Tom Hooper

Tom Hooper is a Lecturer and Ad Astra Fellow at UCD and took up the post early 2020.

Tom Hooper received a PhD from the University of Bristol in 2010 where he worked with Dr Chris Russell synthesising novel gold(I) complexes with alkenes and alkynes, including the first stable gold(I) complexes with solely alkene ligands. He also worked on discovering new synthetic routes to phosphorus containing rings and cages. He then moved to a postdoctoral position at the University of Edinburgh working with Prof. Euan Brechin synthesising and characterising polymetallic gadolinium(III) complexes and mixed transition metal/lanthanide systems with large magnetocaloric effects and potential applications in magnetic refrigeration. In 2012 he moved to the University of Oxford to work as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Andrew Weller on the development and mechanistic analysis of the catalytic dehydropolymerisation of phosphine-boranes. In his final postdoctoral position starting in 2016 he worked at Imperial College London with Dr Mark Crimmin on the formation of reactive carbon-aluminium bonds via the catalytic and non-catalytic functionalisation of C-H and C-O bonds in inert substrates.