Rate My Professor Nial Wheate

Professor Nial Wheate is a Professor (Teaching and Leadership) in the School of Natural Sciences within the Chemistry discipline at Macquarie University. A graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy, he served as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy in various roles prior to becoming an academic. Wheate earned a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of New South Wales, along with a Doctor of Science and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Sydney. His career trajectory includes Associate Lecturer in the School of Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Research Fellowship in the School of Biomedical and Health Sciences at Western Sydney University, Lecturer in the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Science at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, and Senior Lecturer then Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. At Sydney, he held leadership positions as Program Director of the pharmacy undergraduate degrees, Head of Cancer Research, and MPharm Director. He joined Macquarie University in 2024.

Wheate's research specializations encompass drug delivery, medicines formulation, platinum drugs for cancer chemotherapy, cucurbiturils, nanoparticles, and factors that drive education success. He has produced 107 research outputs, including key publications such as "The state-of-play and future of platinum drugs" (2015), "The side effects of platinum-based chemotherapy drugs: a review for chemists," and recent works like "From data to decision-making: an analysis of symptom changes and adverse effects in participant-reported medicinal cannabis data captured via Ontracka" (2025) and "What happened to BBR3464 and where to from here for multinuclear platinum-based anticancer drugs?" (2025). His scholarship has achieved over 10,981 citations and an h-index of 43 on Google Scholar, demonstrating significant impact in pharmaceutical chemistry and drug delivery. Notable awards include the John Martin Memorial Award (2024), National Best-in-Field in Inorganic Chemistry (2022), Nyholm Lecturer (2018), The National Medal (2017), and The Australian Defence Medal (2007). Wheate contributes to committees as a member of the sunscreens panel for Standards Australia and the Pain Advisory Board for Haleon Pty Ltd, serves as Board Director of the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association, and directs three start-up companies in health and beauty, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.