Dr. David Leitch

Biography

David Leitch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Victoria, specializing in organic synthesis, catalysis, and process chemistry. He holds a BSc and PhD from the University of British Columbia, as well as a Postdoctoral Fellowship from McGill University and an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Caltech. His research focuses on mapping chemical space to understand mechanistic complexities across entire classes of reactions, predicting catalyst performance, and developing new methods to access novel chemical materials. The Leitch group's central goal is to combine state-of-the-art high-throughput experimentation with data analytics and physical organic chemistry to deepen the understanding of organic reaction systems. This knowledge is then applied to address practical problems at the forefront of drug discovery and development. David is also passionate about teaching all aspects of organic chemistry, particularly its physical and mechanistic aspects, synthesis, and catalysis, along with their applications in drug discovery and development.

Research Interests