Prof
Robert
Forster

Primary Department
School of Chemical Sciences
Role
Academic Staff - Physical Chemistry
Robert
Phone number: 01 700
5943
Campus
Glasnevin Campus
Room Number
X110

Academic biography

Robert Forster holds the Personal Chair of Physical Chemistry within the School of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University and is the former Director of the strategically important National Centre for Sensor research.  In 2020 he was elected to the Royal Irish Academy which is considered the highest academic honour in Ireland. He is the author/co-author of more than 250 manuscripts and reviews, supervised more than 37 PhD and M.Sc. students to completion, mentored more than 50 Post-Doctoral Fellows and has been a Visiting Scientist to the California Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley.  He has served as DCU Dean of Research and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science and Health with responsibility for research.  He has received the President’s Research Award and was the first Irish based electrochemist to present an invited talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Electrochemistry.  He has contributed invited articles to more than eight Festschrift Issues celebrating the accomplishments of distinguished international scientists.  He is a member of the Editorial Board of Electrochemical Communications (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/electrochemistry-communications ) and has been a member of the Board for ACS Analytical Chemistry A-Pages. He has been deeply involved in major national research programmes including the establishment of the National Centre for Sensor Research, the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute, the National Biophotonics and Imaging Platform and the NanoBioAnalytical Research Facility at DCU.

Research interests

Forster’s research focuses on the creation of novel materials that have useful electronic or photonic properties because they are highly ordered on the molecular length scale.  These materials, that include biomolecules, surface active transition metal complexes, metallopolymers and nanocavity arrays and nanoparticles/composites. These materials are designed for applications in molecule-based electronics, display devices and have produced ultrasensitive sensors for disease biomarkers in cancer, cardiovascular disease and sepsis.