Erin Leitao
| birth_place = {{#statements:P19}} | death_date = {{#statements:P570}} | death_place = {{#statements:P20}} | resting_place = {{#statements:P119}} | resting_place_coordinates = | other_names = | citizenship = | fields = Chemistry | workplaces = {{#statements:P108}} | patrons = | alma_mater = University of Calgary | thesis1_title = Ruthenium phosophonium alkylidene complexes: from decomposition to tunable highly active olefin metathesis catalysts | thesis1_url = http://hdl.handle.net/1880/104998 | thesis1_year = 2011 | thesis2_title = | thesis2_url = | thesis2_year = | doctoral_advisor = {{#statements:P184}} | academic_advisors = {{#statements:P1066}} | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | influences = | influenced = | awards = * 2016 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards | signature = | signature_alt = | website = | footnotes = | spouse = | children = }} Erin Michaela Leitao is a Canada-born inorganic chemist, and an associate professor at the University of Auckland.
Education
Leitao was born and grew up on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, and became interested in chemistry through cooking in her childhood. She graduated from the University of Victoria in 2006 with a BSc in Chemistry, undertaking a final project with Scott McIndoe. At the University of Calgary with Warren Piers as her advisor she completed a PhD in inorganic chemistry in 2011 with a thesis titled Ruthenium phosophonium alkylidene complexes: from decomposition to tunable highly active olefin metathesis catalysts.
Academic career
After her PhD, Leitao undertook postdoctoral research with Ian Manners at the University of Bristol from 2011 to 2015, taking up a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. She then moved to New Zealand to become a lecturer at the University of Auckland in December 2015, winning a Dean’s Award for Early Career Teaching Excellence award in 2017 and being promoted to senior lecturer in February 2018. Leitao became an Associate Professor in Chemistry at the University of Auckland in February 2025. She was an Associate Investigator at the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology from 2017 to 2025, and in 2025 became a Principal Investigator.
Research
Leitao's research is focussed on creating new inorganic polymers: long-chain molecules that are based not on carbon derived from petroleum, but on earth-abundant inorganic raw materials like sulphur, silicon, phosphorus, oxygen, or nitrogen. Her lab is also investigating better ways to link these inorganic atoms together using catalysts to form building blocks for polymers, to facilitate recycling and create fewer toxic by-products. The backbone of these polymers can be composed of a single element or atoms of alternating elements, to create desirable properties such as semiconductivity, strength, or solubility.
For example, one project examined polysilanes (polymers with a backbone of silicon atoms) and their tendency to degrade when exposed to ultravioet light, which was moderated by attaching naphthalene groups to the silicon atoms; the resulting molecules showed a range of new properties, including photoluminescence. Another study examined the creation of polysulfides from elemental sulphur using cardanol, a compound derived from cashew nuts, through inverse vulcanisation. Depending on the silane groups added to the cardanol, the resulting polysulfides displayed quite different adhesion, solubility, and thermal stability.
Beginning in 2019 Leitao has been working on the recycling of silicone with PhD students Kun Woo Park and Mahsaalsadat Rokni. Cross-linked sulphur was added to the silicon-oxygen structure of the polymer during the curing process, creating silicone can heal damage to itself at a molecular level. If produced commercially, self-repairing silicone has implications for the health industry and for reducing waste.
Leitoa was awarded a Marsden Fund grant in 2023 to study alternatives to PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), known as "forever chemicals" because of their resistance to breaking down in the environment. Strands of New Zealand flax or harakeke (Phormium tenax) under experimental conditions have proved effective at removing PFAS from water. Various other cellulose-based substances had been used to filter PFAS, but harakeke fibres are very rigid and proved as effective a sorbent as activated carbon, while being simple and inexpensive to harvest and prepare.
Honours and awards
IN 2016 Leitao was The New Zealand recipient of a two-year $25,000 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship. In 2019 as part of the International Year of the Periodic Table, she was named "Lanthanum" in the Periodic Table of Younger Chemists.
External links
- "Making recyclable silicone using sulphur": interview with Erin Leitao on Radio New Zealand, 15 March 2025