Simon Lukato

Simon Lukato was born in Masaka in Uganda and grew up in a small village in Luwero, Uganda. He received a BSc (Chemistry/Physics) at Makerere University in Uganda. In 2020, he defended his MSc thesis entitled “Supported Silver and Copper Catalysts for Selective Oxidation of Alcohols using Molecular Oxygen as Oxidant” under the supervision of Dr. Emmanuel Tebandeke (Makerere University - Uganda), Prof. Ola F. Wendt (Lund University - Sweden) and Dr. Gabriel N. Kasozi (Makerere University – Uganda). In October, 2021, he joined the Faculty of Chemistry at University of Warsaw – Poland to work on his PhD. His scientific interests focus on green chemistry and sustainable catalysis to guide him in designing catalytic systems for utilization of CO2, valorisation of waste and low grade chemicals for sustainable chemical production and environmental protection and remediation. In his current PhD project, under the supervision of Prof. Grzegorz Litwinienko, Dr Michał Wojcik and Dr Agnieszka Krogul-Sobczak, he is focusing on the synthesis of nanoclusters encapsulated in stable porous metal organic frameworks for efficient direct carboxylation of selected alcohols particularly glycerol and primary propargylic alcohols with CO2 to form cyclic carbonates of high value.