Rate My Professor Rebecca Melen

Professor Rebecca Melen is Professor of Inorganic Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at Cardiff University. She earned her BA, MA, MSc in 2008, and PhD in 2012 from the University of Cambridge, where her doctoral research on catalytic versus stoichiometric dehydrocoupling using main group metals was supervised by Prof. Dominic S. Wright. Following her PhD, she held a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Douglas W. Stephan at the University of Toronto from 2012 to 2013 and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship with Prof. Lutz H. Gade at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg from 2013 to 2014. In 2014, she joined Cardiff University as Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry, advancing to Senior Lecturer in 2017, Reader in 2019, and Professor in 2021. Additionally, she served as a Visiting Professor at Technische Universität Berlin from 2015 to 2016 as part of the Clara Immerwahr Award with Prof. Martin Oestreich. Melen is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and the Higher Education Academy.

Her research centers on main group (p-block) chemistry, developing Lewis acid catalysts as sustainable alternatives to transition metals for organic synthesis, including carbene transfer, C-H activation, and frustrated Lewis pair reactions. Key advancements include frustrated radical pairs for bond formation, flow electrosynthesis of phosphinamides, and selective C-H chalcogenation using B(C6F5)3. She has authored influential reviews and papers such as 'Insights into single-electron-transfer processes in frustrated Lewis pair chemistry' (Chemical Reviews, 2023), 'B(C6F5)3-catalyzed selective C-H chalcogenation of arenes and heteroarenes' (Chem, 2024), 'Frontiers in molecular p-block chemistry: From structure to reactivity' (Science, 2019), and 'Advances in CO2 activation by frustrated Lewis pairs' (Chemical Science, 2023). Melen has received the RSC Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Prize (2025), Philip Leverhulme Prize (2022), RSC Harrison Meldola Memorial Prize (2019), Learned Society of Wales Dillwyn Medal (2019), and Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2018). She serves as Associate Editor for EES Catalysis (RSC), on the ACS Catalysis Editorial Advisory Board, and various journal advisory boards. With 168 invited lectures across continents and industry collaborations in pharmaceuticals, defense, semiconductors, and petrochemicals, her work advances greener synthetic methodologies.