Simon B. Blakey

Simon was born in Auckland, New Zealand. Having spent time growing up in both New Zealand and Singapore, he received his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Auckland in 1997. He then moved to the U.K. and completed his Ph.D. in 2002 studying the synthesis of the aplyronine family of natural products under the direction of Professor Ian Paterson at the University of Cambridge. After three years as a postdoctoral fellow investigating nickel catalyzed cross-coupling reactions and organocatalytic approaches to diazonamide A with Professor David MacMillan at the California Institute of Technology, Simon joined the faculty at Emory University in the fall of 2005. Today his research interests revolve around the development of new organometallic catalysts and synthetic methodology, and the implementation of these technologies to impact both drug discovery and materials science.