John Hayward

A native of Reading in the UK, I read Natural Sciences for my BA/MSci (specialising in Chemistry) at the University of Cambridge, doing my final year project under the supervision of Professor Steven Ley FRS and Dr (now Prof.) Ian Baxendale; having enjoyed that experience so much I was delighted to study for a PhD with Steve, defending "Studies in Modern Organic Chemistry - Catalytic, Technological and Structural" in 2010. This rather broadly titled thesis involved a variety of projects that covered a broad range of organic synthesis topics, from microwave chemistry and the application of flow methods to total synthesis, to solid state chemistry and DFT calculations.

I accepted an offer of a Post-doctoral position from Prof. Jeremy Rawson where he was setting up a new laboratory upon his receipt of a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Materials. I had been in contact with Jeremy about the latter topics during my PhD and subsequently had a highly enjoyable time in Windsor on a variety of organo-main group and solid-state/materials research topics. I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to be a Sessional Instructor for first year chemistry in 2011 and 2013, covering basic equilibria, kinetics, thermodynamics and electrochemistry topics for which I received the University of Windsor Student Alliance Award for Excellence in Teaching and subsequently the Ontario Universities Student Alliance Teaching Award, to my great surprise (and gratification!). 

I then moved to Brock University in 2013 for a very diverse year under the supervision of Prof. Melanie Pilkington, working on tetrathiafulvalene and coordination chemistry/ligand design projects. Because, apparently, working for two Canada Research Chairs wasn't enough, in summer 2014 I moved across campus at Brock to work under the direction of Prof. Tomáš Hudlický, where I worked on the total synthesis of medicinally relevant targets using electrochemical and chemoenzymatic technologies.

I returned to Windsor in the Fall of 2016 to teach General Chemistry and subsequently 2nd year inorganic chemistry. Concurrently I opened some new avenues in dithiolate cobalt complexes in the Rawson group and subsequently worked on enzymatic mechanisms with Prof. James Gauld, which gave me an even deeper appreciation of computational methods.

I currently work as a senior research associate with Prof. John Trant in the fastest-growing chemistry group in Canada, where my primary focus is the application of synthetic chemistry to probe and counter disease states such as cancers and COVID-19, and the exploration of supramolecular systems.