Lee Cronin's Biography

Lee Cronin, Regius Chair of Chemistry, University of Glasgow

Lee Cronin FRSE. Professional Career: 2013-Regius Professor of Chemistry. Alexander von Humboldt research fellow (Uni. of Bielefeld); 1997-1999: Research fellow (Uni. of Edinburgh); 1997: Ph.D. Bio-Inorganic Chemistry, Uni. of York; 1994 BSc. Chemistry, First Class, Uni. of York. Prizes include 2015 RSC Tilden Prize, 2013 BP/RSE Hutton Prize, 2012 RSC Corday Morgan, 2011 RSC Bob Hay Lectureship, a Wolfson-Royal Society Merit Award in 2009, Election to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2009. The focus of Cronin’s work is understanding and controlling self-assembly and self-organisation in Chemistry to develop functional molecular and nano-molecular chemical systems (including solar fuel systems); linking architectural design with function and recently engineering system-level functions (e.g. coupled catalytic self-assembly, emergence of inorganic materials and fabrication of inorganic cells that allow complex cooperative behaviours). Much of this work is converging on exploring the assembly and engineering of emergent chemical systems aiming towards ‘inorganic biology’. This work has been presented in over 320 papers and 280 lectures worldwide. It is also worth pointing out that the expertise in the Cronin group (which numbers over 50 people and > £10 M in funding) is unique bringing together inorganic / synthetic chemists, chemical engineers, flow chemistry, digital chemistry, complex system modelling, evolutionary theory, robotics and AI.