Iain has a BSc and PhD from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. His career began in industry, for Hoechst AG and then Merck KGaA, where he was responsible for research, inventions and commercial products in functional materials for optics and electronics. He has made discoveries in chemical design and synthesis to control the assembly of organic semiconducting molecules to form ordered structures with specific electrical and optical properties, for use in a range of devices including transistors and solar cells.
He transitioned to academia in 2007, where he holds positions as Chair in Polymer Materials within the Chemistry Department at Imperial College, Professor of Chemical Science at KAUST, and is also the Director of KAUST Solar Center. He was awarded the 2009 Royal Society of Chemistry, Creativity in Industry Prize, the 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize for Advances in Chemistry and the 2020 Blaise Pascal Medal of the European Academy of Sciences in Materials Science, as well as a 2014 Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award.
Professional position
- Director, KAUST Solar Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
- Professor of Polymer Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford
Awards
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Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers' Company Prize
For making fundamental contributions to the application of materials chemistry to organic electronic applications, with an applied, results-oriented focus, always demonstrating translational impact and commercial potential.
