Derek Schipper
Associate Professor; Canada Research Chair in Organic Material Synthesis
Email: dschipper@uwaterloo.ca
Location: C2 260B
Phone: 519-888-4567 x39524
Biography
Derek Schipper's research is focused on tackling synthetic challenges posed in the context of conjugated organic materials. These materials are poised to make significant technological breakthroughs that will enable the advancement of flexible, lightweight, low-cost electronic devices such as photovoltaics, light emitting diodes and field-effect transistors.
The performance of any device depends on the bulk properties of the active material. Improvements of the material properties arise from modification of the material on the molecular level and, therefore, stem from advances in the design and synthesis of new molecular architectures.
Derek and his research group's ability to design and construct new materials is limited only by the synthetic tools available to them. Innovative new synthetic capabilities will allow the design of novel molecular architectures and enable the ability to answer fundamental questions about structure/function relationships. Ultimately, this will lead to enhanced properties for these new materials and, therefore, improved device performances.
The performance of any device depends on the bulk properties of the active material. Improvements of the material properties arise from modification of the material on the molecular level and, therefore, stem from advances in the design and synthesis of new molecular architectures.
Derek and his research group's ability to design and construct new materials is limited only by the synthetic tools available to them. Innovative new synthetic capabilities will allow the design of novel molecular architectures and enable the ability to answer fundamental questions about structure/function relationships. Ultimately, this will lead to enhanced properties for these new materials and, therefore, improved device performances.
Research Interests
- Organic chemistry
- Synthetic methods
- Conjugated materials
- Catalysis
- Organic electronic materials
- Devices and Analytical Methods
- Synthetic Chemistry and Catalysis
Education
- 2011 Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Ottawa, Canada
- 2006 B.Sc., Honours Chemistry, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Awards
- 2018 Angewandte Chemie International Edition Very Important Paper
- 2018 Velocity Fund Winner
- 2014 Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Organic Material Synthesis
- 2014 Thieme Chemistry Journal Award
- 2011-13 NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship
- 2008-11 NSERC Postgraduate Doctoral Scholarship
- 2008 NSERC Canada Graduate Masters Scholarship, declined
- 2007-08 NSERC Postgraduate Masters Scholarship
- 2007 Ontario Graduate Scholarship, declined
- 2007-08 University of Ottawa Excellence Award
- 2006-07 Strategic Area of Development Award
- 2006 University of Ottawa Admission Scholarship
- 2006 Honourable Gordon L. Bennett Award
- 2006 NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award
- 2006 Maritime Inorganic Discussion Weekend Oral Presentation Award
- 2005 ACS Undergraduate Analytical Chemistry Award
- 2005 Leon Loucks Memorial Award
- 2004, 2005 NSERC Industrial Undergraduate Student Research Awards
- 2005 Dean of Science Award of Merit in Chemistry
- 2002-06 University of Prince Edward Island Deans Honours List
- 2002-06 University of Prince Edward Island Admission Scholarship, renewed
Service
- 2022-present, Chair, Departmental Safety Committee
- 2015-present, Graduate Advisory Committee
- 2015-present, Advisor to UWaterloo start-up Thalo
- 2014-present, Faculty of Science Foundation Committee Member
- 2015-16, NSERC Discovery Grant External Reviewer
- 2014-15 Departmental Safety Committee
Affiliations and Volunteer Work
- Member, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
Teaching*
- CHEM 262 - Organic Chemistry for Engineering
- Taught in 2020, 2023
- CHEM 265 - Organic Chemistry 2
- Taught in 2019, 2020, 2023
- CHEM 400 - Special Topics in Chemistry
- Taught in 2019, 2022
- CHEM 760 - Selected Topics in Organic Chemistry
- Taught in 2022, 2024
* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.
Selected/Recent Publications
- Monika Snowdon, Serxho Selmani, Derek J. Schipper “Sonication-Enhanced Alignment Relay Technique for the Orientation of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes.” ACS Appl. Nano Mater. 2019.
- Monika R. Kulak, Derek J. Schipper “Carbon nanotube alignment and sorting: Attempting a sulfur moiety as anchoring component.” Phosphorus, Sulfur Silicon Relat. Elem. 2019, 194, 760.
- Serxho Selmani, Derek J. Schipper “Pi-Concave Hosts for Curved Carbon Nanomaterials.” Chem. Eur. J. 2019, 25, 6673.
- Ryan Moreira, Geoffrey S. Sinclair, Derek J. Schipper “Oxidative Ring-Opening of Benzothiazole Derivatives.” Can. J. Chem. 2019, 97, 360.
- Sunmeng Wang, Derek J. Schipper “Constructing a Low-Cost Polarized Optical Microscope for Undergraduate Material-Characterization Studies.” J. Chem. Educ. 2019, 96, 823.
- View all Derek Schipper's publications on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=yPpfoAcAAAAJ&hl=en