Lew Mander

Who is Lew Mander?

Lewis Norman Mander, FAA, FRS is a New Zealand organic chemist. He has widely explored the synthesis and chemistry of the gibberellin class of diterpenes over a 20-year period.

Lew Mander completed a BSc degree at the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 1960, followed by an MSc degree in 1961 from the same institution. He then moved to Australia in 1962 to undertake a PhD degree at the University of Sydney before committing to an initial Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan with Bob Ireland. Mander then moved with Ireland to Caltech in 1965 for an additional two years. Mander then returned to Australia in 1966 to join the academic fraternity as a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry at the University of Adelaide. Mander was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Organic Chemistry in 1970 where he remained until 1975 when he relocated to the Australian National University Research School of Chemistry as a Senior Fellow where he has risen through the ranks to become one of Australia's leading Organic Chemistry professors. In 2004 the Australian Journal of Chemistry published a special issue for the occasion of Mander's 65th Birthday.