Sophie Rousseaux

Education & Experience

• Associate Professor, University of Toronto (2022 – present)
• Canada Research Chair in Organic Chemistry – Tier 2 (2016 – present)
• Assistant Professor, University of Toronto (2015 – 2022)
• NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow and Glasstone Research Fellow, University of Oxford – Prof. Harry L. Anderson (2012-2015)
• Junior Research Fellow, St John’s College, University of Oxford (2012-2015)
• Visiting Ph.D. Student, MIT – Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald (2010-2011)
• Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Ottawa – Prof. Keith Fagnou (2007-2012)
• B.Sc., Biopharmaceutical Sciences, University of Ottawa (2003-2007)

Sophie was born in Saskatoon, Canada, but moved to Ottawa as a child. She received a B.Sc. in Biopharmaceutical Sciences – Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 2007. As an undergraduate student, she worked with Prof. Keith Fagnou on the direct arylation of pyridine N-oxides and decarboxylative ketone aldol reactions. She remained in the Fagnou group for the start of her graduate studies, working on Pd-catalyzed aliphatic C-H bond functionalization reactions. In 2010, she moved to Cambridge, USA, to complete her graduate research with Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After obtaining her PhD from the University of Ottawa in 2012, Sophie was a visiting scientist for 5 months at the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, working with Prof. Jean-Marc Campagne and Dr. Emmanuel Vrancken. She then moved to the University of Oxford to work with Prof. Harry L. Anderson on the self-assembly of porphyrin nanorings as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow and Glasstone Research Fellow. During her time at Oxford, Sophie was also a Junior Research Fellow at St John’s College.

In July 2015, Sophie returned to Canada to join the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to an Associate Professor in 2022. Her group’s research interests include organic synthesis, catalysis, organometallic chemistry and supramolecular chemistry.