Leon Francis Phillips

MSc, PhD, FRSNZ

Emeritus Professor Leon Francis Phillips was a long-serving and very distinguished member of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Canterbury. His passing, in September 2023, was the end of an association with UoC dating back to 1953 when he entered as an undergraduate student from Westport Technical College and a year at Christchurch Boys’ High School. After completing an M.Sc. in Chemistry in 1957 he was awarded a Shell Scholarship and travelled to Cambridge where he completed his PhD in 1960. A Post-Doctoral fellowship at McGill U. in Montreal followed before he was appointed as a Lecturer in Chemistry at Canterbury in 1962. He rapidly established his teaching and research activities in Physical Chemistry and was appointed to the University first ever Personal Chair in 1966 at the tender age of 30. (Until that time Chairs were exclusively “established” and were allocated to Departments.) Although his primary research focus was on gas phase processes – particularly reactions of atoms and radicals – his career moved into photochemistry, spectroscopy, quantum calculations, laser applications, atmospheric processes, CO₂ exchange and much more. Leon was responsible for attracting a strong group of colleagues to the physical chemistry staff and in the ‘80s and ‘90s the Canterbury physical chemistry programme was undoubtedly the strongest in the antipodes. He was a very talented and versatile researcher and was never afraid to try something new. Skillful at practical tasks – electronics, glassblowing, design, etc – he was always willing to give it a go. A very clever, inspirational and personable colleague, he was popular with all and had a unique sense of humour. However, he did not suffer fools gladly and was greatly disturbed by the changes in the NZ university system during the last 20 years or so, which fact he made known quite forcefully.

Leon was highly respected by colleagues around the world and over the decades had many fruitful collaborations while on leave himself and while hosting visiting academics in his own laboratories. The most recent of these was with the Air UCI consortium, an international team of scientists based at the University of California at Irvine, supported by NASA, and working on atmospheric chemistry up to the stratosphere. This collaborative programme continued up to his retirement in 2014.

Leon won many awards and honours – including Fellowship of the Royal Society of NZ (1968) and its Hector Medal (1979) and the University of Canterbury Research Medal. The award which he considered of most significance was the Corday-Morgan Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) in 1971. (Open to any mid-career chemist in the Commonwealth.) He was an author of over 200 research papers and several books and also authored three novels “for fun”.

Leon had wide ranging interests outside of his university activities and participated fully. He was a Cambridge Blue in athletics (high jump); an accomplished chess player and a past President of the Canterbury Chess Club; an enthusiastic guitar player; a keen and skillful yachtsman; patron of the University of Canterbury Athletic Club (road runner and walker in recent times); President of the NZ Institute of Chemistry (1999-2000); and a past chair of the Canterbury Branch of RSNZ.

He is greatly missed by us all and we extend our heartfelt sympathy to his wife of 64 years, Pamela, and sons John (a mechanical engineer) and Timothy (who practices skin cancer medicine) and their families in their loss.

This has been prepared by Colin Freeman (ex UoC, Chemistry and Leon’s first research student in 1963). Daniel Packwood - Leon’s final PhD student (in 2010) - has prepared an excellent and very readable tribute to Leon which is much more informal and far more detailed as regards his scientific endeavours over the years. This can be viewed by going to the following link on the Chemistry in NZ website of the NZIC:  https://www.cinz.nz/posts/obituary-leon-phillips