David A. Leigh

David Leigh is a professor of organic chemistry and Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry at the University of Manchester. His research interests include chemical topology, molecular motors and machines, and supramolecular polymers. The awards and honors he has received include the Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Supramolecular Chemistry and the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland Award for Chemistry.

He is noted for the invention of fundamental methods to control molecular-level dynamics and entanglement, including strategies to construct rotaxanes, catenanes and molecular knots and some of the earliest synthetic molecular motors, molecular robots and functional nanomachines.