Scholar in residence 7 August – 30 October 2025
Paul Walton obtained his PhD in 1990 (University of Nottingham, UK), followed by two years as a NATO/SERC postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He joined the Department of Chemistry at York as a faculty member in 1993. Between 2004 and 2010 he was chair of department. His main research area is bioinorganic chemistry, in which he has made contributions to the understanding of copper oxidases, including the discovery of the histidine brace.
He is the recipient of multiple national* and international** awards, including:
- Teaching: RSC’s Higher Education Teaching Award,** Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award.
- Research: Gertrude Cropper Award, RSC’s Joseph Chatt Award,** IChemE’s Global Energy Award,** RSC’s Rita and John Cornforth Award,** University of Chalmers Jubilee professor 2020.**
- Equality: Royal Society’s inaugural Athena Prize* (runner-up). WISE man of the year shortlist.*
He has also been Editor of Dalton Transactions (2004-2008), chair of Heads of Chemistry UK, chair of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Diversity Committee, was named as a ‘Person of Influence’ by the University of Toronto’s Women in Chemistry Group and is one of the RSC’s 175 Faces of Chemistry. Paul is an internationally-known advocate of equality in sciences and lectures widely on the subject.
Paul Walton: “I will work on two main aspects. The first is to bring my experience of gender equality practice in academia to Digital Futures, so that we can share ideas and set-up new initiatives. The second is to develop further my research work on rapid quantum chemistry calculations for transition metal complexes, by bridging faculty members in Digital Futures with Chemistry Department members. There will also be a particular focus on working with the experts in AI in Digital Futures, to develop a heuristic input to quantum chemistry calculations.”
Contact: paul.walton@york.ac.uk
