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Professor Michelle Coote PhD, FAA, FRSC
Professor Michelle Louise Coote is an Australian polymer chemist. She has published extensively in the fields of polymer chemistry, radical chemistry and computational quantum chemistry. Michelle is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences (FAA). Michelle is a Professor of Chemistry in the Australian National University (ANU) College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. She is a member of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science and past chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Free-Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology.

Education and Early Career
Professor Michelle Coote completed a B.Sc. (Hons) in Industrial Chemistry at the University of New South Wales in 1995. During her degree she spent 15 months working in the chemical industry, “but it made me realise that my real interest was in a career in pure chemical research. So, I went back to university and ended up graduating in 1995 with the university medal.” Graduating in 2000 with a PhD in Polymer Chemistry from UNSW, Michelle took out major awards from both RACI and IUPAC for her PhD thesis 'The origin of the penultimate unit effect in free-radical copolymerisation' (see also Awards and Prizes)

Michelle left Australia for the UK in September 1999 to take up a Post Doctoral Research Role in polymer physics focusing on neutron reflectivity within the Polymer IRC at The University of Durham.

Academic Career in Australia
Michelle returned to Australia in 2001 and joined the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Leo Radom.

Michelle established her own research group in 2004 an Awarded an ARC Future Fellowship in 20XX. The fellowship focuses on.... When she was promoted to Professor in 2011m Michelle became the first female Professor of Chemistry at ANU.

Awards, Prizes and Recognition
Elected as a Fellow of Australian Academy of Sciences in 2014 fordeveloping and applying accurate computational chemistry for modelling radical polymerization processes. Michelle gave her New Fellows Presentation in July 2014

Michelle was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in March 2013

Michelle was recognised by ANU in 2012 as part of their International Women's day celebrations for her achievements as a role model as the first female professor of chemistry at ANU and for inspiring, mentoring and motivating female undergraduate and postgraduate students in the sciences.

Rennie medal (2006) and David Sangster Polymer Science and Technology Achievement Award (2010), and the Le Fevre Memorial Prize of the Australian Academy of Science (2010). Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s (RACI) Cornforth medal for the best PhD thesis in chemistry in Australia in 2000.

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) prize for the best five (5) theses in chemistry worldwide in 2001.

2010 Le Fèvre Memorial Prize for research in basic chemistry ; Michelle Coote has played a leading role in adapting computational quantum chemistry as a research tool for the field of free-radical polymerisation, and has developed a robust and accurate methodology for this purpose. The predictive capacities of these techniques seem particularly powerful and are already having a major impact on the field. She has exploited this methodology in her own research to explain the mechanism of several important polymerisation processes, to develop better kinetic models, provide user-friendly guidelines for catalyst selection, and design new control agents and new types of polymerisation reactions. In just a few years, she has established herself at the forefront of this new and rapidly developing field of chemistry, helping to transform computational polymer chemistry from a qualitative tool into a respected and reliable technique that is capable of generating accurate results. Along the way she has advanced our knowledge of fundamental radical chemistry, with implications well beyond the polymer field, and helped to make practical improvements to polymer synthesis and design.

In 2011, Michelle was named one of Chemistry in Australia's eleven living luminaries of Australian chemistry were chosen to highlight the richness of the chemistry community and those within it. Men and women from different places and with different experiences and skills were asked to share their achievements, challenges and inspiration to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry.

Research Interests and Expertise
We work in the fast-growing field of computer-aided chemical design. We use state-of-the-art quantum chemistry calculations to identify and explain the mechanism, kinetics and thermodynamics of complicated multi-step chemical processes - information that is difficult (often impossible) to obtain via experiment alone. We then use this information to design in silico new chemical reagents to improve the efficiency of an existing process or, in some cases, allow new chemical products to be made. We work in close collaboration with many experimental groups (including industry), both nationally and internationally, who put our chemical designs into practice. Our particular area of interest is radical chemistry, and especially radical polymerisation, and we are members of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Free-Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology.

Some of our current areas of research include

-the development and experimental benchmarking of computational methodology for studying larger chemical reactions, including those related to polymerization and enzyme-mediated processes

-the design of better reagents and better kinetic models for controlling the molecular weight and stereochemistry of radical polymerization,

-clarifying the mechanism by which organic materials degrade and the design of improved antioxidants

-the design of new chain carriers for organic synthesis

Michelle Coote’s research team uses accurate quantum chemical calculations, supported by experiments, to better understand chemical reactivity and to design improved reagents and catalysts. Her particular interest is radical chemistry, and particularly radical polymerization and autooxidation processes; more recently her group have been working toward a better understanding of enzyme catalysis. However, one of the advantages of computational chemistry is that it is not necessary to specialise and their computer-aided chemical designs include species as diverse as better control agents for free-radical polymerization, improved redox mediators for dye sensitised solar cells, and chiral auxiliaries for the resolution of amino acids. Whilst their focus is on the underlying fundamental chemistry, the team’s work does have direct practical applications and, for instance, Michelle is working with Bluescope Steel to improve the lifetime of the coatings on Colorbond steel, and Evonik Industries to tune the debonding temperature of self-healing polymers and printable networks.

Publication list -

Other Activites and Roles
Chair of the Physical Chemistry Division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc Member of the ARC College of Experts for Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences (PCE)