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.
OpinionMoseley’s spectrometer
Henry Moseley’s discovery changed the face of the periodic table before his untimely death
OpinionLaplace’s calorimeter
Even a scientific giant reached the limits of his ability when it came to managing people in the wake of the French Revolution
OpinionMerrifield’s resin
The story of solid phase peptide synthesis shows the wisdom of embracing new ideas
