Prof Paul Popelier - personal details

Licentiaat in Chem., PhD in Structural Chem. (Univ. of Antwerpen, Belgium), Postdoctoral Fellowship (McMaster Univ., Canada), HCM Fellow (Univ.of Cambridge), DSc (UMIST), FRSC

Some general information for final year project students:

Welcome to our web pages! Please have a look at the image gallery and group pictures etc. but read this first.

The Edge of Chemistry

The information you find on our web pages is detailed and probably appears specialised. This is because the info is addressed to an audience of experienced researchers. Also, research is inevitably specialised since the edge of chemistry is a challenging place! In order to work at that edge one needs to be equipped with detailed information in order to map and conquer the uncharted land behind the edge. Dont worry about the details for now. Dont worry about the inevitable specialisation: this is true for any chemistry subfield that you may eventually work in. You are young and you learn fast. Just think of how exciting it is to embark on a project that is really at the boundaries of Knowledge.

Computational Chemistry

Computational and theoretical chemistry has the highest citation impact of all branches in the chemical literature. This means that this field is very important to the whole of chemistry. Computational chemistry is now a most valuable tool, complementary to NMR, IR and X-ray crystallography, and pervading all areas of chemistry. It makes independent predictions and offers insight where experiment is ambiguous, impossible, fraught with hazard or just too expensive. With ever increasing computing power computational chemistry strengthens its impact and faces a bright future.

Prerequisites

Students often ask me if the projects I offer are not too mathematical. The short answer is that they are not but that they can be if you want. We cater for all interests and capabilities. The same is true for computer programming. It is exciting if you can do it and want to do it but it is not a condition or even a prerequisite.

Feel free to E-mail and/or come and see me in my office if you like to know more.