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Profile

Career

Michael James carried out his undergraduate studies and obtained an MChem degree at the University of York in 2013 (including a one-year industrial placement at GlaxoSmithKline, Stevenage). He stayed in York to undertake his doctoral studies, working on catalytic dearomatisation reactions under the joint supervision of Professor Peter O’Brien and Professor Richard JK Taylor.

In 2017, he then joined the group of Professor Frank Glorius at the University of Münster as an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral research fellow, where he worked on photocatalytic transformations using visible-light-absorbing Ir(III) complexes. Michael then returned to York in 2019 as a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow.

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-2591-0046

Research

Overview

Charge-transfer complexes in organic synthesis

Michael's research focuses on developing new synthetic methods that can solve long-standing challenges in synthesis through the careful design and activation of organic charge-transfer complexes. A charge-transfer complex is an association formed between an electron-rich donor molecule and a comparatively electron-deficient acceptor molecule, which is stabilised by the partial transfer of electronic charge. Charge-transfer complexes can often be selectively excited because their absorption bands typically lie in the visible or UV region.

Supervision

Applications from motivated Erasmus students and self-funded PDRA level researchers are welcomed. Please contact Michael directly to discuss any opportunities further (michael.james@york.ac.uk).

For current MSc and PhD opportunities, see Chemistry Research Programmes.

Publications

Selected publications

For a full list of publications, please see Micheal's PURE profile.