Prof. Rachel O'Reilly FRS

Rachel was born in Holywood, Northern Ireland and then got her first degree from the University of Cambridge, working with Professor Brian Johnson FRS for her Masters project. She then went on to complete her PhD at Imperial College, London in 2003, working with Professor Vernon C. Gibson. Her PhD was in collaboration with BP and focused on organometallic catalysts for radical polymerisation.  She then moved to the US to under the joint direction of Professors Craig J. Hawker (IBM Almaden) and Karen L. Wooley (Washington University in Saint Louis). In 2004 was awarded a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 research fellowship which she held in the US for 1 year before returning to the UK in 2005. She then started her independent career in 2005 at the University of Cambridge as a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship. Then in 2008 she moved to the University of Warwick and in 2012 was promoted to full Professor. In 2018 she took up the position of chair and Head of School in the Chemistry Department at the University of Birmingham. Rachel was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022. In August 2023 Rachel was appointed as the University of Birmingham’s Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, alongside her role as Professor of Polymer Chemistry.