Christopher M. Kozak

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor

Department of Chemistry

Green Chemistry and Catalysis Group

Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada

https://www.faculty.mun.ca/ckozak/

Dr. Kozak obtained his B.Sc. Hons degree (Biological Chemistry) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Then he obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Mike Fryzuk. During his postdoctoral studies, he worked at the University of York (UK) with Dr. Simon Duckett; conducted his NSERC funded postdoctoral research with Dr. Philip Mountford at Oxford University (UK) and a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford. He moved back to Canada in 2004 and took up a position as Assistant Professor at Concordia University in Montreal. In 2005 he moved to his current position at Memorial University. In 2012 Dr. Kosak received the prestigious Terra Nova Young Innovator Award, sponsored by Suncor Energy. That same year he was an Honorary Visiting Researcher at Imperial College London in the group of Dr. George Britovsek.

Prof. Kozak’s research focuses on synthetic organometallic and coordination chemistry, catalysis and green chemistry. He has played an integral role in the development of many homogenous non-precious metal catalysts for carbon-carbon cross-coupling, oxidation catalysis and biodegradable polymer synthesis from renewable feedstocks. Recently, a significant part of his research is focused on small molecule activation and catalysis (specifically carbon dioxide fixation and polycarbonate synthesis), carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bond-forming reactions, and ligand design for organometallic and coordination chemistry.