We are excited to add to our team Chris Gendy, a new postdoctoral co-worker. Chris comes to us after Ph.D. work with Roland Roesler at Univ. Calgary, and postdoctoral work with Heikki Tuononen at Univ. Jyväskylä and Doug Stephan at Univ. Toronto. Chris is pursuing his interests in low-coordinate iron compounds in our lab, and we’re happy to have him as a coworker for the next months!

Congrats to Conner Wilson and DK Kim, whose paper on a salen-supported cobalt(IV) isopropyl complex has now appeared in J. Am. Chem. Soc. They generated this species at low temperature, and looked at its reactivity and spectroscopy (the latter in collaboration with Brian Hoffman’s group). These were interpreted through essential DFT calculations by Reagan Hooper (assisted by Rinaldo Poli). We learned that the complex has significant contribution from a resonance form that is cobalt(II)-(isopropyl cation), which explains its unusual Co-C bond energy, redox potential, reactivity, and catalytic relevance. Great job, all!

Danny Broere, a recent postdoc in the group, is having great success in his independent academic position at Utrecht University. He was highlighted by Angew. Chem. recently (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202206596). Keep it up, Danny!

Congrats to Reagan Hooper and Kazimer Skubi on their new paper in Inorganic Chemistry. Kaz came up with an inventive new SCS pincer that can be metallated through a C-H activation reaction, and Reagan did extensive characterization and computations. This turned out as a fabulous story that shows interesting information about proton binding to the ligand, and the balance of orbital energies with binding of a nearby alkali metal. Great work!