Research Summary

The Whitmire group has worked in the area of organometallic and inorganic synthesis of transition metal- main group element compounds for use as precursors to solid state materials as nanoparticles and thin films.

Keywords

inorganic, organometallic, metal clusters, nanoparticles, catalysis

Biography

Kenton Whitmire is a Professor of Chemistry, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the College Magister of Sid Richardson College. He received his BS in Chemistry from Roanoke College in 1977, and then undertook his Ph.D. studies on carbon monoxide activation and metal carbonyl clusters with Duward F. Shriver at Northwestern University. Following his Ph.D., he held a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship with Jack Lewis at Cambridge University and began his faculty career at Rice University in 1982. He was the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award and was an associate editor for Organometallics from 1997 through 2007. His current research interests focus on synthetic, structural and mechanistic inorganic and organometallic chemistry, with recent efforts directed towards designing molecules to serve as single-source precursors for advanced solid state materials. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and supervised sixteen Ph.D. and three M.S. students. He teaches the courses general chemistry, inorganic chemistry, X-ray diffraction and the chemistry of art.