Rate My Professor Nigel Lucas

Professor Nigel Lucas is Professor and Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Otago. He earned his BSc(Hons) in 1997 and PhD in 2002 from the Australian National University, where his doctoral research focused on the synthesis, structure, and properties of organometallic materials. After a postdoctoral position at the University of New South Wales in 2002, he held an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany (2003-2005). He then took up an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Sydney (2005-2008), establishing his independent research program centered on nanographene-based ligands for controlling molecular structure and bulk order in metal complexes. Joining the University of Otago in 2008 as a Lecturer, he advanced to Senior Lecturer (2012-2018), Associate Professor (2018), and Professor (2023). From 2020 to 2022, he served as Associate Dean (Postgraduate) for the Division of Sciences. He has been an investigator with the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology since 2009—first as Associate Investigator and as Principal Investigator from 2018—and a member of the He Honoka Hauwai German-NZ Green Hydrogen Centre since 2021.

Lucas's research focuses on the design, synthesis, and characterization of carbon-rich molecular materials, particularly those based on polyaromatic building blocks incorporating metals. His work examines intermolecular interactions in solution, solid states, liquid crystalline mesophases, and on surfaces to develop materials with tailored optical and electronic properties capable of self-organizing into ordered nanoscale structures. Key interests include supramolecular chemistry and self-assembly, organometallic chemistry and catalysis, materials for hydrogen storage, metal-containing liquid crystals, and crystallography, with expertise in X-ray crystallography. Notable publications include 'Suzuki–Miyaura cross-couplings of alkylboranes: Transmetalation studies and synthesis of model organopalladium pretransmetalation species' (ACS Catalysis, 2024), 'Exploring the excited states of a hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene-substituted dipyridophenazine ligand and its metal complexes' (Inorganic Chemistry, 2023), 'Rigid, biconical hydrogen-bonded dimers that strongly encapsulate cationic guests in solution and the solid state' (Chemical Science, 2021), 'Synthesis of arylpalladium(II) boronates: Confirming the structure of pre-transmetalation intermediates in the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction crystallographically' (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2021), and 'Superphenylphosphines: Nanographene-based ligands that control coordination geometry and drive supramolecular assembly' (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2018). He delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture in 2025.