Declan is a first year PhD student in Professor Pat Guiry’s research group of UCD, starting in September 2019, where he is working in the field of asymmetric catalysis. For his undergraduate, he attended UCD from 2015 to 2019, receiving a 1st class honours degree in Chemistry. Here he completed his final year project under the supervision of Professor Declan Gilheany in the area of ligand design. He is interested in methodology, with his project focused on palladium catalysed decarboxylative asymmetric protonation/allylic alkylation (DAP and DAAA respectively) of Lactams.