Rate My Professor Rowan Young

Associate Professor Rowan Young is an ARC Future Fellow and Chair of the Health, Safety and Wellness Committee in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at the University of Queensland, assuming this position in mid-2023. He earned his BSc (Hons) from the University of New South Wales and his PhD from the Australian National University’s Research School of Chemistry under the supervision of Professor Anthony Hill. Following postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford in the group of Andrew Weller and at the University of Edinburgh in the group of Polly Arnold, he began his independent career at the National University of Singapore in 2014.

Young's research in Chemistry centers on organometallic and inorganic chemistry, focusing on frustrated Lewis pairs, transition metal pincer complexes, and selective carbon-fluorine bond activation for small molecule activation and fluorocarbon recycling. His group develops catalytic methods using main group frustrated Lewis pairs, pincer complexes, and acidic metal hydrides to convert unreactive materials into valuable molecules. He holds ARC grants including the Future Fellowship (2023-2027) and Discovery Project (2025-2028) on harvesting fluorine from fluorocarbons. Major awards encompass the ARC Future Fellowship (2022), Thieme Chemistry Journal Award (2019), Asian Chemistry Prizes from Japan and China (2018), and ANU RSC Director’s Prize (2012). Key publications include "Selective monodefluorination and Wittig functionalization of gem-difluoromethyl groups to generate monofluoroalkenes" (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018), "Frustrated Lewis pair mediated selective single fluoride substitution in trifluoromethyl groups" (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2020), "Access to and reactivity of Fe(0), Fe(-I), Fe(I) and Fe(II) PCcarbeneP pincer complexes" (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2021), "Alkali metal adducts of an iron(0) complex and their synergistic FLP-type activation of aliphatic C–X bonds" (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2021), and "Fluorine-18 Labeling of Difluoromethyl and Trifluoromethyl Groups via Monoselective C–F Bond Activation" (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2022). His contributions advance catalysis and sustainable fluorine utilization in the academic field.