Our research interests span inorganic chemistry, synthesis, catalysis, supramolecular chemistry and electrochemistry. The main focus across these areas is looking at the way multiple chemical entities can “cooperate” to achieve a particular chemical outcome and designing systems capable of utilising these cooperative effects. Our team are developing bimetallic complexes and investigating the interplay of the two metals on the chemical and catalytic reactivity as well as physical properties such as electrochemical and photochemical properties. A key focus of the group’s work is ligand design to support such systems where multiple metal centres can bind and interact. The long term aim of our work is to develop catalysts to address challenges in sustainability.

Annie completed her undergraduate degree and PhD at the Australian National University with Prof Anthony Hill. She received an Endeavour Research Fellowship to work at the University of Bath with Prof Michael Hill, followed by postdoctoral appointments at the University of Oxford with Prof Andrew Weller and the University of Cambridge with Prof Dominic Wright. She returned to the ANU in 2019 as a Rita Cornforth Fellow to establish her independent research on the design of transition metal catalysts. She was awarded an ARC DECRA in 2020 and a J. G. Russell Award from the Australian Academy of Science.

Designing cooperative homogeneous transition metal catalysts

Transition metal catalysts are pervasive throughout synthetic, industrial and biological chemistry. Traditionally, catalytic activation of substrates occurs at the metal centre. Molecular cooperativity, wherein bifunctional substrate activation occurs across multiple sites within a catalyst, offers a powerful route to improve catalytic efficiency and selectivity, and develop new catalytic processes. We are interested in designinghonogeneous catalyst architectures which promote molecular cooperativity, and investigating the role of both metal-ligand cooperativity and metal-metal cooperativity in enabling efficient catalytic processes.