Rate My Professor Jason Harper

Associate Professor Jason Harper serves in the School of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales, currently as Deputy Head of School. Born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1974, he completed his B.Sc. at the University of Adelaide in 1995, B.Sc.(Hons) at the Australian National University in 1996, and Ph.D. from the Research School of Chemistry at ANU in 2000 as the Shell Australia Postgraduate Scholar under Professor Christopher Easton. He held a postdoctoral position at the University of Cambridge from 2000 to 2002 as an NHMRC C.J. Martin Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Anthony Kirby and was Associate Lecturer at the Open University in East Anglia in 2001. Harper joined UNSW in 2002 as Lecturer (2002-2006), Senior Lecturer (2007-2015), and Associate Professor (2016-present), and served as Visiting Scholar at Boston College in 2009.

His research falls broadly in mechanistic and physical organic chemistry, with contributions to understanding organic reaction mechanisms and influencing factors, particularly solvent effects of ionic liquids, novel methods to follow reaction outcomes, and acidity of carbon acids. Specific focuses include ionic liquid solvation and design to control organic reactivity, structure-activity relationships in N-heterocyclic carbene catalysis, reactivity of non-planar aromatic hydrocarbons, and applications to lubrication mechanisms and ancient climate evaluation. He has published more than 130 articles and book chapters (h-index >35) and given over 70 invited lectures worldwide. Editorial roles include Editor of Chemical Physics, co-editor of Advances in Physical Organic Chemistry, editorial board member of ChemPlusChem, curator of Frontiers in Chemistry Research Topic on Ionic Liquids (2018-2019), and guest editor for Royal Society of Chemistry and American Chemical Society themed collections (2020-2021). Harper organized the 4th Asia-Pacific Conference on Ionic Liquids (2014) and co-Chaired the 23rd IUPAC Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry at UNSW (2016), and holds Titular Member status in IUPAC Division III (Organic Chemistry).