Dr. Richard Whitfield

Richard was born in the town of Grantham in England, and commenced his chemistry studies at Durham University, receiving his Master’s degree in 2014. He completed a final year project under the supervision of Dr. Ezat Khosravi utilizing thiol-ene click chemistry in the synthesis of thermosetting materials for coating applications. Later that year Richard joined the group of Professor David Haddleton to undertake a PhD at the University of Warwick, developing copper mediated polymerization strategies for the controlled polymerization of methacrylic, styrenic and acrylic monomers, with an industrial project synthesising cationic polymers for applications in gene delivery.  He also spent 2 months as a visiting scholar at the University of California Santa Barbara under the supervision of Professor Craig Hawker in 2017. Richard completed his PhD in the summer of 2018, and subsequently undertook an Early Career Innovation Fellow in collaboration with the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick. As of 2019, Richard is a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich in the Laboratory of Polymeric Materials working alongside Professor Athina Anastasaki, developing methods to precisely control polymerisations and depolymerisations, so as to chemically recycle polymeric materials.