Events

Date: 28 July 2026   Time: 14:30 - 16:30     

Location: GO Jones LT

Prof. Pat Guiry

Seminar title: "Recent Advances in Asymmetric Synthesis and Catalysis"

Information about Prof. Pat Guiry:
Pat received his BSc (Honours) degree in Chemistry from University College Dublin, Ireland in 1986 and stayed to pursue his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry, graduating in 1990, under the supervision of Professors Dervilla Donnelly (UCD) and Sir Derek Barton (Texas A&M). He completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Oxford with Dr John Brown FRS). He began his independent academic career at University College Dublin as a College Lecturer (1993-2002) and was then promoted to Senior Lecturer (2002-2004), Associate Professor (2004-2006) and then to Full Professor of Organic Chemistry (2006-present). His research group focuses on synthetic organic chemistry, with interests in both the development of asymmetric synthetic methodology through the application of new/existing chiral ligands in homogeneous metal-catalysed transformations and in the total synthesis of compounds of biological interest. He has supervised 70 PhDs to completion to date and worked with 25 postdoctoral fellows. His contributions have been recognized with multiple awards, including the Boyle-Higgins Medal of the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland (2013), the Science Foundation Ireland Mentorship Award (2020), and the EuChemS Division of Organic Chemistry Service Award (2026). He was elected as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2013, its Science Secretary (2016-20) and is currently its President (2023-present). He was President of the Institute of Chemistry in Ireland (2022-25) and is an elected Member of the Senate of the National University of Ireland (2013-present). He is a keen tennis player who has 20 Irish titles to date and has represented/captained Ireland in the ITF World Championships in the over-35, 40, 45, 50 and 55 age categories, with a World ranking of 53 in the over-35 category in 1999

Prof. Kevin Lam

Seminar title: "Power without Peril: Electrosynthetic Access to Highly Reactive Intermediates"

Information about Prof. Kevin Lam:
Kevin received his PhD in Medicinal and Synthetic Organic Chemistry in 2010 from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium under the supervision of Professor Istvan Marko. His doctoral work led to the development of a new radical-based deoxygenation reaction (the Lam-Marko reaction). After completing his PhD, he moved to the University of Vermont where his research focused on the application of analytical/physical electrochemistry alongside spectroscopy to study the complex redox behaviour of organometallic compounds. In 2013, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Nazarbayev University in Astana. During his time in Kazakhstan, Kevin developed a new research programme in molecular electrochemistry. In 2017, he joined the University of Greenwich as a Reader, and was promoted to Full Professor of Synthetic Electrochemistry in 2023, and invited to become the head of C-SMART (Centre for Synthesis, Materials, Analytics and Research in Translational Science) in 2025.