Prof. John F. Hartwig
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley
Title: Polymer Upcycling by C-H Bond Functionalisation
BiographyProfessor John F. Hartwig is the Henry Rapoport Chair in Organic Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley since 2011. Professor Hartwig's research focuses on the discovery and understanding of new reactions catalyzed by transition metal complexes. He has developed a selective catalytic functionalization of alkanes, a method for formation of arylamines and aryl ethers from aryl halides or sulfonates, a method for the direct conversion of carbonyl compounds to alpha-aryl carbonyl derivatives, a system for the catalytic addition of amines to vinylarenes and dienes, and highly selective catalysts for the regio and enantioselective amination of allylic carbonates. He has revealed several new classes of reductive eliminations, has isolated discrete compounds that functionalize alkanes, and has reported unusual three-coordinate arylpalladium complexes that are intermediates in cross coupling. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. Through his work, Prof. Hartwig has won numerous prestigious awards such as the 2015 Willard Gibbs Award, 2019 Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the 2021 Arthur C. Cope Award.