B.Sc. (1984); Ph. D. (1987) University of Sheffield
1987-89 Postdoctoral Research Associate, National Research Council of Canada (Ottawa)
1989-95 Lecturer in Organic Chemistry, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
1996-98 Reader in Organic Chemistry, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
1998-2001 Chair of Synthetic Chemistry, University of Warwick
1998-2003 EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow
2001-12 Forbes Chair of Organic Chemistry, University of Edinburgh
2012-13 Professor of Organic Chemistry, University of Manchester
2014- Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry, University of Manchester
2003 Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Supramolecular Chemistry
2004 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
2004 Royal Society of Chemistry Interdisciplinary Award
2005 Institute of Chemistry of Ireland Award for Chemistry
2005 Swiss Chemical Society Troisième Conferencier in Chemistry
2005 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy of Science & Letters
2005 Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award
2005-10 EPSRC Senior Research Fellow
2005 Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Nanotechnology
2007 International Izatt-Christensen Award in Macrocyclic Chemistry
2007 Royal Society of Chemistry-Real Sociedad Española de Química (RSC-RSEQ) Prize for Chemistry
2007 Chancellor's Award for Research
2007 Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology
2007 Descartes Prize for Research
2008 ERC Advanced Grant (inaugural call)
2009 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (London), the National Academy of Science of the UK and the Commonwealth
2009 Royal Society of Chemistry Merck Award
2010 Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize
2013 ERC Advanced Grant
2013 Royal Society Bakerian Medal
2014 Royal Society of Chemistry Pedler Award
2015 Elected to the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Science, Humanities & Letters
2016-26 Royal Society Research Professor
2017 Royal Society of Chemistry Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry
2018 ERC Advanced Grant
2018 Distinguished Professor, East China Normal University
2018 Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters) Web of Science Highly-Cited Researcher
2019 ISNSCE (International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering) Nanoscience Prize
2019 Honorary Membership of the Israel Chemical Society
2020 Academic Influence ’Top Influential Chemists 2010-2020’
2021 Royal Medal, Royal Society of Edinburgh
2023 Royal Society of Chemistry Horizon Prize: Perkin Prize in Physical Organic Chemistry
2024 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (International Honorary Member)
2024 Stoddart Prize
2024 GDCh August Wilhelm von Hofmann Medal
Recent Prize & Named Lectures
2008 Daniell Lecture, King’s College London
2008 Musher Lecture, University of Jerusalem, Israel
2009 E Gordon Young Memorial Lectureship, McGill and Sherbrooke Universities, Canada
2010 Francqui Chair Lectures, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
2011 Alex Hopkins Lecture, Cambridge Science Festival
2012 H. Dudley Wright Colloquia, University of Geneva, Switzerland
2012 Sir Robert Robinson Distinguished Lectureship, University of Liverpool
2012 Inaugural EPS Christmas Lecture, Heriot-Watt University
2013 Bakerian Lecture, Royal Society, London
2013 Robert W. Taft Memorial Lecture, UC-Irvine, USA
2014 Sir Gareth Roberts Memorial Lecture, University of Durham
2014 Institute of Creativity Distinguished Visitor Lectures, Hong Kong
2014 TGH Jones Memorial Lecture, University of Queensland, Australia
2015 Dewar Lecture, Queen Mary University of London
2016 Haworth Lecture, University of Birmingham
2016 Sir Robert Robinson Lectures, University of Oxford
2016 Hugh and Ethel Kelly Lecture, Virginia Tech, USA
2016 Anslyn-Iverson-Sessler Lecture, University of Texas at Austin, USA
2016 Dean’s Podium Lecture, Ben Gurion University, Israel
2017 Dalton Lecture, RSC NW Section
2017 Tarrant Distinguished Professorship Lectures, University of Florida, USA
2018 Peiyang Lecture, Tianjin University, China
2018 Xingda Lecture, Peking University, China
2018 Molecular Science Forum Lecture, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
2018 Xuetang Lecture, Tsinghua University, China
2019 Pollak Lectures, Technion University, Israel
2019 Daedalus Lecture, University of Newcastle
2019 World Distinguished Scholar Forum Lecture, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
2019 The SUSTech Science Lecture, Southern University of Science & Technology, Shenzhen, China
2019 Lu Jiaxi Lectureship, Xiamen University, China
2019 Distinguished Lu Jiaxi Lecturer, Haixi Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fujian, China
2019 Coutts Lecturer, Harrow School
2019 Wenkui Forum Lecture, Lanzhou University, China
2019 Zhou Huijiu Forum Lecture, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
2019 Qujiang Forum Lecture, Shangxi Normal University, China
2019 Zhongjian Yang Lecture, Xi'an Northwest University, China
2020 Timothy J. O’Leary Distinguished Scientist Lectures, Gonzaga University, USA
2021 Stranks Memorial Lecture, RACI Chem. Ed. Group, Adelaide Australia
2022 Lansdowne Lecturer, University of Victoria, Canada
2022 Joshua Jortner Distinguished Lectures in Chemistry, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation, Tel Aviv University, Israel
2023 Newlands Lecture, Imperial College London
2023 Werdelmann Lecture, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
2024 Donald J. Cram Lecture, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
2024 Klemm Lecture, University of Oregon, USA
2024 Bristol Myers Squibb Lecture, Scripps Research, USA
Member of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Manchester Circle of Magicians. Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society (London). Honorary Member of the Israel Chemical Society. Associate Editor of Chemical Science (2010-2018). Member of the International Advisory Board of Angewandte Chemie (2014-2021). Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Central Science (2015-2017). Member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers. Governor Withington Girls’ School.
Royal Society Research Professor &
Sir Samuel Hall Professor of Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
MANCHESTER
M13 9PL
United Kingdom
Distinguished Professor
School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering
East China Normal University
SHANGHAI
200062
China
Google Scholar metrics
Orcid ID: 0000-0002-1202-4507
ResearcherID: K-5965-2015
CV
Narrative biosketch
Notable research contributions
Top-25 publications
Publications
Some Interviews with, and Profiles of, Prof Leigh
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2018 ‘Nanobots & Creativity’
(a capella science, Science Life, Sept 2018)
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2017 ‘In Situ’
(Chem World, July 2017)
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2017 ‘Rotaxanes’
(Chem World, 7 Jun 2017)
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2017 Today's Science
(Today's Science, 1 Mar 2017)
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2017 RNZ Interview
(RNZ, NZ)
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2017 ‘It looks like magic’
(The Spinoff, NZ)
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2012 Angewandte Chemie Profile
(Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 7628-7629)
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2007 Chemical Science
(Chem. Sci. 2007, 4, C1-C8)
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2007 Reactions
(The Sceptical Chymist blog)