Laurel L. Schafer

Prof. Schafer received her BSc from the University of Guelph in 1993, and her PhD from the University of Victoria in 1999 under the supervision of Prof. D. J. Berg. She then went on to the University of California-Berkeley to complete an NSERC post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. T. D. Tilley. In 2001, she joined the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and has risen to the rank of full Professor and currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Catalyst Development (Tier I). The Schafer group has developed new families of N,O-chelated early transition metal complexes for atom-economic catalysis to prepare amines, heterocycles, enynes and aminated polymers. In particular, the group specializes in organometallic catalysis for organic synthesis and polymer chemistry, including reaction kinetics and mechanistic investigations. Prof. Schafer is the Head of the Department of Chemistry at UBC.