Group News

Funding from CHASE Solar Energy

July 2020

We have learned that the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE) will be funded by the Department of Energy, and we are excited to initiate new projects linking solar energy and nitrogen reduction! CHASE is a new Solar Hub that is led at UNC-Chapel Hill and also includes five PIs at Yale (Mayer, Hammes-Schiffer, Hazari, Wang, and Holland) as part of the efforts to convert the energy from sunlight into chemical fuels (“artificial photosynthesis”). This exciting development was also covered recently in Yale News.

Allie's paper in Chem. Sci.

July 2020

Congrats to Allie Nagelski, as we celebrate the acceptance of her paper describing an interesting series of diiron complexes with carbon bridges that give us insight into the role of carbon in the catalytic cofactor of nitrogenase. This paper had a winning combination of synthesis, N2 reduction to ammonia, electronic structure, and spectroscopy, and we benefitted from the contributions of our own Majed Fataftah on magnetism, Kyle Lancaster’s group on X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and Brandon Mercado on crystallography. This paper was chosen for a special 10th anniversary issue of Chemical Science.

Allie wins poster award

July 2020

Congratulations to Allie Nagelski, who won a prize at the Global Inorganic Discussion Virtual Poster Session! Allie gave a great poster describing her recent research on diiron compounds that model the structure and reactivity of nitrogenase.

Publication of Chem. Rev. issue

June 2020

The day has finally come! For the last two years, Pat has been planning a special issue of Chemical Reviews on nitrogen chemistry, and it has now come out (Editorial is at this link). The cover is splendid, and was designed, drawn, and managed by Allie Nagelski: check it out here. Thanks to the whole group for helping to brainstorm ideas, with special commendation to Kazimer Skubi for coming up with the issue title of “Reactivity of Nitrogen from the Ground to the Atmosphere” (as well as alternatives such as “Just N2 of Us: We Can Make It If We Try”).

Majed wins NIH fellowship

June 2020

Congratulations to Majed Fataftah on being awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship, to support his research on iron clusters as mimics of nitrogenase. Great job, Majed!

Daniel's hydrosilylation paper

June 2020

Congratulations to Daniel Kim on the publication of his paper on the mechanism of catalytic hydrosilylation by our cobalt catalyst system. This has been a long and difficult road - like all mechanistic papers - and it was a project that started from Chi Chen during our collaboration with Dan Weix at Rochester. Great job all around!

Dr. Dongyoung Kim

June 2020

Congratulations to Dongyoung Kim on the successful completion of his Ph.D. We are sorry to see him go, because his enthusiasm and curiosity have been a mainstay of the group for five years. He is returning to his home country of Korea for postdoctoral research with Seung Jun Hwang at POSTECH, and we look forward to his continued success!

Sean McWilliams wins DIC Young Investigator Award

April 2020

Our recent graduate Sean McWilliams is the recipient of a prestigious Young Investigator Awards from the Division of Inorganic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. These are given each year to the eight top inorganic chemistry Ph.D.s in the whole country. The journal Inorganic Chemistry recently described Sean and the other recipients in this article. Congrats to Sean!

NSF grant funded

April 2020

Congrats to Team Rhenium (Gannon and Jeremy) upon the renewal of our NSF grant on N2 splitting and ammonia formation. This is an awesome collaboration with Jim Mayer and Bob Crabtree at Yale, as well as Alex Miller at UNC and Alan Goldman at Rutgers. We’re looking for continued success and additional co-workers!

Honorable Mention to Jessica Armstrong

March 2020

Congratulations to Jessica Armstrong, who received an Honorable Mention from the National Science Foundation for her application for a graduate fellowship.

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