Meet Dr Ewan Clark, Programme Lead for Chemistry. Dr Clark completed his MSci at the University of Cambridge in 2004, working on organosilicon chemistry and remained there for his PhD which he spent trying (and occasionally succeeding) to make sulphur-based, metal-free magnetic materials. From there, he worked at Newcastle University on tin, germanium, and phosphorus chemistry before moving to the University of Manchester to boron superacids. Dr Clark joined the University of Kent in 2014 where he works on sharing his love of the main group elements with his students.
Dr Clark teaches inorganic and physical chemistry across all stages of the programme and runs undergraduate projects for those interested in catalysis, method development, and main group synthesis. His research interests lie in uncovering and exploiting the properties, both chemical and material, of main group elements with unconventional oxidation states or charges. In particular, the main group elements are cheap, earth-abundant, and often environmentally benign, and so developing main group chemistry to replace and complement the transition and precious metal chemistry currently used in in labs around the world is going to be key in the future of the whole chemical industry.
Why Chemistry at Kent?
“The heart of Kent’s degree is that we regard your time with us as the start of your career, and know that careers often take unexpected turns. The whole degree is therefore built around giving you the strongest possible broad chemistry foundations and keeping your options open so that, come your projects, you can chose what really inspires you. We also know that our graduates go everywhere, from academe to industry to law and beyond, and so we make sure to instil not just knowledge, but the skills to use it where you feel called.
Also, you’ll get taught fun chemistry and do (sometimes dangerous, sometimes tricky, always interesting and important) experiments in great surroundings and in a great city. Doing a degree is about more than just the course – you have to be comfortable and happy too, and our city and campus are great for that.”