A Tribute to Phil Dean, 1943-2025
Phil Dean, a cherished member of Western’s Chemistry Department since 1971, died very suddenly and unexpectedly on Dec. 28, 2025, after a long and distinguished career at Western. He will be sorely missed by his devoted and loving wife Midge, children Mike and Erin, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, along with many faculty and staff in the Chemistry and other Departments at Western.
Phil grew up in the “famous” (his humorous characterization) town of Middleton (current population 47,000), in Greater Manchester, England. An excellent student, he did his B.Sc. (1964) and Ph.D. (1967) at Imperial College, London. He did his Ph.D. with a well-known eccentric British scientist, Dennis Evans, and several well-cited very detailed articles on 19F NMR of Sn and Sb fluoro-complexes resulted. Also, many humorous stories evolved from that experience. Phil then did a post-doc with the well-known Canadian inorganic chemist, Ron Gillespie at McMaster University, resulting in many more well-cited publications on fluoro-complexes of main group metals. He started his independent academic career at Washington University in St. Louis, and the Chemistry Department at Western was fortunate to attract him in 1971 as an Assistant Professor. He was the last hire for several years. The Department under Howard Clark was a very active, hardworking, productive, and collegial place. With his excellent interpersonal skills, good judgement, and a good sense of humor, he was very important in keeping the Department collegial in many ways throughout his whole career with important contributions to teaching, research, administration and outreach. He rose in the academic ranks to Associate Professor (1976) and Professor (1984), becoming Associate Chair of Chemistry (1997-2005) and Associate Dean of Science (2005-2007) before his retirement in 2008.
Phil was a very effective teacher, with many years teaching first year chemistry, third year inorganic chemistry, and a graduate inorganic course. Shorter periods were also spent in the second-year inorganic course.
Phil immediately established a very active research program preparing new complexes of main group compounds of mainly Zn, Cd, and Hg with S, Te and Se ligands, with characterization using x-ray diffraction and multi-nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. The preparation of these compounds provided several olfactory stinks through the department! His expert glass blowing skills were critical to the preparation of many of these air-sensitive complexes. So-called adamantane-like cage molecules were of particular interest because they can be models for biological molecules. His two sabbaticals (and three shorter visits) to Sydney, Australia (1993-2008) with Ian Dance were particularly noteworthy for Phil (and Midge), and over 15 publications resulted from his research with Ian and Gary Willett. In the last seven years, his research efforts were revived in earnest (at the age of 75) with collaboration with Wayne Nesbitt (Earth Sciences) and Mike Bancroft. Using GAUSSIAN programs inherited from Peter Guthrie, Phil churned out hundreds of alkali silicate structures on his many laptop computers at home. His sharp insight, self-deprecating humour, and ever present smile, were always present at the very enjoyable Thursday morning meetings (the last on Dec. 18, 2025!) with Mike and Wayne. This research has already resulted in six papers, and two more are close to completion.
Phil had relatively few graduate students and post-docs (total of ten) over his career, but he supervised over twenty fourth year researchers. Perhaps the most notable coworkers were J.J. Vittal (with whom he published over 40 papers) who became a Chemistry Professor at the University of Singapore, and Don Phillips, who became the Anglican Bishop of Rupert’s Land in Manitoba/Northwestern Ontario from 2000-2018. The others were gainfully employed as teachers and industrial researchers.
He was very active with administrative activities, in addition to being Associate Chair of Chemistry and Associate Dean. For example, he served on many department committees over the years and served on the Western Senate and Senate committees between 1999 and 2007.
Phil always generously donated a lot of time and effort to outreach activities on behalf of the chemistry and broader scientific communities in Southwestern Ontario. He is best known for initiating the Southern Ontario Undergraduate Student Chemistry Conference (SOUSCC) in 1973. SOUSCC provides about a hundred 4th year undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry research students with the opportunity to showcase their research with Ontario's and neighboring regions' chemical community. This conference has been held every year since; and Phil was recently honored at the 52nd annual SOUSCC at Western University. In an invited presentation, Phil shared the history and spirit of SOUSCC, along with his encouragement to continue the annual conference. Since 2012, Phil was also a yearly judge at many science fairs for high school students such as the Thames Valley Science and Engineering Fair, and the Bluewater Regional Science Fair.
In his retirement, he again generously donated his time to several worthy activities in London at the Garrison Community Council (GCC) at the Wolseley Barracks Oxford St. and at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church on St. James St. At the GCC, he was responsible for the bursaries they give out to students who are in the forces now and who are intending to stay in forces as they get their education and beyond. At St. John’s church, he and Midge prepared dinners for at least ten years for the disadvantaged. He also donated plasma at least twice a month for decades.
Phil was a wonderful human being, kind and humble, yet not devoid of opinions. He was an enthusiastic mentor to many students and junior faculty. He loved and supported Midge for years during her serious health issues and cherished all the moments he could spend on their property on Manitoulin Island with Midge and their family. He was always grateful for his productive and enjoyable life in Canada.
