Michael ("Mick") Sherburn is Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Australian National University. Born and educated in England, he obtained his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Nottingham, where he carried out doctoral research in free-radical chemistry with Prof. John Murphy. Following postdoctoral studies on the gibberellin natural products with Prof. Lew Mander at ANU, he began his independent career at Massey University in New Zealand. In 1997 he joined the University of Sydney and, in 2003, returned to ANU as Senior Fellow (Associate Professor). His research combines total synthesis with the design, synthesis, and study of new hydrocarbons, particularly acyclic π-bond-rich systems, and the development of efficient methods for the rapid assembly of complex polycyclic structures. The overarching goal of this work is to connect fundamental hydrocarbon chemistry with target-oriented synthesis.
