08/2022– to date Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry, School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan 

01/2015–07/2022 Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry, School of Science and Technology / School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan 

06/2013–06/2014 Research Fellow
CaRLa – Catalysis Research Laboratory, BASF SE, Heidelberg, Germany

09/2010–02/2013 Research Associate
Chemistry Department, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

09/2006–05/2010 Teaching Assistant
Chemistry Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

05/2006–08/2010 Research Assistant
Chemistry Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

12/2000–05/2006 Research Assistant
Chemistry Department, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

08/2005–11/2005 Visiting Research Scholar
Chemistry Department, KTH School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden

06/2005–07/2005 Visiting Research Chemist
Chemistry Research Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K.

12/2004–06/2005 NMR Technician/Operator (part time)
«Chemrar»/Chemical Diversity Research Institute Ltd., Moscow, Russia

Current research interests:

• Homogeneous catalysis for sustainable chemical and energy technologies
• Activation of small molecules by transition metal complexes for their conversion into liquid fuels and chemical feedstock
• Development of new abundant/economical metal catalysts for chemo-, regio-, and enantioselective transformation of organic substrates into value-added products
• Materials and catalysts for photocatalytic and electrocatalytic transformations and environmental catalysis.

BSc courses: General Chemistry, General Chemistry Laboratory, Organic Chemistry I & II Laboratory, Research Methods, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Applied Homogeneous Catalysis.

MSc courses: Inorganic Structures and Reaction Mechanisms, Selected Topics in Chemistry, Directed Research in Chemistry, Scientific Methods in Chemistry, Organometallic Chemistry

PhD courses: Modern Inorganic Chemistry, Hot Topics in Chemistry, Research Methods and Ethics, Organometallic Catalysis

Dr. Andrey Khalimon received his Dipl. Chem. Degree (Diploma with Excellence) from M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia) in 2004 and Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Brock University (Canada) in 2010. His doctorate work with Prof. Georgii I. Nikonov was focused on the investigation of new catalytic methods and design of novel early transition metal catalysts for the reduction of challenging substrates. This included detailed mechanistic studies of catalytic reactions in order to make even better system with desired properties.

After his Ph.D., he joined the group of Prof. Warren E. Piers at the University of Calgary (Canada) as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, where he continued to work in the field of transition metal catalysis (photoinduced olefin metathesis) and materials chemistry (the development of Photo Lewis Acid Generators (PhLAGs) and their applications in advanced photolithography) in collaboration with the Intel Corporation (USA).

In 2013, Dr. Khalimon moved to Heidelberg in Germany and joined CaRLa (Catalysis Research Laboratory, BASF SE) as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. Working as a part of the team of industrial and fundamental chemists, he was involved in the development of the first catalytic system for direct synthesis of acrylates from CO₂ and olefins – a highly attractive process for chemical industry.

Dr. Khalimon joined Nazarbayev University as a faculty member in January 2015. 

Dr. Khalimon’s current research is mainly focused on the chemistry of the first-row transition metals and covers ligand design and many theoretical, synthetic and structural aspects of coordination and organometallic compounds. This research requires an extensive use of different physicochemical and spectroscopic techniques for characterization of transition metal complexes and study their properties and reactivity. A large part of his group research is devoted to understanding the reactivity of metal complexes and the mechanisms of catalytic reactions in order to develop even better systems with predictable properties and reactivity patterns.