Rate My Professor Timothy Cook

Timothy R. Cook is a Professor of Chemistry and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Chemistry at the University at Buffalo, College of Arts and Sciences. He earned his BA in Chemistry from Boston University in 2005 and his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. After his doctoral training, Cook conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Utah from 2010 to 2012 and served as Research Assistant Professor there from 2012 to 2014. He joined the faculty at the University at Buffalo in 2014, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2020, and advanced to full Professor.

Cook's research program emphasizes supramolecular coordination chemistry, particularly the self-assembly and structural characterization of discrete inorganic metallacycles and cages. His laboratory investigates energy harvesting, transport, and storage in photo- and redox-active molecular materials, along with polynuclear catalysts for small molecule activations relevant to renewable energy applications. Projects include developing materials for redox flow batteries, electrocatalytic oxygen reduction and hydrogen peroxide production, and metal-organic polyhedra for magnetic resonance imaging contrast enhancement. He has authored seminal reviews such as "Solar energy supply and storage for the legacy and nonlegacy worlds" (Chemical Reviews, 2010), "Metal–organic frameworks and self-assembled supramolecular coordination complexes: comparing and contrasting the design, synthesis, and functionality of metal–organic materials" (Chemical Reviews, 2013), and "Recent developments in the preparation and chemistry of metallacycles and metallacages via coordination" (Chemical Reviews, 2015). Recent publications feature "Tuning the Reactivity of Cofacial Porphyrin Prisms for Oxygen Reduction Using Modular Building Blocks" (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2021) and "Clickable Norbornene-Based Zirconium Carboxylate Polyhedra" (Chemistry of Materials, 2023). Cook received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2019 and the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020. His contributions advance materials science for sustainable energy conversion and storage.