The central theme behind the research in the Finke group is synthetic and mechanistic chemistry and biochemistry with an emphasis on chemical catalysis, polyoxoanion chemistry, bio-inorganic/bio-organic chemistry, inorganic and analytical chemistry, and materials chemistry.  Three primary research subareas currently are: (i) investigations of the synthesis, characterization and catalytic reactions of the inorganic metal-oxide materials known as polyoxoanions, especially their dioxygenase oxygenation reactions of organic substrates, (ii) nanocluster materials chemistry and catalysis, and (iii) studies of the intriguing Coenzyme B12-dependent enzyme ribonucleotide triphosphate reductase and the MeB12-dependent enzyme, methionine synthase.
Additional subtopics within these three areas include:  organic and organometallic synthesis; catalysis and the applications of catalysis to environmental problems, especially selective oxidation chemistry; physical-inorganic and physical-organic chemistry;  polyoxoanion inorganic and organometallic chemistry; materials chemistry, especially the synthesis, mechanisms of formation and catalysis of polyoxoanion-stabilized transition-metal nanoclusters, and selected efforts in protein biochemistry