Dr Nicholas Green

biography

BA, MA, DPhil in Chemistry (Jesus College Oxford).  I subsequently had an SERC Research Fellowship and a JRF at Jesus, followed by a period on the Faculty of the University of Notre Dame in the USA.  I returned to Oxford as Tutorial Fellow in Physical Chemistry at Magdalen, and subsequently taught at King’s College London for 15 years, where I was Reader in Chemistry, Deputy Head of Department and Chairman of the Senior Common Room.  I returned to Oxford as Director of Studies and Chair of the Faculty of Chemistry in 2006.

research

I am interested in the theory of chemical reaction rates, particularly in unusual and extreme systems containing small numbers of particles, such as the tracks left by ionizing radiation, which contain clusters of highly reactive chemical species.  These systems do not obey the normal rate laws of chemistry, are theoretically demanding and have great importance in the understanding of the mechanisms of radiation damage.

Undergraduate teaching

My main departmental role is as Director of Studies, where I am responsible for the Admissions procedures, including open days, the design and delivery of the Chemistry course, and I am also permanent chairman of the examination boards for the second, third and fourth year.  I represent the department at a number of committees within the University and the Royal Society of Chemistry.  I believe that the personal focus of the Oxford tutorial system is one of the greatest strengths of the University, as it enables both students and tutors to stretch and challenge each other constantly.  Although I teach some of the most formally demanding parts of Chemistry (for example Quantum and Statistical Mechanics), I try to be sensitive and receptive to the students’ needs and to develop an empathy with them.

Areas of supervision for postgraduates

Theory of chemical reaction rates, diffusion kinetics, applications of stochastic processes in chemistry, radiation chemistry and physics, unimolecular reactions.

Publications

Competitive diffusion-influenced reaction of a reactive particle with two static sinks, V.M. Bluett, N.J.B. Green, J. Phys. Chem. 110 (2006) 4738-4752.

On the competition between scavenging and recombination in solutions of macromolecules, V.M. Bluett, N.J.B. Green, J. Phys. Chem. 110 (2006) 6112-6121.

Lactose Permease H⁺-Lactose Symporter: Mechanical Switch or Brownian Ratchet? R.J. Naftalin, N.J.B. Green, P. Cunningham, Biophys. J. 92 (2007) 3474-3491.

Steady-state Master Equation methods, N.J.B. Green, Z.A. Bhatti, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 9 (2007) 4275-4290.

Detailed balance in multiple-well chemical reactions, J.A. Miller, S.J. Klippenstein, S.H. Robertson, M.J.  Pilling, N.J.B. Green,  Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 11 (2009) 1128-1137.

Effects of disorder and motion in a radical pair magnetoreceptor, J.C.S. Lau, N. Wagner-Rundell, C.T. Rodgers, N.J.B. Green, P.J. Hore, J. Roy. Soc. Interface, 7 (2010) S257-S264.