Meet our plenary speakers
We are excited to introduce this year's plenary speakers at IDW. Get a glimpse at the exciting work that they will be presenting.
Tomislav Friščić
Leverhulme International Professor in Green and Sustainable Chemistry at the University of Birmingham
Ashlee Howarth
Ashlee J. Howarth is an Associate Professor and Concordia University Research Chair at Concordia University in Montréal. She was born and raised in London, Ontario. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario in 2009, and then went on to do her PhD in inorganic materials chemistry at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Michael O. Wolf. Before joining the faculty at Concordia, she completed an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University with Joseph T. Hupp and Omar K. Farha. At Concordia, the Howarth group is focused on the design and synthesis of rare-earth cluster-based metal–organic frameworks targeting applications in pollution remediation, catalysis, drug delivery, X-ray detection, and chemical sensing.
Exploring the Complex Structural Landscape and Potential Applications of Rare-Earth Metal–Organic Frameworks
Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are structurally diverse, porous materials comprised of metal nodes bridged by organic linkers. Through careful choice of nodes and linkers, the chemical and physical properties of MOFs can be elegantly tuned and materials with very high surface area and porosity can be obtained. As a consequence, MOFs have been explored for many potential applications including, but not limited to, gas storage and release, chemical separations, catalysis, drug delivery, light harvesting and energy conversion, and the detoxification of hazardous analytes. In addition to these promising potential applications, MOFs offer an interesting platform for studying fundamental concepts in inorganic materials chemistry. In the Howarth lab, we are interested in the design and synthesis of novel MOFs comprised of rare-earth (RE) ions. RE ions, which include Y(III), Sc(III), and the series of fifteen lanthanoids (Ln(III)) have high and variable coordination numbers and allow for the construction of unique and intricate MOF topologies. Furthermore, RE-MOFs can be produced with diverse optical and electronic properties dictated by the 4f electron configurations of the RE ion. In this presentation, RE-MOFs are explored from design and synthesis to potential applications.
Muralee Murugesu
Harnessing Critical Minerals: Lanthanide Molecular Magnets and Precision Thermometers
Lanthanides, a strategically important group of critical minerals, offer exceptional opportunities for modern inorganic chemistry through their diverse magnetic and optical properties. Our work highlights two complementary approaches to harnessing these elements for molecular information storage, quantum technologies, and temperature sensing. First, tetrazine- and pyrazine-radical bridges strengthen magnetic interactions between lanthanide centres, producing single-molecule magnets with large coercive fields and advancing the design of high-performance molecular magnetic materials. Second, tailored phosphinocyclopentadienyl ligands bearing sulfur, selenium, or tellurium donors provide access to multifunctional europium(II) metallocenes. These complexes combine paramagnetism and luminescence with exceptional magneto-optical responses, yielding the first organometallic thermometers based on magnetic circular dichroism. At cryogenic temperatures, they achieve relative thermal sensitivities up to 170% K⁻¹ and temperature uncertainties as low as 0.003 K. Together, these studies demonstrate how ligand design and control of electronic interactions can unlock multiple functions from critical minerals, enabling advances in molecular magnetism and precision sensing.
Muralee Murugesu is a Full Professor of Chemistry at the University of Ottawa. He earned his Ph.D. with highest honours in 2002 at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology under the supervision of Annie K. Powell. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research with George Christou at the University of Florida, followed by a joint appointment at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco with Jeffrey R. Long and Nobel Laureate Stanley B. Prusiner. He joined uOttawa as an Assistant Professor in 2006, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2011, and became Full Professor in 2015.
His research focuses on molecular magnetism and the design of advanced nanoscale materials, with particular emphasis on lanthanide complexes, single-molecule magnets, and multifunctional materials for quantum technologies and optical sensing. He has co-authored over 250 publications in inorganic chemistry and materials science. His honours include election as a JSPS Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Humboldt Research Award, and appointment as a University Research Chair in Nanotechnology.
Beyond research, he has held significant leadership and service roles, including Associate Vice-President, Innovation, Partnerships and Entrepreneurship at uOttawa and he currently chairs a European Research Council Consolidator Grant panel.