Group News

New NSF grant

August 2015

We are excited about the start of our NSF-funded project in the Sustainable Chemistry program, “Catalytic Alkene Transformations Using High-Spin Cobalt Complexes.” In terms of research, this grant will support our further exploits in isomerization and hydrofunctionalization of alkenes. We are also very excited about the outreach component of the grant, which will involve the design of new laboratory experiments at Common Ground, sustainability-focused magnet high school in New Haven.

New cobalt paper in JACS

August 2015

We are excited about publication of an exciting low-coordinate cobalt-carbonyl complex, synthesized by Malik Al-Afyouni and Dan DeRosha in our group, and studied through spectroscopy and theory by the group of Frank Neese at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Germany. It gives insight into “sliding” motions of our supporting ligands, and also shows promise for magnetic molecules. Congratulations and thanks to the team!

Kudos to Chi Chen

August 2015

Congratulations to Chi Chen on the publication of his review article on steric and electronic effects in diketiminate-supported complexes. He was also recently chosen as the Yale representative to present research at an AbbVie symposium. Chi has also been very successful in new work on cobalt-catalyzed hydrosilylation, which was presented at the National ACS meeting in Boston, and hopefully will be published soon. Great work, Chi!

Happy arrivals and sad departures

July 2015

We are happy to host some great summer researchers: Viviana Marquez and David Minoli are Yale undergraduates who are taking part in research this summer with us, and we very much enjoy their contributions and energy.

We also bid farewell to some of the postdoctoral fellows in the group. Katarzyna (Kasia) Grubel has moved on to postdoctoral research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Simon Bonyhady is moving on to postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley, and Richard Lewis is going to a position at the FDA in Washington, DC. We all wish them the best of fortune and continued great chemistry as their careers progress!

Counting two Accounts

June 2015

The group has published in rapid succession two summaries of our research, both in the journal Accounts of Chemical Research. One describes our organometallic research, and the other describes our research on N2 reduction. The paper on N2 owes much to Sean McWilliams, who is pushing back the frontiers of iron-N2 chemistry in our lab.

NIH Fellowship to Sean McWilliams

June 2015

Congratulations to Sean McWilliams, who is the recipient of an Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health. This prestigious “F31“ fellowship will support his research efforts on new N2​ complexes of iron. Great job Sean!

New paper in Inorg. Chem.

May 2015

Congratulations to a longstanding group of students who put together an excellent story on an unusual complex where a diazoalkane is coordinated to cobalt. This work was started by Nicole Wedgwood and Jon Goldberg, undergraduate coworkers in the lab. After further study by sabbatical visitor Andy Eklund, it was wrapped up and filled out with expert computations through the work of postdoc Simon Bonyhady. And now, you can read about it!

New paper on [2Fe-2S] clusters

May 2015

Congratulations to our team of homophonic students, Meghan Rodriguez and Megan Reesbeck, whose study of new 2Fe-2S clusters was just accepted at the Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry. This was the result of a lot of work by both, as well as a number of spectroscopic collaborators and “checking duty” by Richard Lewis. Thanks to all!

Congraduations to Bechir and Emma

May 2015

Congratulations to Bechir-Auguste Pierre and Emma Brennan-Wydra, our two undergraduate coworkers, who graduated today from Yale College. We appreciate their hard work, and wish them the best in all their future endeavors.

Pat elected as Fellow of AAAS

November 2014

Pat Holland was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is an honor bestowed by peer scientists in recognition of contributions to advancing science. Pat was recognized for contributions to coordination chemistry, focusing on low-coordinate iron complexes.

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