Department of Chemistry
University of Basel
Mattenstrasse 22
Postfach
CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland
email: catherine.housecroft@clutterunibas.ch

Catherine Housecroft was born in Bradford, England where she was educated until University level. She gained both her BSc (1973-76) and PhD (1976-79) degrees at the University of Durham, UK (St Aidan's College), studying for her PhD under the supervision of Professor Ken Wade where her long held interest in main group clusters began. The introduction to clusters containing both boron and transition metal elements was made during her Postdoctoral work with Professor Tom Fehlner at the University of Notre Dame, USA. After a year on the Faculty of the University of New Hampshire, USA, Catherine took up a position as College Lecturer at Newnham College at Cambridge University, and was soon appointed as a Royal Society Research Fellow and then as a University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Department of Chemistry. In 1994, she moved to the Department of Chemistry at the University of Basel, becoming a Titular Professor in 1998. Between 2000 and 2002, Catherine held a position as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham, UK where she was also Director of Education. She returned to Basel in 2002.

She is currently Editor-in-Chief of CHIMIA, and she has been an Associate Editor of Coordination Chemistry Reviews, and from 1997-2022 was one of the Senior Editors for the inorganic chemistry journal Polyhedron. 

In addition to research which is run jointly with Professor Edwin Constable, one of Catherine's major interests is promotong chemical education. She is a member of the board of the Swiss Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Education and is editor for the Chemical Educaiton Columns in CHIMIA.