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Biography
- Royal Society and African Academy of Sciences FLAIR Fellow (2019 – present).
- Lecturer, (2017 – present), University of Cape Town, South Africa.
- NRF Postdoctoral Fellow (2016 - 2017), University of York, UK.
- BSc Hons (2009, UCT), PhD (2015, UCT)
Research Interests
My research group is interested in developing environmentally friendly and sustainable methods for the synthesis of biologically important complex molecules.
Specific themes involve: Total Synthesis, Asymmetric Synthesis, Photoredox Catalysis, Organocatalysis, C–H Activation, Cross-Dehydrogenative Coupling, Drug Discovery and Medicinal Chemistry.
Representative Publications
- A Low Temperature Cross Dehydrogenative Metal Free Coupling Protocol for the Synthesis of 3,3-Disubstituted Oxindoles.
Donald, J. R.; Taylor, R. J. K.; Petersen, W. F. J. Org. Chem. 2017, 82, 11288. - Photoredox-Catalyzed Procedure for Carbamoyl Radical Generation: 3,4-Dihydroquinolin-2-ones and Quinolin-2-one Synthesis.
Petersen, W. F.; Taylor, R. J. K.; Donald, J. R. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2017, 15, 5831. - Photoredox Catalyzed Reductive Carbamoyl Radical Generation Facilitates a Redox-Neutral Intermolecular Addition- Cyclization to Access Functionalized Lactams.
Petersen, W. F.; Taylor, R. J. K.; Donald, J. R. Org. Lett. 2017, 19, 874. - Quaternized α,α-Amino Acids via Curtius Rearrangement of Subsituted Malonate-Imidazolidinones.
Gokada, M. R.; Hunter, R.; Andrijevic, A.; Petersen, W. F.; Venter, G.; Samanta, S. J. Org. Chem. 2017, 82, 10650. - Stereoselective Formation of Quaternary Stereogenic Centres via Alkylation of Alpha-Substituted Malonate- Imidazolidinones.
Bixa, T.; Hunter, R.; Andrijevic, A.; Petersen, W.; Dhoro, F.; Su, H. J. Org. Chem. 2015, 80, 762