It is bittersweet to bid farewell to three group members who are graduating with their Ph.D. degrees. We will sorely miss them but of course recognize that they are on to more exciting chemistry in their careers! Dongyoung Kim in his graduate career moved our group into catalytic radical reactions of iron complexes, established multiple new collaborations with Phil Baran, Ryan Shenvi, and Rinaldo Poli, and was a source of enthusiasm and energy in the lab. He is going on to a postdoctoral position with Seung-Jun Hwang at POSTECH in his home country of South Korea. Daniel Kim also had a lot of success with the mechanistic elucidation of cobalt-catalyzed organometallic reactions, specifically alkene hydrosilylation and isomerization. His super hard work and endless ideas have been inspirational for his five years in the group. Daniel is moving on to a postdoc with Sukbok Chang at KAIST in his home country of South Korea. Last but not least is Gannon Connor, who was a joint student with Jim Mayer and enlivened both groups with deep insights and positive attitude. Gannon was the leader and progenitor of our now-thriving collaboration with Alex Miller and Alan Goldman, and also led numerous amazing outreach efforts with Common Ground, a local sustainability-based high school. Gannon is moving on to a consulting position, where he will share his great insights and encouragement with many others into the future. We are incredibly proud of all three of these awesome chemists, and look forward to their continued accomplishments.
