Professor Charlotte K. Williams

Charlotte K. Williams OBE FRS is a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Associate Head of Department (Research) in Oxford Chemistry. She is also an EPSRC Established Career Research Fellow. She heads-up a research group investigating polymerisation catalysis and polymer chemistry with a particular focus on improving polymer sustainability. Her work involves close collaboration with scientists and engineers in both academic and industrial laboratories. From 2003-2016, Charlotte was an academic in the Chemistry department at Imperial College London. Earlier in her career, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge University (2002-2003), working with Andrew Holmes FRS and Richard Friend FRS (Organometallic polymers for electronics), and at the University of Minnesota (2001-2002) working with Bill Tolman and Marc Hillmyer (zinc catalysts for lactide polymerisation). She obtained her BSc and PhD from Imperial College London, the latter supervised by Vernon Gibson FRS and Nick Long on ethene polymerisation catalysis. 

Awards & Commendations

• Statutory Chair in Inorganic Chemistry, University of Oxford (2024)
• The Royal Society Leverhulme Medal (2022)
• The RSC Tilden Prize (2021)
• Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (2021)
• Unilever Clean Future Brilliance Award (2021)
• OBE from Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Chemistry (2020)
• Macro Group UK Medal (2019)
• The Otto Roelen Medal of DeChema (2018)
• The Sir John Meurig Thomas Catalysis Medal (2017)
• The RSC Corday-Morgan Prize (2016)
• Women in Science and Engineering Tech Start Up Award (2015)
• BEPS Outstanding Early Career Academic Award (2011)
• The RSC Energy, Environment and Sustainability Award (2009)
• The RSC Meldola Medal (2005)
• The RSC Young Researcher Award (2001)