Sally Brooker

Biography

1983-6 BSc(Hons) First class, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand 1987-9 PhD, with Professor V. McKee, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand 1990-1 Postdoctoral Fellow, with Professor G.M. Sheldrick, Göttingen Universität, Göttingen, Germany 1990 Offered a 1990-1992 British Ramsay Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined) 1991 Appointed as a Lecturer, University of Otago, New Zealand

Research Interest

Designer heterocycle-containing and diphenylamine-containing ligands (including macrocycles) and coordination complexes: design, synthesis, crystal structure determinations, redox and magnetic properties Spin crossover complexes - towards nanoswitches and memory devices. We measure magnetic data in house (and Mössbauer spectroscopy 4.6-300 K via in house collaboration with Dr Guy Jameson) Single Molecule Magnets (SMMs): one-pot self-assembly of soluble stable 3d-4f tetrametallic SMMs, by formation of a large organic Schiff-base macrocyclic ligands with differing coordination pockets, N2O2 for 3d and central O6 for 4f, and differing ring sizes (in collaboration with Prof Annie Powell, KIT; detailed magnetic studies with Dr Rodolphe Clerac, Bordeaux) Attachment of magnetically interesting complexes to nanoparticles (in house collaboration with Dr Carla Meledandri) Green polymerisation catalysts for (i) controlled polymerisation of rac-lactide (from biomass not oil building blocks), and (ii) co-polymersiation of CO2 with epoxide (in collaboration with Prof Charlotte Williams, Imperial College London) Self-assembly of communicating arrays of transition metal ions - grids vs side-by-side complexes Non-toxic coordination complexes for photocatalytic generation of hydrogen from water (in collaboration with Prof Garry Hanan) Functional models of the Mn4Ca cluster, the oxygen evolving complex (OEC), otherwise known as the water oxidation catalyst (WOC), of green plants (2H2O = O2 + 4H+ + 4e-) Lanthanide cages as a new generation of luminescent 'probes', in collaboration with Drs Jean Fleming (Anatomy and Structural Biology) and Sally McCormick (Biochemistry).