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News and Events

David Black awarded Order of Australia

Congratulations to David Black on being awarded the Order of Australia (AO) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. David's award was for "Distinguished service to science in the area of organic and heterocyclic chemistry, through leadership roles within professional organisations and as an educator and mentor." This is a very special honour. David contributes enormously in all the areas cited, both in our School, nationally, and internationally and we congratulate him warmly.

Justin Gooding - Royal Society of Chemistry Australasian Lecturer for 2012

Scientia Professor Justin Gooding has been appointed the Royal Society of Chemistry Australasian Lecturer for 2012. He is the 52nd such lecturer in this highly respected lecture series, and will be visiting a number of Universities in Australia and New Zealand this next year in this capacity.

RACI Medal winners 2011

Congratulations to Scientia Professor Justin Gooding for being awarded the H.G. Smith Memorial Medal for making the most significant contribution to an area of chemistry in Australia over the last ten years. Mohammad Choucair was awarded the Cornforth Medal for the best thesis in Chemistry in Australia in 2010. Mohammad was supervised in his Ph.D. by Assoc. Professor John Stride.

Nobel Laureate, Professor Martin Chalfie, visits the School of Chemistry

Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Professor Martin Chalfie, visited the School of Chemistry on December 6th, 2011. Professor Chalfie gave an extremely interesting and entertaining talk about the work leading up to his award in 2008 of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and some of the uses of GFP.

Alumni Dinner celebrates the IYC

To celebrate the International Year of Chemistry the School held a dinner for Alumni and students on 26 October in Leighton Hall. The evening was a great success, enjoyed by all, with many asking that the next dinner not be so far off. It was wonderful to see so many former staff and students there, as well as current staff and students. A huge thank you to Lucy Stride who made an enormous effort to get it all together and make sure it ran so smoothly. Thanks also to Graham Ball, who has to be congratulated on having successfully encouraged so many key people to take part so enthusiastically from a distance. Thanks to Naresh for arranging the tours, and Ken and David for their help. And thank you to all of the students who took part.

Welcome Leigh Aldous

A warm welcome to Leigh Aldous who joins the School from Oxford. Leigh's research interests centre on ionic liquids, green chemistry and the conversion of biomass to chemical feedstocks.

David Black elected Secretary General of the International Council for Science

Congratulations to Prof. David Black on his election as Secretary General of the International Council for Science, a great honour and well deserved recognition for the work David does promoting Chemistry and Science internationally. David was also elected to the Australian Academy of Science in March 2011.

Welcome Luke Hunter

We warmly welcome Luke Hunter, who comes the School from the University of Sydney. Luke's research interests centre on natural products, peptides, and organofluorine chemistry.

Prof. Les Field awarded Member of the Order of Australia

Our warmest congratulations to Professor Les Field on the award of an AM for "service to the administration of higher education, and to the discipline of chemistry as an academic and researcher."

An Australian Academy of Science Award and a Scientia Professorship

Emeritus Professor Ian Dance has been awarded the 2011 David Craig Medal of the Australian Academy of Science. The David Craig Medal is awarded for outstanding contributions to chemistry throughout the career of a researcher. Professor Justin Gooding has been awarded a Scientia Professorship, the highest recognition of research excellence for academic staff at UNSW. And in March 2011 Professor David Black was elected to the Australian Academy of Sciences.

School of Chemistry Academics win RACI Awards

Congratulations to Prof. Les Field on being awarded awarded the Royal Australian Chemical Institute prestigious Leighton Memorial Medal, and to Marcus Cole on being awarded the RACI Organometallic Chemistry Award.

Strong showing in this year's ARC outcomes

The School of Chemistry has performed well in the recently announced outcomes of the ARC Discovery and Linkage Projects, with funding for new projects totaling over $2.8M. More details on the research news page.

New Staff Members

Shelli McAlpine, from San Diego State University, has joined the School of Chemistry as an Associate Professor. Shelli's research centres on medicinal chemistry and the synthesis of natural products. We warmly welcome Shelli and look forward to her contributions to our new undergraduate program in Medicinal Chemistry.

The School also warmly welcomes Dr Chuan Zhao who joined the School at the end of 2010. Chuan's interests cover areas as diverse as nanoelectrochemistry, solar water splitting, and biosensors and biochips. We all look forward to working with Chuan.

Chemistry at UNSW is number 1 in Australia!

The Times Higher Education Supplement world ranking of universities was published on 5 August 2010, and placed Chemistry@UNSW ahead of all other Australian universities. The ranking is based on the number of citations of publications compared to the number of publications in a discipline over the past 10 years. Chemistry@UNSW was placed at number 8 in the Asia-Pacific region. This demonstrates the excellence of research in chemistry at UNSW, a strength which continues to grow.

School of Chemistry Staff win more Awards

Congratulations to Anna Choy on being awarded a Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and Pall Thordarson for a Young Investigator Award at the International Conference on Porphyrins and Phthalocyanins. And congratulations to Anne Ayres for winning a Staff Excellence award for Excellence in Support for Teaching Outcomes.

School Newsletter

To mark the move into our laboratory and office buildings the School produced the inaugural edition of a newsletter to keep you updated about activities in the School. The newsletter contains profiles of staff, showcases our research activities, and has news of other activities undertaken by our staff and students. Here are links to all issues of the newsletter: