Biography

Pericles was born and raised in Athens, Greece. He received a B.Sc. degree in Chemistry at the University of Athens, and subsequently moved to London, UK, where he completed a Ph.D degree in Organometallic Chemistry under the tutelage of Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson at Imperial College. He then served a mandatory military service (Navy) in native Greece, and resumed his academic career first at the University of Strasbourg, France, for a short stint as a postdoctoral research associate with John A. Osborn, followed by a postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University with Richard H. Holm on Bioinorganic Chemistry topics. He has served on the faculty of Boston University (Chemistry) for ten years and currently is a member of the Chemistry faculty at the Missouri University of Sci&Tech. Over the years, Pericles has been exploring the stoichiometric and catalytic chemistry of a wide range of transition metals, both in artificial and biological settings. His current research focus is on developing methodologies for catalytic C-H and C=C bond activation and functionalization reactions, by means of first-row transition-metal reagents, via atom/group-transfer chemistry (C-N, C-O, C-C, C-Cl bond formation and cleavage).