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Associate Professor Adam J Bridgeman


Contact Details

Associate Professor and Director of First Year Studies
Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching
Room 543a
School of Chemistry, Building F11
The University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
E: adam.bridgeman@sydney.edu.au
T: +61-2-9351-2731
F: +61-2-9351-3329
W: http://sydney.edu.au/science/chemistry/~bridge_a

Career Highlights

  • 1986-90 BA Hons (Chemistry), St. Catherines College, Oxford, UK
  • 1990-91 PGCE (Chemistry), University of Birmingham, UK
  • 1991-94 PhD (Inorganic Chemistry), Trinity Hall, Cambridge, UK
  • 1994-99 College Lecturer, Newnham College, Cambridge, UK
  • 2000-03 University Lecturer, University of Hull, UK
  • 2003-06 Senior Lecturer, University of Hull, UK
  • 2004 RSC Higher Education Teaching Award
  • 2004 University of Hull Teaching Fellowship Award

Areas of Interest

  • Computational inorganic chemistry
  • Bond order and the nature of the chemical bond
  • Electronic structure of polyoxometalates
  • Using electronic resources in chemical education

Research

Computational Study of Polyoxometalates

Polyoxometalates are a huge and structurally diverse class of compounds with remarkable but poorly understood chemical and physical properties. They are prototypical of the highly praised nanomaterials, displaying a versatility that raises interest in various domains of catalysis, magnetism, medical biology and functional materials. Their diversity, size and complexity make rational design of functional nanomaterials a real challenge. We have published the first studies of their vibrational spectra and fundamental studies of their electronic structure. We are currently developing a global framework for predicting their structures and spectroscopic properties.

The Electronic Structure of Transition Metal and High Temperature Molecules

We use density functional theory to model the structures, energetics and spectroscopy of transition metal complexes. For example, we have recently developed a method for calculating the polarized ligand-field spectrum of transition metal complexes with potential applications in bioinorganic and organometallic chemistry.

Fundamental Investigations of Classical Chemical Concepts

Bond order and valence are key to our everyday understanding of chemistry and chemical processes. We are interested in probing the relationship between quantum theory and these comcepts. For example, we have developed software to calculate chemical connectivity ab initio and a graphical device to detect delocalized and hypervalent interactions. The figure below shows the connections in the Anderson polyoxometalate with colour-coded bond strengths and the presence< of a pseudo-aromatic loop.

Chemical Education

We develop and study the effectiveness of electronic resources for enhancing education, including the use of simulations, calculators and games on the web and on mobile phones. We are also researching the role of language in science education and the development of language oriented pedagogical methods.
Examples are available on the First Year Chemistry website: firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au

Publications (2009 to 2012)

  1. Bridgeman, AJ; Courcot, B and Nguyen, T. Modelling the circularly and linearly polarised spectrum of [Ni(en)3]2+. Dalton Transactions, 41 (17), 5362-5367, 2012. DOI: 10.1039/c2dt12319c

  2. Courcot, B and Bridgeman, AJ. Modeling the interactions between polyoxometalates and their environment. Journal of Computational Chemistry, 32 (15), 3143-3153, 2011. DOI: 10.1002/jcc.21894

  3. Ling, CD and Bridgeman, AJ. Quantitative analysis in the general chemistry laboratory: Training students to analyze individual results in the context of collective data. Journal of Chemical Education, 88 (7), 979-982, 2011. DOI: 10.1021/ed1011458

  4. Courcot, B and Bridgeman, AJ. Optimization of a molecular mechanics force field for type-II polyoxometalates focussing on electrostatic interactions: A case study. Journal of Computational Chemistry, 32 (8), 1703-1710, 2011. DOI: 10.1002/jcc.21752

  5. Bridgeman, AJ; Rutledge, PJ; Todd, MH and Connor, R. A treasure hunt for chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education, 88 (4), 437-439, 2011. DOI: 10.1021/ed100867m

  6. Courcot, B and Bridgeman, AJ. Optimization of a molecular mechanics force fiedl for polyoxometalates based on a genetic algorithm. Journal of Computational Chemistry, 32 (2), 240-247, 2011. DOI: 10.1002/jcc.21610

  7. Lock, N; Wu, Y; Christensen, M; Cameron, SL; Peterson, VK; Bridgeman, AJ; Kepert, CJ and Iversen, BB. Elucidating negative thermal expansion in MOF-5. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 114 (39), 16181-16186, 2010. DOI: 10.1021/jp103212z

  8. Courcot, B and Bridgeman, AJ. Which atomic charges are best adapted to describe polyoxometalates? International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, 110 (12), 2155-2161, 2010. DOI: 10.1002/qua.22515

  9. Courcot, B and Bridgeman, AJ. Structural and vibrational study of [Mo7O24]6- and [W7O24]6-. J. Phys. Chem. A, 113 (39), 10540-10548, 2009. DOI: 10.1021/jp9063438