2017 Laureate Profile: Professor Michelle Coote

 

Professor Michelle Coote

Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellow

Administering Organisation: The Australian National University
Discipline Area: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences

Fellowship project summary

Controlling chemical reactions via pH-switchable electrostatic catalysis (FL170100041)

This project aims to establish a new approach to catalysis using the electrostatic effects of pH-switchable, charged functional groups. Utilising simple homogeneous catalysts and polymer-supported enzyme-mimicking catalysts, a wide range of target reactions will be studied. The expected outcomes of the project will include a new approach to the design and optimization of several new classes of catalyst for assembling complex molecules and materials. The project also offers a unique opportunity to train the next generation of chemists in the principles of computer-aided chemical design. The catalysts developed in this project will be able to accelerate and control the chemical reactions used in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and materials, with significant practical benefits to industry.

Australian Research Council funding: $2,327,500

About Professor Coote

Professor Michelle Coote is a Professor of Chemistry at The Australian National University (ANU), where she has recently completed an ARC Future Fellowship. Professor Coote leads the Computer Aided Chemical Design group, within the Research School of Chemistry at ANU, and is a Project Coordinator (Modelling) within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, led by the University of Wollongong. Professor Coote has published extensively in the fields of polymer chemistry, radical chemistry and computational quantum chemistry and is currently the chair of the polymer division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and the first Australian Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Professor Coote has been the recipient of many awards including the Pople medal of the Asia Pacific Association for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (2015) and the HG Smith Medal (2016). Professor Coote was elected a Fellow of Australian Academy of Science in 2014.

Find out more about Professor Coote and her research by visiting his profile page on The Australian National University website.

For further information about this funding scheme, please visit the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme page on the ARC website.