Christoph Riesinger

Christoph was born and raised in Passau, Germany. He completed his B. Sc. in Chemistry just around the corner at the University of Regensburg in 2017, where he stayed to pursue his M. Sc. degree in Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis, funded by the Elite Network of Bavaria. A short project in Prof. Neil Burford´s group at the University of Victoria in 2019 ignited his fascination with main group chemistry. After returning to Regensburg, he finished his master´s thesis working on cationic group 15 complexes as mimics of fundamental organic and organometallic compounds. This glimpse into the intricate relationships between main group elements inspired Christoph to continue onward and pursue a PhD with Prof. Manfred Scheer. This work focused on establishing electrophilic functionalization of poly-Phosphorus and poly-Arsenic ligands as a general method to access highly reactive cationic group 15 species stabilized via coordination to a transition metal and was funded by a PhD fellowship of the Studienstiftung des dt. Volkes e. V. After completing his PhD in 2023 and a short stay with Prof. T. Don Tilley at the University of Berkley, USA he again returned to Regensburg and indulged in the second of his fascinations (besides inorganic chemistry) – crystallography. In summer 2025, he joined the Crimmin group at Imperial College London as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow to work on bimetallic complexes for cooperative C-H activation. Besides applying his skillset to synthetically relevant problems, this will expand his toolbox towards transition metal coordination chemistry, catalysis and their investigation with computational methods. Outside of the lab, Christoph is usually found climbing weird rocks, hiking on mountains or travelling around the world.