Current Group Members

 (for other pictures, see the Photo Gallery)

Dr Jason Harper

Jason was born in Adelaide, Australia, but spent his childhood in the wilds of the Northern Territory.  He returned to Adelaide for secondary schooling and carried out undergraduate work at the University of Adelaide and the Australian National University, also receiving his Ph.D. from the latter institution as the Shell Australia Postgraduate Scholar.   After positions at the University of Cambridge (as an NHMRC C. J. Martin Postdoctoral Fellow) and the Open University, he was appointed to the academic staff in the School of Chemistry, University of New South Wales in 2002 where he is currently a Senior Lecturer.  His research interests fall broadly in the area of mechanistic and physical organic chemistry.  Outside the lab, he tries to keep up with a diverse range of activities ranging from cycling ridiculous distances periodically (his last big trip was through the Blue Mountains) to learning Taiko (Japanese drumming).

A complete curriculum vitae is also available.

Hon Man Yau

Hon Man is a graduate of the UNSW where he did his honours year in the Harper Group.  He is currently a first year Ph.D. student working on understanding substitution processes in ionic liquids.  His first paper came out in mid-2008 and can be accessed here.

Maggie Ng

Maggie did her honours year jointly in Harper and Stride research groups working on the synthesis and properties of Group XIV Tetratolyls.  She is continuing on with related systems looking at covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for her Ph.D. which is co-supervised by Jason.

Camille Rosella

Camille has just completed her honours year in the Harper Group examining the effect of ionic liquids on nitrile oxide cycloaddition processes, following on a from a third year project in a similar area.  She is currently preparing that work for publication and looking into options for undertaking a Ph.D. 

Si Jia Chan

SJ has been a summer scholar, a third year project student and is now completing an honours year project in the Harper Group.  She is currently investigating the utility of oxygen-17 NMR spectroscopy for following reaction kinetics, having already checked out bromine-79 (and used chlorine-35!).

Brad Butler

Brad is in the fourth year of his B.Sc. in Nanotechnology programme and is investigating the attachment of various acetals to silicon surfaces, with the aim of developing a surface that can be readily switched between hydrophobic and hydrophillic states.

Jeremy Provan

Jeremy is carrying out the honours portion of his B.Sc. in Nanotechnology looking at the synthesis and interaction of triptycene based spacers with single walled carbon nanotubes.  The long term aim of his project is to develop a

Erika Davies

Erika is carrying out her honours project jointly with Food Science Australia, Dr Jim Hook and the Harper Group, looking at NMR spectroscopic methods for quantifying water availability in food.  This is of interest to us as it may allow a manner in which the reactivity of water in ionic liquids (or even just its arrangement in these solvents) might be characterised.

Stephen George

Stephen is a third year project student, working with us and Prof. David Black on repeating a novel indole disubstitution that we hope will open up a short synthesis of pentacyclic indole derivatives.

Plus our honorary group members ...

Dr Anna Croft

Anna is a lecturer in the School of Chemistry, Bangor University, Wales and a frequent visitor to the Harper Group.  Her interests are in the application of theory to explain a range of bioorganic processes and she is heavily involved in our work to understand organic processes in ionic liquids.  She also is a very talented wine connoisseur, having recently won 8 cases of wine in a wine tasting competition!

Dr Jim Hook

Jim is manager of the NMR Facility in the Analytical Centre at UNSW.  His advice on all things NMR related has been invaluable to a great range of the work we carry out in the group.  And don't forget, he was trained as an organic chemist so his synthetic skills are not to be underestimated!

Woofie and Emo F.O.B. Cow-Sheep

Every group needs a mascot and we've got two; a dog that's not sure if it's a superhero or a pirate and the resonance hybrid of a cow and a sheep, that's fresh off the boat!

Last Updated September 22nd 2008