Deanna D'Alessandro

Deanna Michelle D'Alessandro is an Australian chemist who is a Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Sydney. Her research considers fundamental aspects of electron transfer in molecular coordination complexes and in nanoporous materials, and the development of metal–organic frameworks for environmental applications including carbon dioxide capture and conversion.

In 2007, D'Alessandro joined Professor Jeff Long's group at the University of California, Berkeley where she was supported by the DOW Chemical Company's American-Australian Association Fellowshipand a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Fellowship. Here she began work in metal–organic frameworks for environmental applications including carbon dioxide capture. An important advance was the first successful design and synthesis of air and water stable alkylamine-based MOFs for postcombustion carbon capture which is the subject of an international patentin addition to a number of critical reviews.

D'Alessandro returned to Australia as a University of Sydney Postdoctoral Fellow in 2010. She was made a L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellow at the University of Sydney in the same year, and in 2011 received an Australian Research Council QEII Fellowship which allowed her to start building her own research group. Her research considers the design and development of novel inorganic materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for multifunctional electronic, optical and magnetic devices.

She has worked to develop materials that can adsorb and transform carbon dioxide.These MOFs are porous materials with very high surface areas which are also lightweight, low cost and potentially conductive. They behave like a sponge, and can capture and separate gases such as methane, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, amongst others.

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