentship at Heriot-Watt University will combine both traditional synthetic chemistry with high-throughput experimentation and machine learning to discover new skeletal editing reactions. See the…

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  • Fellowship Funding Available

    Are you interested in undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship in digital chemistry? We are looking to support an applicant for the Heriot-Watt University EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship. This is a highly prestigious postdoctoral fellowship looking to support promising early-career researchers for up to two years. Eligbility: Applicants who completed a doctoral postgraduate research degree with support…

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  • Welcome to Josef and Fern

    Josef joins the group for a PhD after completing his MChem at Lancaster University, where he will be developing new methods for the synthesis of silicon-switch molecules. Fern joins the group for her MChem project and will be developing new reactivity with silyl-lithium compounds.

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  • sp3 Metalation

    If you have ever used simple Lewis acids like AlCl3 and GaCl3 in your chemistry, you may be interested to learn how they react with non-nucleophilic bases. Really proud to be involved with such a great project from my time in the Ingleson group. Anna did an amazing job with this and has discovered some…

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  • Welcome to Ben

    Ben Hendrie joins the group as a summer project student working on new skeletal-editing methodologies.

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  • Secondary-selective deoxyfluorination

    From my time with Mike Ingleson, finally out in Angewandte: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202418495 Thanks to Nojus for being a great co-first-author and Laura for pushing it over the finishing line!

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