Seminar Abstract: Organic photoredox catalysis enables the conversion of light energy into chemical reactivity through photoinduced electron transfer processes. However, achieving highly reducing photochemistry typically requires high-energy light, which can lead to undesired side reactivity and limited light penetration. Lower-energy visible light offers advantages in selectivity, scalability, and compatibility with complex environments, but its reduced […]

Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) is a powerful technique for probing nanoscale structure and morphology in materials with long-range order on the nanometer scale (1–100 nm) but which may not be crystalline, including polymers, proteins, biomaterials. Conventional X-ray diffraction (XRD) can struggle with these materials due to their amorphous nature or large feature sizes. This seminar […]

Seminar Abstract: Many natural products and pharmaceuticals have complex polycyclic structures that present synthetic challenges. There are many powerful reactions (Diels-Alder, Pauson-Khand, Grubbs ring-closing metathesis, Wender arene-alkene photocycloadditions, and others), but new ring formations are always in high demand. For the last 20 years, my group has pioneered in the development of more than twenty […]

Seminar Abstract: Transition metal catalysis has revolutionized chemical synthesis. Reactions such as metal-catalyzed cross coupling, asymmetric hydrogenation and C–H functionaliza-tion have changed the way chemists approach bond constructions and ultimately expand molecular space. Historically, these reactions are catalyzed by closed-shell precious metal complexes that undergo predictable and reliable two-electron redox changes. The increased emphasis on […]

Seminar abstract: Research in the Romero Polymer Lab focuses on the development of novel methodologies for precision synthesis and functionalization of polymeric materials, seeking to address longstanding challenges in stimuli-responsive materials, optoelectronically active polymers, and polymer sustainability. Our efforts utilize a variety of synthetic tools to achieve molecular-level control over polymer structure and properties, with […]

Seminar Abstract: Electrocatalysis has the potential to enable sustainable chemical infrastructures via the generation of commodity chemicals such as hydrogen, hydrocarbons, and ammonia with renewable energy, but electrochemical devices such as electrolyzers often exhibit inadequate activity and stability for these transformations due to poor catalyst performance for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The Moreno-Hernandez Laboratory […]

Seminar Abstract: Crystalline material bulk properties are directly related to the disorder inherent in all crystals. Often thought to be purely random, disorder tends to follow strict rules based on short-range environments. Traditional crystallographic methods probe long range order and so fail to describe the short-range correlations in disordered materials that often contribute observed phenomena. […]

Seminar Abstract: Understanding proteins in their native environments and the full conformational landscapes they explore is essential for linking structure to function. This seminar focuses on lipoxygenases (LOXs), a family of non-heme, primarily iron-containing enzymes that catalyze the regio- and stereospecific oxygenation of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) released from membranes by phospholipases. While phospholipases rely […]

Abstract: Despite many excellent medical achievements in the field of cancer therapies, resistance to chemotherapy as well as disease relapses remain a huge clinical challenge. One of the strategies in designing new anticancer therapeutics is the use of compounds based on metal ions surrounded by selected ligands (metal drugs). Different metal centers may exhibit different […]

Seminar Abstract: Transformations of common molecular building blocks can broadly impact chemical synthesis in contexts ranging from the discovery of medicinally relevant small molecules to industrial-scale chemical production. This lecture will describe our efforts in harnessing new modes of reactivity in radical chemistry and organometallic catalysis to streamline the syntheses of diverse small molecules. First, […]

Seminar Abstract: We have developed a photopolymerization route to well-defined ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) (co)polymers. This photoiniferter polymerization approach reaches molecular weights in excess of 107 g/mol with degrees of polymerization above 100,000. We have observed that as synthetic polymers reach UHMW, many of the established relationships that connect chain length to physical and solution […]

Seminar Abstract: Long chain ligands have long been used to control size and shape of nanocrystals by binding to growing surfaces, but we have discovered rich molecular chemistries with the precursors that completely change the fate of the reaction.  To discover the fundamental rules behind phase control, it is important therefore to identify reactions that […]

Seminar Abstract: In this seminar, I aim to describe what it is like to work at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI), how the application and interview process works, and takeaways I have gleaned from being on the other side of the interview process. We will talk about the types of PUIs out there, what the day-to-day life of a PUI […]

About the seminar: The design of paramagnetic coordination complexes with temperature-dependent chemical shifts is a major goal in biomedicine as it would allow temperature to be measured in vivo by MRI. While such behavior is well-established in lanthanide complexes on account of their magnetic anisotropy, transition metal thermometry is still in its nascent stages. Our laboratory reports two Fe(II) […]