People

Current Group Members

Dr. Sophie Benjamin

Sophie is a Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry at Nottingham Trent University. Her main research focuses on the synthesis of new molecules containing heavy p-block elements, but she likes to cover as much of the periodic table as possible, whenever possible! Her favourite element is antimony.

Prior to joining NTU, Sophie completed a PhD and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Southampton, working with Prof. W. Levason and Prof. G. Reid, having graduated with an MSci from the University of Cambridge. Sophie is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and sits on the RSC Coordination and Organometallic Discussion Group and Main Group special interest committees.

 

Omar Coughlin

Omar  left University College Dublin in 2017 with a BSc(Chemistry), graduating with a first class honours. His final year project was titled ‘Late First Row Transition Metal(II) Ammine Oxalate: Structure and Magnetism’, carried out under the supervision of Dr. Tony Keene. He joined the Benjamin group in Nottingham Trent University in October 2017 as a PhD student. Omar’s research is focused on the use of cationic organoantimony reagents for catalytic applications.

 

Project students 2019-20

Joining the group in 2019-20 to complete final year BSc and MSc research projects are (pictured left to right) Warren Chiwaya, Alex England, Natasha Makhetho and Joe Darling. We welcome them and look forward to some interesting chemistry!

Group Alumni

Dr. Ben Lake

Ben (pictured left) joined the Benjamin group as a PDRA from March 2018 – June 2019 to work on the synthesis and reactivity of organo-fluoro-stibonium and -bismuthonium Lewis acids. Before that he was a PDRA at the University of Edinburgh under Professor Michael Shaver, where he was developing ‘greener’ iron and titanium-based mediators of controlled radical polymerisation. Prior to that, Ben obtained his PhD at the University of Leeds under Dr Charlotte Willans, where he researched all aspects of copper-NHCs.

 

 

Dr. Andrew Jolleys

Andy worked on halostibine complexes of palladium and other transition metals between 2016-17, discovering a remarkable 5-membered coordination series (Organometallics, 2018) as well as holding the all-time record for craziest crystal structures. He joined the group after completing a PhD at the University of Manchester and postdoctoral work at the University of Southampton. He currently works at Charnwood Molecular in Nottingham.

Emily Killoran

Emily is a BSc Chemistry student at Nottingham Trent University with a passion for research. She joined the group for a productive research internship in Summer 2018, studying the development of main group catalysts, focusing mainly on group 15 elements, e.g. Bismuth.

 

 

Matthew Marples

Matt completed his BSc and MRes in Chemistry at NTU (2013-2018). During his time in the group he completed his masters project on the development of single molecular magnets using transition and lanthanide metals.