King Kuok "Mimi" Hii (born 23 December 1969) is a chemist whose fields of research include application of catalysis to organic synthesis. She is the Director of

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

's Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR).

Academic career

Hii studied for both her BSc and PhD at The

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

investigating multidentate ligand metal complexes under the supervision of Bernard L. Shaw. Postdoctoral studies at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

in John M. Brown's group were followed by independent research at

, Kings College London and in

. In 2016 she was awarded a Professorship in

Catalysis Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

and in 2018 became the Director of the Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions.

Research interests

Hii has investigated catalysis during her research career. In Oxford, she characterised intermediates of the

Heck reaction The Heck reaction (also called the Mizoroki–Heck reaction) is the chemical reaction of an unsaturated halide (or triflate) with an alkene in the presence of a base and a palladium catalyst (or palladium nanomaterial-based catalyst) to form a sub ...

. Hii also studied this reaction at King's College London. Hii has continued with this field of study producing over a hundred articles, reviews, book chapters and patents. These include articles, reviews and books on sustainable chemistry methods. In 2010 Hii joined the Steering Group of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Dial-a-Molecule Grand Challenge network and became a Co-Investigator on phase III of the project in 2016. Hii has been awarded many grants, most notably a multi-million award from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in 2017 which, together with money from Imperial College London and industrial partners funded the set up of

's Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR).

Awards and honours

In 2013, the Federation of Asian Chemistry Societies recognised Hii as an Asian Rising Star. Hii was also elected as a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) is an award conferred by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in the United Kingdom. FRSC award Achieving Fellow status in the chemical profession denotes to the wider community a high level of ...

. In 2016 Hii became co-editor in chief of the open access

Chemistry Central Journal Chemistry Central was a scientific publisher specializing in open access publications in chemistry. It was established on August 22, 2006 and was operated by BioMed Central. Along with BioMed Central and the now-defunct PhysMath Central, Chemistr ...

. In 2019 Mimi Hii was shortlisted for an Asian Women of Achievement Award.

References

External links

Mimi Hii
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hii, Mimi Living people Alumni of the University of Leeds Academics of Imperial College London British women chemists Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry English people of Chinese descent Academic journal editors 1969 births