Supervisors/Advisors:
Dr. Kerton is Professor of Green Chemistry at Memorial University. She was born in the ‘Steel City’ of the UK (Sheffield) to Welsh parents, leading to a love of the Yorkshire countryside and fanaticism for Welsh rugby. Her family moved via Nottingham to the South East of England with her Father’s work. She obtained her first class B.Sc. Hons degree (Chemistry Major, Environmental Science Minor, 1995) at the University of Kent in the UK. This is the main university in the area in which she grew up – ‘The Garden of England’ . She performed research supervised by Dr. Mike Went in the area of thio-macrocycle synthesis and coordination chemistry. She then moved to the University of Sussex to obtain her D.Phil. degree (1999) under the supervision of Dr. Gerry Lawless, and co-supervision by Dr. Steve Armes. Her two major achievements were (i) the isolation and structural characterisation of the first titanocene, and (ii) the first synthesis of a conducting polymer in a supercritical fluid. She then moved to Canada to perform postdoctoral research (lanthanide chemistry, ligand design and small molecule activation) with Dr. Mike Fryzuk before returning to her homeland to take up an academic position at the University of York. Here she shared lab space with Dr. Robin Perutz and became more heavily involved with Green Chemistry including collaborations with Dr. James Clark, Dr. Jeff Hardy, Dr. Gideon Grogan and Dr. Chris Rayner (Leeds). She also received a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship in September 2002. In September 2005, she moved back to Canada and took up a position as an assistant professor at Memorial University and was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2010 and full professor in 2015. In June 2007 and 2013, she received Canada Foundation for Innovation Leaders Opportunity Fund Awards for research in the field of Green Chemistry. In July 2012, she was featured in the ‘Meet Our Authors’ section of the Green Chemistry journal’s blog and in 2013, their research was featured on the inside cover of the same journal. In 2009, Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing published her text on Alternative Solvents for Green Chemistry and the second edition was published in 2013. In 2013, she received funding from Hebron for her research into renewable chemicals. She currently collaborates with Chris Kozak (incl. CFI LOF 2013 for polymer analysis equipment), Kelly Hawboldt (Engineering), Christina Bottaro, Chris Rowley (All at Memorial Univ) and Yann Sarazin (Rennes) and Ning Yan (Singapore). She was an invited North American New Horizons Fellow in 2014 and attended an exciting, interdisciplinary meeting in Mexico City sponsored by the US Academy of Sciences, Mexican Academy of Sciences (Academia Mexicana de Ciencias) and the Royal Society of Canada. She was awarded the Dean of Science’s Distinguished Scholar Award and Medal in September 2016, and received a third CFI award in 2017 (in collaboration with Chris Kozak). She is the 2019 recipient of the Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Award, and is a member of the advisory board for Reaction Chemistry & Engineering, a relatively new Royal Society of Chemistry journal that publishes work in a range of areas including the interface of chemistry and engineering
Dr. Kozak obtained his first class B.Sc. Hons degree (Biological Chemistry) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, known as the “Steeltown” in the “Golden Horseshoe” of Lake Ontario. He performed research supervised by Dr. Mike McGlinchey (currently Emeritus Prof. at University College Dublin) in the area of indenyl-phosphine ligands. In 1997 he moved to the University of British Columbia in beautiful Vancouver to obtain his PhD degree under the supervision of Dr. Mike Fryzuk, where he studied dinitrogen activation by niobium complexes. In 2002 he moved to the UK to perform postdoctoral research at the University of York with Dr. Simon Duckett (Para-hydrogen induced polarization NMR techniques for quantum computing), followed by an NSERC PDF with Dr. Philip Mountford at Oxford University and a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford. His work at Oxford involved early transition metal catalysts for polymerization. In 2004, he moved back to Canada and took up a position as an Assistant Professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. In September 2005 he moved to his current position at Memorial University. In June 2008, he received a Canada Foundation for Innovation Leaders’ Opportunity Fund Award for research in the area of Organometallic Chemistry and Catalysis. Chris was promoted to the position of Associate Professor (with tenure) at Memorial University in 2011. Also that year, he received the Terra Nova Young Innovator Award, sponsored by Suncor Energy. In January 2012 he became an Honorary Visiting Researcher at Imperial College London in the group of Dr. George Britovsek. In 2013, Dr. Kozak and Dr. Kerton received CFI LOF funding for their research in green polymers and carbon dioxide activation. In 2017, they received another collaborative CFI award – this time to purchase a dual-source single crystal X-ray diffractometer.
Our Current Graduate Students:
Mikhailey Wheeler (5th year PhD (transferred from MSc), NSERC CREATE CIRCUIT SCHOLAR, Kerton group; B.Sc. Hons Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada)
Cyler Vos (5th year PhD (transferred from MSc), Kozak Group; B.Sc. Hons Mount Allison University, Canada)
Cyler at home
Sachel Christian Robinson (4th year PhD (transferred from MSc), Kerton Group; B.Sc. University of the West Indies, Jamaica)
Sachel at Blue Mountain, Jamaica
no photo available
Matthew Laprade (5th Yr PhD, Kozak Group; B.Sc.(Hons) and MSc SMU)
Olivia Wyper (4th year PhD (transferred from MSc), Kerton Group; B.Sc.(Hons) Memorial University)
Olivia and Maple
no photo available
Sarah Boudreau (4th year PhD (transferred from MSc), OGEN scholar, Kerton Group; B.Sc.(Hons) Cape Breton University)
no photo available
Megan Fitzgerald (4th year PhD (transferred from MSc) Kerton Group; B.Sc.(Hons) Mount Allison University)
Megan G enjoying the outdoors
Megan Graham (2nd Yr MSc, Kerton Group; B.Sc.(Hons) University of Western Ontario)
no photo available
Meghan McKeeman (2nd Yr MSc, Kerton Group; B.Sc.(Hons) Queen’s University)
Emily W at convocation
Emily Wiseman (2nd Yr MSc, Kerton Group and Katz Group; B.Sc.(Hons) Memorial University)
no photo available
Kate Hanrahan (1st Yr MSc, Kozak Group; B.Sc.(Hons) Memorial University)
Padma in the lab during her MSc
Padma Srinivasan (1st Yr PhD, Kerton and Kozak Groups; B.Sc. (Hons) Mt. Allison University and MSc University of British Columbia)
Jane at convocation
Jane Peddle (1st Yr Msc, Kozak Group; B.Sc. (Hons) Memorial University)
Hy and some Fall colours
Hy Nguyen (1st Yr MSc, Kerton Group co-supervised Dr. Shrin Pal, Brandon; B.Sc. (Hons) Brandon University)
Dr. Kerton also supervises students in the Environmental Science and Interdisciplinary PhD programs at MUN
Visiting Researchers:
Past visitors: Suphatta Aintharabunya (Graduate Student, Khon Kaen University, Thailand)
2025/26 Honours Researchers:
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Recent Graduates:
Juliana Vidal PhD September 2021, Kerton group. PDF at McGill with Prof. Moores; Now, Beyond Benign
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Green Chemistry @ MUN 