Christopher Barner-Kowollik | |
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Personal details | |
Born | 1973 (age 51–52) West Germany |
Occupation | Materials scientist Photochemist |
Christopher Barner-Kowollik (born 1973) is a German-Australian materials scientist who is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow working in macromolecular photochemistry. [1] He is currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research) of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Distinguished Professor within the School of Chemistry and Physics at the QUT in Brisbane. From 2017 to 2024 he was editor-in-chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal Polymer Chemistry , [2] and is an editor for the RSC's journal Chemical Science . [3] He is a principal investigator within the Soft Matter Materials Laboratory at QUT [4] and associate research group leader at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. [5]
After his undergraduate studies of chemistry at the Universities of Constance and Goettingen (Germany), Christopher Barner-Kowollik earned his PhD in physical chemistry (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Goettingen in 1999. [6] Following postdoctoral research with Tom Davis at the University of New South Wales, he held academic positions at the Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD), and was appointed Full Professor of Polymer Chemistry in 2006 at the same institution. [7] In 2008, he moved back to Germany, where he became the Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). There he was the founding director of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 1176 'Molecular Structuring of Soft Matter' established by the German Research Council (DFG). [8] He is a founding PI and thrust speaker in the DFG Excellence Cluster 3D Matter Made to Order. [9]
Barner-Kowollik relocated in 2017 to the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where he was awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship and appointed Director of QUT's Soft Matter Materials Laboratory. He is an associate group leader at the KIT's Institute of Nanotechnology and the Institute of Polymer Chemistry and Chemical Technology, after heading a full research group at the KIT until 2020. [10] In December 2019 Barner-Kowollik was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Vice-President of QUT, [11] from September 2022 to January 2025 he additionally held the role of Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice-President. [12]
Barner-Kowollik's research was initially in the field of polymer chemistry and polymer reaction kinetics. [13] [14] Over the course of his career, his research has fused polymer chemistry with organic and photochemistry. These research areas include the development of wavelength-orthogonal, -synergistic, -cooperative and -antagonistic reactions, [15] [16] and their photophysical understanding. [17] [18] His research established the field of highly wavelength-resolved photochemical action plots for photochemical covalent bond formation and cleavage. The development of photochemical action plots demonstrated that molecular absorptivity and photochemical reactivity are oftentimes disparate, [19] [20] which has significant implications for the photochemical synthesis of highly defined macromolecular architectures. [21] [22] The developed photochemical platforms – including out-of-equilibrium light stabilized dynamic materials (LSDMs) [23] - find application for the design of 2D [24] and 3D photolithographic processes [25] [26] [27] as well as in biosystems including single cell scaffolds. [28] Examples of precision photochemistry from his laboratory range from synergistically operating covalent bond forming systems and photoresins [29] requiring two colours of light to cure and examples of pathway independent wavelength orthogonal reaction systems [30] to using different colours of light to selectively adapt soft matter material properties. [31] Christopher Barner-Kowollik has published over 780 peer-reviewed research papers, which have been cited close to 51,500 times. [32]
Photochemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Generally, this term is used to describe a chemical reaction caused by absorption of ultraviolet, visible (400–750 nm), or infrared radiation (750–2500 nm).
The Passerini reaction is a chemical reaction involving an isocyanide, an aldehyde, and a carboxylic acid to form a α-acyloxy amide. This addition reaction is one of the oldest isocyanide-based multicomponent reactions and was first described in 1921 by Mario Passerini in Florence, Italy. It is typically carried out in aprotic solvents but can also be performed in ionic liquids such as water or deep eutectic solvents. It is a third order reaction; first order in each of the reactants. The Passerini reaction is often used in combinatorial and medicinal chemistry with recent utility in green chemistry and polymer chemistry. As isocyanides exhibit high functional group tolerance, chemoselectivity, regioselectivity, and stereoselectivity, the Passerini reaction has a wide range of synthetic applications.
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The Faculty of Science is a constituent body of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia.
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Vincenzo Balzani is an Italian chemist, now emeritus professor at the University of Bologna.
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Martina Heide Stenzel is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is also a Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) University Ambassador. She became editor for the Australian Journal of Chemistry in 2008 and has served as Scientific Editor and as of 2021, as Editorial Board Chair of RSC Materials Horizons.
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James Robert DurrantFRSC FLSW is a British photochemist. He is a professor of photochemistry at Imperial College London and Sêr Cymru Solar Professor at Swansea University. He serves as director of the centre for plastic electronics (CPE).
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Julia Ann Kalow is an assistant professor of chemistry at Northwestern University. She is primarily a synthetic chemist, who works on polymers, photochemistry and tissue engineering. She is interested in synthetic strategies that can turn molecular structure and chemical reactivity into macroscopic properties. She has been awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Thieme Award and was selected by the University of Chicago as a Rising Star in Chemistry.
Jayaraman Sivaguru (Siva) is the Antonia and Marshall Wilson Professor of Chemistry and the Associate Director, Center for Photochemical Sciences at the Department of Chemistry, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. He is a recipient of 2008 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2010 Grammaticakis-Neumann Prize from the Swiss Chemical Society, 2011 young-investigator award from the Inter-American Photochemical Society (I-APS), and 2012-young investigator award from Sigma Xi. His honors also include Excellence in Research award, 2011 Excellence in Teaching award, and the 2012 PeltierAward for Innovation in Teaching. Prof. Siaguru was a visiting young professor at the Global Centre for Excellence at Osaka University, Japan and was a visiting fellow for the Chinese Academy of Sciences President's International Fellowship Initiative in 2018. He is an editor for the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry and from 2020 serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology published by Elsevier. He is an international board member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) photochemistry symposium.
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Photochemical action plots are a scientific tool used to understand the effects of different wavelengths of light on photochemical reactions. The methodology involves exposing a reaction solution to the same number of photons at varying monochromatic wavelengths, monitoring the conversion or reaction yield of starting materials and/or reaction products. Such global high-resolution analysis of wavelength-dependent chemical reactivity has revealed that maxima in absorbance and reactivity often do not align. Photochemical action plots are historically connected to (biological) action spectra.
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