Billy Ogden, Matt Bruzek, Katie McGarry, Lafe Purvis, Sarah Wegwerth, Zhuoran Zhang, and Nick Serratore coauthor “Partial Fluorination as a Strategy for Crystal Engineering of Rubrene Derivatives” in Cryst. Growth Des. (December 29)

Chris Douglas begins his sabbatical year. (December 22)

Ashley Dreis, Sadie Otte, Matt Eastwood, Elizabeth Alonzi, and Jason Brethorst coauthor “Diastereoselective Intramolecular Cyanoamidation with Alkenes” in Eur. J. Org. Chem. (December 13)

Connie Anderson and Steve Underwood pass their Written Preliminary Exams. (November)

Jef De Brabander (UT Southwestern) leads an AbbVie workshop, but Chris gets the flu and misses what the students say was an awesome two days. (November 11–12)

Zhongda Pan defended his thesis “Development of Catalytic C–CN, C–O, and N–CN Sigma-Bond Activation and Alkene Addition Reactions.” Dr. Pan will be moving to Delaware to begin his position with Affinity Research Chemicals, Inc. (October 28)

Marisa Kozlowski (U Penn) gives seminar on topics ranging from catalysis to organic materials to total synthesis. “That’s my kind of talk," says CJD (October 6)

Don Watson delivers a seminar on the heteroatomic Heck reaction. (September 29)

Jason Brethorst works with group alum Prof. Michael Wentzel (Augsburg College) as a participant in the MPACT program. Jason will shadow Prof. Wentzel in teaching organic chemistry and teach a few sessions himself. (September)

Lafe Purvis receives a Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program Grant to study organic solar cells at the SLAC National Accelerator laboratory at Stanford University with Dr. Michael Toney. (August 31) Read more

We wish long time department staff member and friend-of-the-group Christine Lundby a happy retirement. (August 31)

Chris Douglas serves as a facilitator and mentor at the Cottrell Scholar Collaborative New Faculty Workshop hosted by the ACS in Washington DC. The event is even more special this year. It is the first time a group alum attends as a new faculty member! (August 4–6)

Sarah Pound defended her thesis “Development of an Intramolecular Alkene Aminocyanation Reaction and Progress Toward the Total Synthesis of Drimentine C.” Dr. Pound will be moving to Delaware to post-doc with Mary Watson. (July 26)

Phillip Gemmel joins the group as a summer Lando REU student.

Zhuoran Zhang and Lafe Purvis present research at the 3rd year symposium. Zhuoran is the honorable mention in his section (June 7)

Zhuoran Zhang, Billy Ogden, and Victor Young coauthor "Synthesis, electrochemical properties, and crystal packing of perfluororubrene" in Chemical Communications (June 1)

Sarah Wegwerth receives Bowers Excellence in Teaching Assistance Award. (May 6)

Elizabeth Alonzi receives Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program funding. (May 2)

Mike Jung (UCLA) tells us the story of Xtandi & more at the AbbVie workshop: how to have fun, save lives, and do great medicinal chemistry. (April 29–30)

Connie Anderson receives the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. (March 31)

Spring Break (March 14–15)

Sarah Wegwerth presents research at the ACS National Meeting in San Diego, CA at the Total Synthesis and SciMix poster sessions. (March 13–14)

Scott Miller (Yale University) provides an inspirational AbbVie workshop – we loved the discussion on catalysis harking all the way back to Berzelius. (March 4–6)

Best wishes to Katie McGarry (Ph.D. 2013) towards her upcoming tenure-track position at University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point.

Jeffery Johnson (Hope College) provides a great seminar on activating C–C bonds at an undergraduate institution. (February 25)

Shengyang Wang passes her Oral Preliminary Exam. (January 26)

Matt Eastwood passes his Oral Preliminary Exam. (January 21)

Chris Douglas Starts teaching night school. CHEM 2302 is awesome in large doses, so get ready to learn 6–9 PM on Wednesday! (January 20)