The University of the West Indies has promoted Dr. Paul Reese to the post of Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, Mona.

Professor Reese’s appointment became effective October 9, 2002.

Paul Reese’s work is very well known in the field of Bio-organic Chemistry, a new interdisciplinary research area for the UWI. His work involves the isolation of natural products from local plants as well as the chemical and microbial transformation of those compounds which possess important biological activity. He is also an expert in structure determination, mechanistic chemistry, and synthesis, and has attracted several grants worth over US$300,000 for research and study. His investigations have led to findings that are important to the Caribbean and academia. These include the isolation of agents active against the cattle tick. He has discovered a new family of natural products (sesquiterpenoid) that are toxic to the adult sweet potato weevil. Studies on the preparation of relatives of some antiviral and anticancer compounds have also been carried out.

Professor Reese, a past student of Kingston College, graduated from the University of the West Indies with the Bachelor of Science Honours degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry in 1979. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Organic Chemistry (Steroid Reaction Mechanisms) from the University of Sussex, UK in 1984 and then pursued postdoctoral research on the "Biosynthesis of Fungal Antibiotics" and "Development of new 2D NMR Techniques" at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Paul Reese joined the Department of Chemistry in 1986 as a Lecturer and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1996. During this time he was also a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada/Canadian International Development Agency Research Fellow at the Chemistry Department, University of Alberta.

He has numerous publications in highly rated international journals and is also one of the inventors on a patent entitled "Medicaments for the treatment of Strongyloides stercoralis infections." He is the recipient of several honorific awards for scholarship. He is a Chartered Chemist, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (London), and a reviewer for papers submitted to journals such as Phytochemistry, Organic Letters, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, and Biotechnology Progress.

Professor Reese has served the UWI and his department in various capacities. He is the Organising Secretary for the biennial "Mona Symposium on Natural Products and Medicinal Chemistry," the longest running conference of its kind in the Caribbean. He has also been an executive member of the West Indies Group of University Teachers (WIGUT) for fifteen years and currently serves as Vice President.