Researcher Summary
Throughout my chemistry career I have been gaining the many skills required to investigate transition metal polypyridyl complexes. My PhD thesis was in the synthesis and vibrational spectroscopy of these complexes. Since my PhD I have taken three post-doc positions to learn from top practitioners and to add to these skills. In Canada I learnt additional synthetic techniques, primarily in the use of catalytic syntheses, to complement those of my PhD. In Italy I built on my collaborative work in Canada to learn ultra-fast time resolved electronic spectroscopy. Now, in Christchurch I am studying X-ray crystallography while I have access to such extensive knowledge.
At all stages in my career I have attempted to collaborate with other experts. In Canada I collaborated extensively with the group of Prof. Sebastiano Campagna of Univerista di Messina, Italy, for time resolved spectroscopy, with Prof. Bernold Hasenknopf of Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France, for the specialist nmr of 99Ru and with Yasutaka Tanaka of Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan, for the delicate mass spectrometry of supramolecular species. In Italy, we collaborated with Prof. Marco Garavelli of Universita di Bologna in computational chemistry and Prof. Anita Rampi of Universita degli studi di Ferrara in surface chemistry.
Finally, I believe that for research to be completed it must be presented to the scientific community and hence have attempted to attend and speak at many conferences.