Rate My Professor James D. Crowley

Professor James D. Crowley is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Otago. He obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) and M.Sc. from Victoria University of Wellington from 1994 to 1999 under Dr. D. C. Weatherburn. He then pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago, earning an S.M. and Ph.D. from 2000 to 2005 with Prof. B. Bosnich. Following his doctorate, Crowley held postdoctoral positions at the University of Edinburgh with Prof. D. A. Leigh, including a British Ramsay Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship from 2006 to 2007 and a Postdoctoral Fellow role from 2005 to 2006. He joined the University of Otago in 2008 as a Lecturer, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2011, and became Professor in 2015. Crowley has received prestigious awards including the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Organometallic Chemistry Award in 2015, the Chemical Society of Japan Asian International Distinguished Lectureship Award in 2015, the Royal Society of Chemistry/New Zealand Institute of Chemistry Easterfield Award in 2013, the University of Otago Early Career Award for Distinction in Research in 2011, and the University of Otago Division of Sciences Research Group of the Year in 2016.

His research centers on synthetic organic, inorganic, organometallic, and supramolecular chemistry, emphasizing the design and synthesis of functional materials using techniques such as NMR, IR, UV-vis, and X-ray crystallography. Major interests include CuAAC “Click” coordination chemistry for developing catalysts, metallo-pharmaceuticals, bio-imaging agents, and metallosupramolecular architectures; synthetic molecular machines for nanotechnology; and self-assembled cages for drug delivery and nanoreactors. Key publications encompass 'Water-soluble cobalt(III)–polypyridyl complexes: Synthesis, structures and properties' (2026, European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry), 'Single-step synthesis of a heterometallic [Cu2PdL4]2+ hybrid metal-organic coordination cage' (2025, Angewandte Chemie International Edition), 'The potential of ruthenium(II) tris-bidentate complexes as multifunctional photo-initiators' (2025, Macromolecular Materials & Engineering), and 'Pd(μ-L)4Pt vs. Pd(μ-L)4RuCl2: Chlorido ancillary ligands as defining factors in the host-guest interactions of M(μ-L)4M′ heterodimetallic supramolecular architectures' (2025, Chemical Science). His contributions have advanced fields like host-guest chemistry, stimuli-responsive systems, and anticancer agents.