Peter David Wothers, , is a British chemist and author of several popular textbooks aimed at university students. He is a teaching fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of

St Catharine's College, Cambridge St Catharine's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1473 as Katharine Hall, it adopted its current name in 1860. The college is nicknamed "Catz". The college is located in the historic city-centre of Camb ...

Education

Wothers was educated at Bedford Modern School and

, where he received his PhD in 1996 for investigations into the anomeric effect.

Research

Wothers has co-authored the first edition of the well-known and best-selling ''Organic Chemistry'' textbook together with

Jonathan Clayden Jonathan Paul Clayden (born 6 February 1968) is a Professor of organic chemistry at the University of Bristol. Education In 1992 he obtained his PhD at the University of Cambridge working with Dr Stuart Warren on asymmetric synthesis using p ...

, Nick Greeves and his fellow Cambridge lecturer

Stuart Warren Stuart Warren (24 December 1938 – 22 March 2020) was a British organic chemist and author of chemistry textbooks aimed at university students. Academic career Warren was educated at Cheadle Hulme School near Manchester and read the Natural ...

. His two other popular works ''Why Chemical Reactions Happen'' and ''Chemical Structure and Reactivity'', written with James Keeler, aim to combine the different branches of chemistry into an integrated whole. Wothers is also very active in promoting

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

to the wider public, and has won prizes such as the Royal Society of Chemistry President's Award in 2011 for his outstanding contribution to public outreach, handed to him by the RSC President David Phillips. He has also been responsible for organising the International Chemistry Olympiads for several years and has been chair of the 41st edition.

Television and radio appearances

Peter Wothers has made numerous television appearances as a chemistry specialist, notably as one of the presenters in the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

series "The Big Experiment". In December 2012 he presented the series of three televised

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

Christmas Lectures The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic each, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825, missing 1939–1942 because of the Second World War. The lectures present sc ...

, entitled 'The Modern Alchemist'. He was a guest on Andrew Marr's Start the Week on BBC Radio 4: the episode was a Science Special broadcast on 17 December 2012. Wothers talked about modern day chemistry and science along with Ewan Birney, Sanjeev Gupta and Helen Bynum who were also guests on the show.

Awards and honours

Wothers was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in the

2014 Birthday Honours The 2014 Birthday Honours were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of ...

for services to chemistry through the International Chemistry Olympiad. During the same year he was nominated as one of the 100 leading UK practising scientists by the

Science Council The Science Council is a UK organisation that was established by Royal Charter in 2003. The principal activity of The Science Council is the promotion of the advancement and dissemination of knowledge of and education in science pure and applie ...

. He was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry's

Nyholm Prize for Education The Nyholm Prize for Education commemorates the life and work of Australian-born chemist Ronald Sydney Nyholm, Sir Ronald Nyholm, who – alongside his research in coordination chemistry – passionately campaigned for the improvement of science e ...

in 2013. Wothers is featured as one of the Royal Society of Chemistry's ''175 Faces of Chemistry''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wothers, Peter British chemists Fellows of St Catharine's College, Cambridge People educated at Bedford Modern School Living people Members of the University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry Year of birth missing (living people) Members of the Order of the British Empire