Keith received an MSc in 1969 and a PhD in 1971 for his work in this area and was awarded a Royal Society European Exchange Fellowship to take up a postdoctoral
research position with Professor Albert Eschenmoser at the ETH in Zürich, Switzerland, where he contributed to a project on chlorophyll derivatives. While Keith was in
Switzerland, Andrew Pelter moved to Swansea University to take up a position as Professor of Organic Chemistry and a lectureship became available there. Keith was appointed to the position from October 1972 and rejoined his ollaboration with Pelter on organoboron chemistry. Among other reactions, they introduced methods for syntheses of unsymmetrical
conjugated diynes from the corresponding dialkyldialkynylborates, of secondary and tertiary alcohols from reactions of trialkylboranes with bis(phenylthio)alkyllithiums8 or 2-lithio-2-
alkylbenzodithioles, of N-substituted sulfonamides, and of dialkylbromoboranes
