Victor Chechik was born in St.Petersburg, Russia. He graduated from St.Petersburg State University in 1988 and did his PhD in his home city under the supervision of Dr V.Bobylev. Victor's dissertation was entitled "Mechanism of haloalkylamine aminolysis in different media". He was awarded Cand. Sci. degree (Russian equivalent of PhD) in 1994 by St Petersburg Institute of Technology. He then spent 3 years at the University of Sheffield (U.K.) as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Charles J. M. Stirling, FRS, working on chemical reactivity in organized molecular films. In 1998, he moved to the U.S.A. for another postdoctoral position at Texas A&M University with Prof. Richard M. Crooks. His research in Texas focussed on supramolecular and catalytic properties of dendrimer-encapsulated metal nanoparticles.
In October 1999, Victor was appointed an Astra-Zeneca Lecturer in Physical Organic Chemistry at the University of York. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer and then Reader. Victor is interested in mechanistic chemistry of free radicals (both short-lived radicals and stable radicals) and EPR spectroscopy is often used in the group to detect and characterised free radicals. He is also interested in functional supramolecular and nanoscale molecular aggregates such as magnetic nanoparticles. More information about research activities in Victor's group could be found on the "Research" page.