Biography

Dr. Ian Riddlestone

I obtained my MChem degree at Newcastle University in the UK graduating in 2009. As a Masters student I worked in the group of Dr. Keith Izod investigating the light-induced rearrangement of thioether-substituted phosphanide ligands. I then moved to the University of Oxford where I was a BP CASE Award student working in the group of Prof. Simon Aldridge. As a DPhil student I worked on the formation of mixed transition metal-aluminium complexes. This work included the isolation and full characterisation of sigma-alane complexes comparable with archetypal dihydrogen, borane and silane complexes allowing fundamental bonding descriptions to be further developed for group 13 sigma complexes.

After obtaining a DPhil in Inorganic Chemistry in 2013 I moved to the University of Bath to take up an EPSRC funded postdoctoral position in the group of Prof. Michael Whittlesey. During this time I worked on the synthesis and reactivity of ruthenium carbene complexes, with particular emphasis on the activation of C-F bonds and small molecules. In collaboration with the group of Prof. Stuart Macgregor (Heriot Watt University) this work highlighted the subtleties of supporting N-heterocyclic carbene ligands in ruthenium hydride chemistry. These differences impact upon product distributions in catalytic hydrodefluorination reactions of perfluorinated substrates, as well as the competition between C-F and C-H bond activation processes.