Alan Kennedy

Alan Kennedy is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde, where he has been a full member of the academic staff since 2004. He is a section-editor of Acta Cryst. Section C and leads a research group focused on structural and crystallographic chemistry. His work bridges fundamental inorganic chemistry with practical applications in dyes, pigments, and pharmaceuticals.

Research Interests: His research spans s-block metal chemistry, where he explores heterometallic reagents to tune reactivity; dyes and pigments, where he correlates supramolecular structures with physical properties; and pharmaceutical materials, where he applies crystallography to salt selection and property prediction. He emphasizes building structural databases to identify patterns across compound families.

The 15 most recent publications reflect a strong trend in materials design, supramolecular assembly, and structure-property relationships, with applications in organic electronics, catalysis, and drug formulation. Keywords include alkali metals, crystal engineering, X-ray diffraction, and functional materials.

Scientific Awards:

• Beam time Awards at ALS (USA) and ESRF (France), 2008
• Strathclyde Medal: Team Award, 2022

Advising and Grants: Kennedy has supervised postgraduate students and served as Principal Investigator on research projects funded by EPSRC, STFC, CCLRC, GSK, AstraZeneca, Organon, Schering-Plough, CNPq, and WESTChem. He co-led a public engagement project and currently leads a project on predicting solid-state properties from crystallographic data.

Labs and Facilities: He established Strathclyde's first single-crystal X-ray diffraction laboratory and now oversees a modern multi-instrument facility. He also offers a commercial crystallography service to industry.