Professor Joe Gilroy was born in Nanaimo, BC and grew up in Port Alberni, BC on Vancouver Island where he attended Alberni District Secondary School (ADSS).  After growing tired of small town life, he moved South, first to Malaspina University College (now Vancouver Island University) and then to the University of Victoria where he completed his B.Sc. in 2003.  He began his Ph.D. under the tutelage of Prof. Robin Hicks in 2003, working on a variety of projects involving stable radicals and their metal complexes, ligand design, and molecule-based magnetism.  After graduating in 2008, Dr. Gilroy was on the move again, joining the group of Prof. Ian Manners at the University of Bristol (UK).  His work in the Manners group spanned a number of areas including the synthesis and self-assembly of metal-containing polymers, mechanistic organometallic chemistry, and the chemistry of pi-conjugated, conducting polymers.

At Western, Dr. Gilroy leads the Gilroy Group, a synthetic materials chemistry group exploring many aspects of inorganic and polymer chemistry in order to realize materials with applications in a number of globally relevant areas including alternative energy research and the discovery of advanced materials with applications in catalysis and advanced sensing technologies.