Rate My Professor Adrian Chaplin

Adrian Chaplin is Professor of Chemistry and Synthesis and Catalysis Cluster Lead in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick. He obtained his BSc (Hons) from Massey University, New Zealand, in 2002, and his Docteur ès Sciences (PhD) from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, in 2007, working in the group of P. J. Dyson. He then conducted postdoctoral research as an EPSRC-funded research assistant in the group of A. S. Weller at the University of Oxford from 2007 to 2011, during which time he held the R. J. P. Williams Junior Research Fellowship at Wadham College. In 2011, Chaplin joined the University of Warwick as a Royal Society University Research Fellow, advancing through positions as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Reader, before his promotion to Professor in August 2023.

Chaplin's research focuses on the synthetic and physical organometallic chemistry of late transition metal complexes for small molecule activation and catalysis. His interests encompass the activation of alkanes and nitrous oxide, supramolecular-inspired encapsulating and interlocking ligands, low-coordination number complexes, late transition metals in unusual oxidation states, and pincer ligand applications. Key publications include "Copper(I) Catalysed Diboron(4) Reduction of Nitrous Oxide" (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2024), "Stability and C–H Bond Activation Reactions of Palladium(I) and Platinum(I) Metalloradicals" (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2023), "A Resorcin[4]arene-Based Phosphite-Phosphine Ligand for the Branched-Selective Hydroformylation of Alkyl Alkenes" (ACS Catal., 2024), "Oxidative addition of a mechanically entrapped C(sp)–C(sp) bond to a rhodium(I) pincer complex" (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2020), and "Rhodium(I) Pincer Complexes of Nitrous Oxide" (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2019). He has received the Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2011), ERC Starting Grant (2014), RSC Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize (2015), and RSC Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Prize (2023), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.