Professor Lever's interests lie in electronic spectroscopy of inorganic systems, inorganic electrochemistry, phthalocyanine chemistry and electroanalytical chemistry leading to chemical sensors. Of late he has been especially involved in the theory and physical properties of inorganic complexes of redox active ligands.

Professor Lever was born in London in 1936 and was educated at the Imperial College of Science and Technology (B. Sc. and Ph.D.). Subsequently he worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow for Professor Nyholm and Lewis (now Lord Lewis) at the University College London, before taking up a Lectureship at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, in 1962. In 1967 he moved to Canada to take up an Assistant Professorship at York University in Toronto where he was subsequently promoted to Full Professor in 1972, and Distinguished Research Professor in 1997. Among his honours are the Alcan Lecture Award of the Chemical Institute of Canada (1981), and the Gerhard Herzberg Award for Outstanding Achievements in Spectroscopy, in 1996. He has published over 250 papers, is the author of two editions of "Inorganic Electronic Spectroscopy" (Elsevier Science 1968 and 1984), and co-editor of "The Phthalocyanines; Properties and Applications" (with C.C. Leznoff), Vols. 1 - 3, of a Series of Physical Bioinorganic Chemistry Texts (with Harry B. Gray), 5volumes and co-editor (with E.I. Solomon) of 2 volumes of "Inorganic Electronic Structure and Spectroscopy" (John Wiley, 1999). In 2000 he was honored with a two-year Killam Research Fellowship sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts.