Associate Dean, Dr. Bob Lemieux
Dr. Bob Lemieux has been appointed Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts and Science from January 1, 2013 to June 30, 2015.
Dr. Bob Lemieux
received his B.A. degree in 1984 from Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, where
he studied chemistry and played varsity football for the Raiders. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1989 from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of Peter Beak,
and then carried out postdoctoral studies at Illinois under the supervision of
Gary Schuster. In 1992, he joined the
Chemistry Department at Queen's University as Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in
1998 and to Professor in 2001. He served as Acting Head of the Chemistry
Department from 2006 to 2007, and Head from 2007 to 2011. He also served as Acting Associate Dean in
the Faculty of Arts and Science from 2011 to 2012.
The overarching
theme in Bob’s research is chirality, and how it propagates in the condensed
phase via self-assembly to form materials with chiral bulk properties. His
research program bridges the diverse fields of organic synthesis, physical
organic chemistry and condensed matter physics. Such an interdisciplinary
approach allows his research group to draw important correlations between the
molecular structure of liquid crystalline materials and the macroscopic bulk
properties they exhibit. His main
research interests lie in the induction of ferroelectric properties in smectic
liquid crystal phases using dopants with novel chiral core structures. The work on ferroelectric liquid crystals
(FLC) induced by axially chiral dopants has led to the discovery of an
interesting chiral amplification phenomenon, which may prove useful in the
formulation of FLC mixtures for high-resolution display applications, and is
now being applied to the development of chiral mesoporous organosilicates, in
collaboration with Dr. Cathleen Crudden. More recent work has focused on developing a
new design strategy for smectic liquid crystal hosts with ‘de Vries-like’
properties, which undergo a transition from the orthogonal smectic A phase to
the tilted smectic C phase with minimal layer contraction—a crucial requirement
for defect-free FLC displays.
Bob was one of
the inaugural recipients of the Queen's Chancellor's Research Award in 1999; he
also received an Ontario Premier’s Research Excellence Award in 2000 and the
Samsung Mid-Career Award from the International Liquid Crystal Society in 2012.
His teaching in the Chemistry Department was recognized by the Queen's
Chemistry Graduating Class Award for Teaching Excellence in 1997 and 2007, and
the W.J. Barnes Award for Teaching Excellence from the Queen’s Arts &
Science Undergraduate Society in 2005.
Areas in Associate Dean's Lemieux portfolio during 2013 are:
- Applied Science Liaison
- Biology
- School of Computing
- Environmental Studies
- Geography
- Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
- Mathematics and Statistics
- Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
- Sociology
