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Biography

Joe graduated from the University of Leeds in 2018 with an MChem (International), spending a year abroad at the University of South Carolina. He then moved to the University of Southern California, completing an MSc in 2020 under the supervision of Professor Michael Inkpen. In the same year, he joined the group of Professor Mark Crimmin at Imperial College London on the Schr枚dinger Scholarship scheme. In 2022, Joe was awarded a JSPS Short-Term Fellowship, which he took to Kyoto University, working for Professor Yoshiaki Nakao. He was awarded his PhD in March 2024.
 
Joe has very recently completed a postdoc in the group of Professor Cameron Jones at Monash University. Here his work focused on coordination and bond-activation istry using alkaline-earth metal compounds.

The opportunity to travel the world and work with a diverse range of people on all different types of chemistry has been a consistent highlight of my career to date.

Joseph Parr

Q&A

Can you tell us more about your work?

Joe's research focuses on expanding the chemistry of the alkaline-earth metal elements, those sat in group II of the periodic table (such as magnesium and calcium). These earth-abundant, low-cost metals are underexplored as potential materials in chemical transformations. Significant developments, over the last twenty years, have highlighted the potential of these elements to achieve reactivity traditionally associated with much rarer, more expensive, and commonly more toxic transition metals (such as rhodium or palladium). Joe's work aims to develop this work further, with a particular focus on breaking strong bonds of industrially relevant molecules, including feedstock materials like CO and CO₂, or waste 'forever chemicals', such as PFAS materials.

Who or what first sparked your interest in chemistry, and how has that interest evolved over time? 

Strangely enough it was quite late on, actually during the third year of my degree. I completed a research project abroad under the supervision of Professor Richard Adams, and a great PhD student at the time, Poonam Dhull, which really first sparked my interest and awareness for what a career in chemistry research might be like. As I have continued since then, and gotten slowly a bit better at understanding the literature and the motivation behind our field of chemistry, that interest has steadily (if not always linearly!) grown.

What has been the most rewarding or memorable highlight of your career so far? 

The opportunity to travel the world and work with a diverse range of people on all different types of chemistry has been a consistent highlight of my career to date.

Thinking back to earlier in your career, are there any words of wisdom that you wish someone had told you? 

In research, don't stop when things are going poorly, and slow yourself down when they are going well.

What is your favourite element and why? 

Hard to say but probably magnesium, certainly the element I have worked with the most and a great one to help you sleep, which is never a bad thing.