Department of Chemistry

Faculty of Science

Alison Thompson

Professor, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Pyrrole Chemistry for Chemical Biology and Energy

thompson_alison

Related information

Department of Chemistry

Email: Alison.Thompson@dal.ca
Mailing Address: 
Department of Chemistry
Dalhousie University
6243 Alumni Crescent
P.O. Box 15000
Halifax NS B3H 4R2
 
Research Topics:
  • Organic chemistry
  • Inorganic chemistry
  • Synthesis
  • Materials
  • Heterocycles
  • Pyrroles
  • Natural products
  • Ligand design
  • Transition metals
  • Main group metals


Education

  • BSc University of Leicester (UK)
  • PhD, University of Sheffield (UK)
  • PDF, Ecole de Chimie à Strasbourg (France) and University of British Columbia

 

Research interests

Our research focuses on the synthesis of pyrroles and polypyrroles to enable evaluation of new compounds with unique biological, physical and optical properties: applications target functional materials and improved pharmaceutical function. We develop/invent synthetic methodology, and characterize our new compounds in various ways to assess success.

Selected awards and honours

  • Anne Marie MacKinnon Educational Leadership Award, 2019
  • Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), 2018
  • Dalhousie Alumni Association Faculty Award of Excellence for Teaching, 2018
  • Dalhousie Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision, 2018
  • Chemistry Professor of the Year Award, 2015

Selected publications

  • Diaz-Rodriguez, R. M., Burke, L., Robertson, K. N., & Thompson, A. (2020). Synthesis, properties and reactivity of BCl 2 aza-BODIPY complexes and salts of the aza-dipyrrinato scaffold. Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry.
  • Grover, N., Locke, G. M., Flanagan, K. J., Beh, M. H., Thompson, A., & Senge, M. O. (2020). Bridging and Conformational Control of Porphyrin Units through Non‐Traditional Rigid Scaffolds. Chemistry–A European Journal, 26(11), 2405-2416.
  • Kim, M. J., Gaube, S. M., Beh, M. H., Smith, C. D., & Thompson, A. (2019). Synthesis and reactivity of 2-thionoester pyrroles: a route to 2-formyl pyrroles. RSC Advances, 9(54), 31773-31780.
  • Hilborn, J. W., Moya-Barrios, R., & Thompson, A. (2019). Photodecarboxylation of Substituted Naphthylmethyl Arylacetate Esters: Synthesis of Naphthylarylethanes. The Journal of Organic Chemistry, 84, 18, 11992–11999.
  • Figliola, C., Marchal, E., Groves, B. R., & Thompson, A. (2019). A step-wise synthetic approach is necessary to access γ-conjugates of folate: folate-conjugated prodigiosenes. RSC Advances, 9(25), 14078-14092.
  • Diaz-Rodriguez, R. M., Robertson, K. N., & Thompson, A. (2019). Classifying donor strengths of dipyrrinato/aza-dipyrrinato ligands. Dalton Transactions. 48(22), 7546-7550.