Professor Ian Fleming

Professor Fleming matriculated at Pembroke in 1956, received his PhD in 1962 and was elected as a Research Fellow at Pembroke. After a postdoctoral visit at Harvard, where he contributed to Woodward and Eschenmoser's landmark synthesis of vitamin B-12, he returned to a university post in the Department of Chemistry in 1964, and became a full Fellow of Pembroke College. Early in his career, he determined the absolute configuration of chlorophyll, the last remaining structural detail, but most of his research was concerned with understanding chemical reactions, especially their selectivity and stereochemistry. In particular, he made substantial contributions to the use of organosilicon compounds for regio- and stereoselective synthesis. He has written seven textbooks, one of them running to seven editions, edited others, and contributed to encyclopedia chapters and other influential review articles.  Professor Fleming was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1993, and is currently an Emeritus Professor of Organic Chemistry.