Richard Jones

Biography

I obtained a BA from Oxford in 1980 and a PhD from Birmingham in 1983 under the supervision of Dr T A Hamor. Between 1983 and 1985  I was Post – doctoral Fellow working in the Dyson Perrins and Chemical Crystallography Laboratory Oxford, with Professors J E Baldwin and C K Prout this was followed with a Postdoctoral Fellowship  at Simon Fraser University in Canada (1985 – 1988) with Professor F W B Einstein. I was then a Warren Research Fellow of the Royal Society from 1989 to 1992 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, working with Professors J M Thomas and C R A Catlow and was appointed Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry at Keele University in 1992.

Research and scholarship

Our main research involves the use of structural techniques to probe the properties of compounds, which are of importance in inorganic and materials chemistry. We mainly use diffraction based methods using both single crystal and powder methods. In order to obtain information on the properties of these materials we often use in-situ and or variable temperature/pressure measurements, where possible making use of simultaneous spectroscopic measurements.

Currently three areas are being actively studied:

• The first is the study of materials with unusual thermal expansion properties such as negative thermal expansion.
• The second involves studies of the competition between halogen and hydrogen bonds.
• The final projects involve the development of equipment to carry out the simultaneous measurement of neutron diffraction data and Raman spectroscopy on single crystals. One the systems that we are studying in the context are organic photo and thermochromic materials. This work is being carried out in collaboration with Dr Silvia Capelli of the ISIS spallation neutron source at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory Harwell Oxford and involves a jointly funded STFC/Keele student.

Teaching

My teaching at Keele covers a wide range of areas and levels, ranging from the foundation year to our 4th year MChem topics. I have also supervised final year projects in Life Sciences and taught on a Masters Level course in Forensic Science. The courses that I am currently involved with:   

• FYO-00191: Advancing Chemistry 
• FYO-00243: Advancing Chemistry for Health  
• CHE-10061: Practical and Professional Chemistry Skills 
• CHE-10063: Chemical Structure and Reactivity 
• CHE-20055: Molecular Structure and Reactivity 
• CHE-20059: Physical and Structural Chemistry (Single Honours) 
• CHE-20065: Physical and Structural Chemistry (Combined Honours)  
• CHE-30037: Topics in Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry 
• CHE-30050: Chemistry/Medicinal Chemistry Research Project 
• CHE-30051: Chemistry/Medicinal Chemistry Dissertation 
• CHE-40050: MChem Research Training  
• CHE-40021: MChem Research Project 
• CHE-40048: Advanced Topics in Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry