Biography

Kayleigh attended the University of Sheffield where in 2008 she attained an MSci in Chemistry, which included a year industrial placement at Infineum International Ltd, Oxfordshire (2006-2007). Her Masters project was undertaken with the supervision of Professor G. Leggett on photocleavable monolayers.

After working briefly with polymers at Infineum Kayleigh went on to do a PhD in polymer Chemistry at the University of Warwick, under the supervision of Professor D. M. Haddleton, with industrial funding and technical support from Agilent Technologies (formerly Polymer Labs).

Kayleigh’s 4 year ChemDoc project focused on the synthesis and characterisation of branched polymers via catalytic chain transfer polymerisation (CCTP) and their functionalisation using thiol-Michael addition and epoxide ring-opening chemistries.

On the completion of her PhD, Kayleigh took on a job as a contract synthetic chemist, GPC analyst and facilities manager at the University of Warwick, working with Professor Haddleton and Agilent Technologies.

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Research interests

My PhD, entitled "Branching out with CCTP; the synthesis of branched functional polymers", focused on the formation of branched polymers by CCTP, the main advantage of which was the retention of high levels of vinyl groups in the products, which provided a reactive handle for the functionalisation of these materials by click chemistry, mainly thiol-Michael addition.

This work later encompassed epoxide containing monomers in the creation of dual functional branched polymers in a commercially available fashion.

My research interests are broadening in light of my new role at Warwick and mainly focus on industrial synthesis and analysis of industrial samples by GPC/SEC. I also perform advanced GPC/SEC analysis on a variety of polymers and proteins for Agilent application notes, which I coauthor.

Keywords:

CCTP, branched polymers, star polymers, functional polymers, click chemistry, epoxide chemistry, GPC analysis, application notes

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Selected publications

 

Email: Kayleigh.McEwan@warwick.ac.uk

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