Jonathan Clayden

Jonathan Paul Clayden FRS CChem FRSC (born 6 February 1968) is a Professor of organic chemistry at the University of Bristol.

Whilst at secondary school, he represented the UK at the International Chemistry Olympiad in 1986, winning a bronze medal. In 1992 he obtained his PhD^[1] at the University of Cambridge working with Dr Stuart Warren on asymmetric synthesis using phosphine oxide chemistry. He then carried out a postdoc with Prof Marc Julia and in 1994 became a lecturer in organic chemistry at the University of Manchester where he became a reader in 2000 and a Professor of Organic Chemistry in 2001. In 2015 he moved to a chair in chemistry at the University of Bristol. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2025.^[2]

His research interests encompass various areas of synthesis and stereochemistry, particularly where conformation has a role to play: asymmetric synthesis, atropisomerism,^[3] organolithium chemistry, remote stereochemical effects^[4] and dynamic foldamer chemistry.^[5] He is one of the authors of the organic chemistry textbook - Organic Chemistry by Clayden, Greeves, Warren and Wothers.^[6] He also wrote Organolithiums: Selectivity for Synthesis,^[7] which concerns the use of organolithium compounds in organic synthetic reactions.

From 2005 to 2011 he was editor-in-chief of the Open Access Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry.