Dr Leesa Smith completed her undergraduate degree (Industrial Chemistry) and PhD at UNSW. Her PhD was focused on polymer kinetics of radical ring-opening and depropagating monomers. After this period, she has gained extensive experience in industry researchin a range of disciplines including fibre cement, starch chemistry and drug particle engineering with supercritical fluids. She has also gained experience in laboratory management and quality assurance in the setup of processes and procedures for manufacture of an API for clinical trials.

Computer-aided chemical design

Dr Leesa Smith’s research interests include the control of stereoregularity in radical polymerisations, radical polymerisation kinetics and the development of the group's laboratory capabilities.

Noble, B.B., Smith, L.M., Coote, M.L., (2014) The Effect of LiNTf2 on the Propagation Rate Coefficient of Methyl Methacrylate, Polymer Chemistry, 5, 4974-4983 Smith, L.M., Coote, M.L. (2013), Effect of temperature and solvent on polymer tacticity in the free-radical polymerization of styrene and methyl methacrylate, Journal of Polymer Science, Part A: Polymer Chemistry, 51(16), 3351-3358. Roberts G.E., Coote M.L., Heuts J.P.A., Morris L.M*., Davis T.P., (1999) Radical ring-opening copolymerization of 2-methylene 1,3-dioxepane and methyl methacrylate: Experiments originally designed to probe the origin of the penultimate unit effect, Macromolecules, 32(5):1332-1340 Morris, L.M*., Chaplin, R.P. Davis, T.P.(2001) An Assessment Of The Copolymerization Reaction Between Styrene And 2-Methylene–1,3-dioxepane, Polymer. 42(2):495-500, 200 Morris, L.M*., Chaplin, R.P., Davis, T.P.(2001) Copolymerization Kinetics of Methyl Ethacrylate and Styrene, Polymer. 42(3):941-952