Green Chemistry @ MUN

Dr. Khaled Omari (PhD 2012, Kerton group) will be moving from Canada to the Middle East later this summer.  He has accepted an appointment at the American University of the Middle East in Kuwait and will be an analytical chemistry professor. Congratulations Khaled!  Here are some photos from his time at Memorial University:

Photo after Khaled’s defence: Dr. Schlaf (University of Guelph) and Dr. Kerton attended via webcamera. Dr. Solberg was Chair. Dr. Helleur and Dr. Hawboldt (not in photo) were the internal examiners.

Group Photo

Graduate Students Award Ceremony, May 2010

Group Photo – July 2009

Khaled Omari, PhD Candidate, using microwave reactor

Boxing Day 2008

Although, Khaled had been working in industry in Canada for sometime – he had a drive to give back and teach others about chemistry so he is very happy to move back into the academic environment although he is sad to be leaving his home in Canada.

Khaled began his PhD with Fran in September 2008 after completing his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Jordan and helping to set up water analysis labs there (7 years of industrial work experience pre-PhD). Khaled published several papers during his 4 year PhD with Fran:

K. W. Omari, J. E. Besaw and F. M. Kerton, “Hydrolysis of Chitosan Into Levulinic Acid and 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural In Water Under Microwave Irradiation”, Green Chemistry, 2012, 14, 1480-1487, DOI:10.1039/C2GC35048C cited 100 times!

M. W. Drover, K. W. Omari, J. N. Murphy and F. M. Kerton, “Formation of a renewable amide via direct conversion of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine”, RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 4642-4643,  DOI:10.1039/C2RA20578E

K. W. Omari, L. Dodot and F. M. Kerton, “A Simple One-Pot Dehydration Process to Convert N-acetyl-D-glucosamine into a Nitrogen-Containing Compound, 3-acetamido-5-acetylfuran”, ChemSusChem, 2012, 5, 1767-72, cssc.201200113

F. M. Kerton, Y. Liu, K. W. Omari and K. Hawboldt, “Green chemistry and the ocean-based biorefinery”, Green Chemistry, 2013, 15, 860-871,DOI:10.1039/C3GC36994C cited 123 times!

After defending his PhD, Khaled moved to Nova Scotia and worked with Dr. Stephanie MacQuarrie as a postdoctoral fellow on a biochar-relaed project in collaboration with B.W. Bioenergy Inc.  He was then awarded an NSERC Visiting Postdoctoral Fellowship  and was a scientist at Agriculture and Agri-food Canada in London, ON. After his postdocs, he went back to industry and worked as a Laboratory Director at Testmark Laboratories, ON, Canada.  As you can see – Khaled’s career path is an excellent example of the varied routes and positions that chemists can experience. He now has the unusual ‘history’ of working in industry, national research labs and academia.  Keep in touch Khaled – we are very proud of you and all that you have accomplished.