Andrea Sella
Professor Andrea Sella is on a mission to get us to understand chemistry and the often hidden impact it has on our lives.
He does this by telling chemical stories illustrated with demonstrations, and by contributing to a wide range of TV and radio programmes. By birth Italian, he was educated in the US, Kenya, Canada (where he studied with Robert H Morris) and the UK where he did his PhD in organometallic chemistry with Malcolm L H Green. He is professor of inorganic chemistry at University College London, working primarily on materials synthesis and increasingly, Citizen Science. He is heavily involved in developing new teaching strategies and in reducing the environmental impact both of his own Department and UCL as a whole. He is seldom seen without a pushbike, doesn’t drive, and seldom flies.
- Opinion
Callendar’s platinum thermometer
Solving the hot topic of accurate and reproducible temperature measurement
- Opinion
Sheldrick’s SHELX
From code on a Titan to becoming the titan of crystal structure determination
- Opinion
Weininger’s Smiles
The man whose code – and attitude to life – brought much happiness to chemists
- Opinion
Timmers’ towers and Straus’ flasks
The revolutionary system that made labs much less likely to go up in flames
- Opinion
Podbielniak’s contactor
How a new spin on separation produced petroleum, penicillin and much more
