Professor Cathleen Crudden

Dr. Cathleen Crudden is the A.V. Douglas Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in metal organic chemistry at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She holds a Research Professorship at the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) in Nagoya, Japan, where she runs a satellite laboratory. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Chemical Institute of Canada, the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Crudden has made significant impact on diverse areas of science. She described one of the first cross-coupling reactions with chiral, enantiopure molecules that has made considerable impact on the preparation of pharmaceutical compounds. More recently, she has demonstrated the strength and versatility of N-heterocyclic carbene ligands in materials science, showing these ligands to be viable and versatile alternatives to thiolates as ligands for planar metal surfaces, nanoparticles and nanoclusters. This work has been called “game changing,” “elegant,” and “the new gold standard” by experts in the field.

Crudden has served as President of the Canadian Society for Chemistry and Chair of the Chemical Institute of Canada.She is Scientific Director of the Carbon to Metals Coatings Institute (C2MCI) at Queen’s University. She is currently Editor-in-Chief for ACS Catalysis. She has won numerous awards including the 2023 John Polanyi Award, a 2019 Cope Scholar award of the American Chemical Society, the Montreal Medal (2019), and the 2018 Carol Taylor award from the International Precious Metals Institute.