My research area is organic chemistry, where the goal is to synthesize biologically active molecules. Enzymes are used as catalysts to synthesize enantiomerically pure biologically active compounds by kinetic resolution of racemic compounds or asymmetric synthesis of prochiral substances. Several master students are now working on chemo-enzymatic synthesis of enantiomerically pure drugs.

After 11 years of employment as an analysis chemist and quality manager in Lilleborg factories in my hometown Kristiansund, I have a Cand. Mag. and Cand. scient. (master's degree studies) from NTNU in 1994. I obtained a master's degree in Biotechnology at the Department of Chemistry in September 1999 and defended my doctoral degree in Organic Chemistry at the same department in May 2004. I was then employed as a senior engineer at the department, and from 2005 as associate professor. My teaching subjects are general chemistry, organic chemistry, natural substance chemistry and spectroscopic methods.

I now teach organic chemistry for technology students and several other study programs at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, as well as an advanced laboratory course in organic synthesis for master's students in organic chemistry.

I offer biocatalysis in organic chemistry and natural product chemistry as well as asymmetric synthesis as guided self-study to master's students who wish to take these special courses.

From 2019 to 2022 I was the project manager for an EU project called GreenCAM; Green Chemistry for Advanced Materials in collaboration with the University of Bucharest, Romania. Colleagues at the Department of Chemical Process Engineering also participated in this project.

https://www.ntnu.edu/greencam

I have been involved in several EU-funded collaborations, the last one being Systems Biocatalysis - which ended in 2017.

I am a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Society of Applied Biocatalysis (ESAB) and since 2023 I am the Treasurer of the Board of the same organization.

https://esabweb.org/About/Board.html

From 2024 I have been project manager in the project Sustainable Synthesis of Drug Targets, Machine Learning, Chemoenzymatic Resolution and Advancing Tech-transfer Chemical Education in India and Norway which is a collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, India. The project is funded by the Directorate of Higher Education and Competence (HK-dir), Norway and the University Grants Commission, India. My collaborator here is Professor Debayan Sarkar and the project has already involved several student and staff exchanges and participation in several international conferences.