Nicholas E. Leadbeater

Advisor

Chemistry

Dr. L. was born in Birmingham, England which was the center of the Industrial Revolution. He was an undergraduate at the nearby University of Nottingham where he obtained a first-class honors degree in Chemistry. It was during this time he first became interested in alternative methods for making molecules. He did his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge Chemistry Department under the supervision of Professor Lord Lewis of Newnham and Dr. (now Professor) Paul Raithby. His work was focused around the use of photochemistry as a tool for the preparation of new organometallic complexes. He stayed at Cambridge as a University Research Fellow at Girton College. During this time he started working in the area of polymer-supported catalysis. In 1999 he moved to King’s College London to take up a lectureship and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. While there he initiated his program of research using microwave heating in synthetic chemistry. In 2003 he was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Harrison Medal. He moved over the Atlantic in 2004 to his current position at the University of Connecticut. Dr. L. obtained tenure in 2010, becoming an Associate Professor, and that same year he was awarded the University of Connecticut Excellence in Teaching award for the Physical Sciences. In 2011, he was awarded a Faculty Development Abroad grant that allowed him to travel to a number of centers of excellence in green chemistry around the world, as well as clock up the air-miles (not so green). Wearing his “communicating science to the general public” hat, Dr. L. has contributed a number of “Academic Minutes” on a local National Public Radio station, talking about topics as diverse as green chemistry, chirality, biofuels, why the sky is blue, and a three-part series on the chemistry in the hit TV show “Breaking Bad”. He also was a speaker at the Inaugural TED Talks UCONN event in the Fall of 2013, talking about 21st Century Alchemy. When not doing chemistry, Dr. L. enjoys cooking (perhaps that’s why he likes organic chemistry), Starbucks coffee, traveling, driving around in his blue VW Beetle, and exercising at his local YMCA.