Keynote Speakers
Robert Gilliard
Novartis Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry
Energy & Sustainability, Materials, Boron, Main-Group Chemistry
Dr. Robert J. Gilliard, Jr. is the Novartis Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before moving to MIT, he served on the faculty at the University of Virginia. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from Clemson University and doctorate from the University of Georgia. He was a UNCF-Merck Postdoctoral Fellow and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow where he completed joint postdoctoral studies at both the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) and Case Western Reserve University.
Professor Gilliard specializes in the chemical synthesis of new molecules that impact the development of new main-group element reagents, including the discovery of unknown transformations of environmentally-relevant small-molecules [e.g., dinitrogen (N2), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and dihydrogen (H2)]. In addition, he investigates the design, reactivity, and photophysical properties of boron-incorporated luminescent and redox-active polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons for use in optoelectronic and biomedical applications (e.g., stimuli-responsive materials, thermochromic materials, nanographenes, NIR emitters).
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Professor Gilliard is the recipient of the American Chemical Society Harry Gray Award “for his outstanding achievements in the development of creative synthetic strategies for low-oxidation-state main-group inorganic materials with unusual bonding and photophysical properties.” He won the Organometallics Distinguished Author Award, which recognizes authors of exceptional articles that emphasize the importance of organometallic chemistry and have made a profound impact on the field. Professor Gilliard received the honor “in recognition of dynamic and ground-breaking research in main-group chemistry, in particular on novel complexes and electronic structures of magnesium and beryllium.” In the past, he has also been named to various lists of notable scientists by media such as Chemical and Engineering News and Forbes Magazine. Professor Gilliard has authored 82 publications and patents applications. He has been an invited speaker at over 120 colleges/universities and scientific conferences in the United States and abroad. He is an associate editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society and serves on the editorial advisory board at leading international journals, including Inorganic Chemistry, Chemical Communications, ChemistryEurope, Chem Catalysis, Chemical Science, and Angewandte Chemie. Professor Gilliard consults and has led workshops on matters related to chemical processes, science policy, educational policy, faculty and student mentoring.
Sophie Rousseaux
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry
Organic Chemistry, Mechanism, Catalysis
University of Toronto
Sophie was born in Saskatoon, Canada, but moved to Ottawa as a child. She received a B.Sc. in Biopharmaceutical Sciences – Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 2007. As an undergraduate student, she worked with Prof. Keith Fagnou on the direct arylation of pyridine N-oxides and decarboxylative ketone aldol reactions. She remained in the Fagnou group for the start of her graduate studies, working on Pd-catalyzed aliphatic C-H bond functionalization reactions. In 2010, she moved to Cambridge, USA, to complete her graduate research with Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
After obtaining her PhD from the University of Ottawa in 2012, Sophie was a visiting scientist for 5 months at the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, working with Prof. Jean-Marc Campagne and Dr. Emmanuel Vrancken. She then moved to the University of Oxford to work with Prof. Harry L. Anderson on the self-assembly of porphyrin nanorings as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow and Glasstone Research Fellow. During her time at Oxford, Sophie was also a Junior Research Fellow at St John’s College.
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In July 2015, Sophie returned to Canada to join the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to an Associate Professor in 2022. Her group’s research interests include organic synthesis, catalysis, organometallic chemistry and supramolecular chemistry.
Eva Hemmer
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry
Materials Chemistry, Optical Properties, Bio-Imaging, Energy Conversion, Nanomaterials
University of Ottawa
Dr. Eva Hemmer is an Associate Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Ottawa. She received her PhD (2008) in materials science from Saarland University (Germany) under the mentorship of Prof. Sanjay Mathur. During her PhD she focused on the synthesis of lanthanide alkoxides and their decomposition to lanthanide-containing inorganic nanomaterials. This experience was further deepened during her postdoctoral studies when she worked on lanthanide-doped nanoparticles for near-infrared bioimaging with Prof. Kohei Soga (Tokyo University of Science, Japan, 2009-2012). In 2013 she was awarded a Feodor Lynen Research Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to work in the groups of Profs. Fiorenzo Vetrone and Francois Légaré at INRS-EMT (Université du Québec, Canada, 2012-2015) to develop nanothermometers based on upconverting nanoparticles. In winter 2016 she came to Ottawa in order to design and study novel multifunctional lanthanide-based nanocarriers for biomedical and energy conversion applications at the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences. In February 2024, Eva joined the editorial board of Nanoscale and Nanoscale Advances as associated editor.