Michael O’Neill grew up in Leeds before studying Chemistry on a Hastings Scholarship at the Queen’s College, Oxford. His MChem project in the Aldridge Group was on iridium-boron bonding. After studying IP law at QMUL and teaching in a secondary school, he did a PhD with Sally Boss and Paul Barker at Churchill College, Cambridge on the binding behaviours of Ru(II) organometallic drug candidates. This included a short research visit to Monash University with Phil Andrews.

Michael has held academic teaching positions at the University of Hull (where he was Programme Director of the BSc and MChem programmes) and the University of Oxford (where he was Associate Director for Assessment & Feedback on the OxICFM Centre for Doctoral Training). He joined the University of Liverpool in 2024.

Michael’s recent scholarship has centred (i) teaching inorganic topics effectively, and (ii) some of the political questions relating to Chemistry degrees. He was part of the PERIODically podcast team which won the RSC’s 2024 Horizon Prize in Education.