Dr Dan Congrave
Biography
Dan is a Royal Society University Research Fellow (URF) at the Department of Chemistry. He grew up on Anglesey, North Wales, and obtained his MChem degree nearby from Bangor University (2014–2018), winning the Dr John Roberts Jones cross-subject prize as a top-ranking student across all disciplines. He obtained his PhD from Durham University supervised by Prof. Martin Bryce (2014–2018), followed by a postdoc with Prof. Hugo Bronstein at the University of Cambridge (2018–2020), before he was appointed as a Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow in Organic Chemistry (2020–2024).
In 2024 Dan moved to Oxford to start a research group as a URF, and he has been a Research Fellow at St John's since 2025.
Teaching
I am always very excited to hear from students who are interested in linking molecular structure to optical and electronic applications. If you enjoy synthetic organic and physical chemistry and are not sure what research topic ties them together, this is a group for you. When supervising students I have found that our research area can serve as a great springboard to help physical chemistry 'click' for organic chemists, and vice-versa!
Research Interests
Considering that all life on Earth ultimately relies on the interaction of carbon-based organic matter with light through photosynthesis, it is unsurprising that organic molecules which absorb and emit light broadly overarch traditional scientific disciplines, with great implications in modern technologies related to electronics, energy, sensing and bioscience. Our research is very interdisciplinary and holistic, combining target-driven organic synthesis with physical and computational chemistry. The aim is to take longstanding applied research problems and distil them down to the fundamental level, at which point we will typically notice that a molecule is required with a specific combination of photophysical properties that no one has been able to achieve yet. Our research is all about exploiting original structural organic chemistry to design and synthesise new materials that are unprecedented in the way in which they absorb and emit light, with the goal of making an impact on modern technologies such as solar cells, displays, electronics and quantum information.
Recent Publications
- Adv. Mater. 2025, 37, 2501164. (https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/adma.202501164)
- Nature Materials 2024, 23, 519–526. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-024-01812-4)
- J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, 146, 32, 22612–22621. (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.4c07004)
- J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023, 145, 6, 3507–3514. (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.2c12008)
- J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 18390–18394. (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.9b09323)
Awards and Distinctions
Bangor University Dr John Roberts Jones Prize
Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow in Organic Chemistry (University of Cambridge)
Royal Society University Research Fellowship
ERC Starting Grant 2025