Nick was born in the UK, but completed high school and undergrad in New Zealand.  He completed his BSc(Hons) at the University of Otago (in Dunedin, New Zealand), working with Prof. Sally Brooker on the study of transition metal complexes of triazole-based ligands.   He then moved to the University of Oxford to conduct a DPhil with Prof. Paul Beer  looking at the synthesis of catenanes and rotaxanes containing hydrogen- and halogen-bond donors for anion recognition (2009–2013). After this, Nick moved to the University of British Columbia (in beautiful Vancouver, Canada) as a Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2013–2015), investigating the self-assembly of supramolecular materials in Prof. Mark MacLachlan’s group.

Nick was then appointed as a Lecturer at ANU, and took up his position in October 2015. He is currently an Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow. His group is particularly interested in anions, hydrogen bonding, and self-assembly. Nick teaches coordination chemistry at first-year undergraduate level, and porous materials at third-year. He is a Committee Member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s Supramolecular Chemistry division and an associate editor of the journal Supramolecular Chemistry.

Outside of chemistry, Nick enjoys nerding out about coffee and listening to music, particularly Bob Dylan and Nick Cave. He loves living in Canberra – Australia’s “bush capital,” as it’s incredibly easy to get out of the city to do outdoorsy things and he is particularly keen on running and bouldering.