Morken Research Group

Synthetic organic chemistry has undergone a paradigm shift over the past 15 years with new metal-catalyzed transformations enabling bond formation in ways that chemists previously only dreamed about.

Realizing the impact that new catalytic asymmetric reactions will have on the continued evolution of organic synthesis, we have focused our research on the development of new processes and on studying their utility in complex molecule synthesis. Control of enantioselectivity is an overarching theme as adequate control of molecular shape is paramount in the design of effective therapeutics, materials, and commodity chemicals. Our progress towards these goals depends upon expertise in many areas of chemistry including organometallic chemistry, physical organic chemistry, and synthetic organic chemistry. Additionally, computational chemistry plays a central role in ligand design and in prediction of reaction outcomes.

May 19, 2025

Today is Commencement at Boston College and we are proud to see one of our undergrads graduate and prepare for graduate school. Best of luck Bill at UC Irvine! We're expecting great things from you. 

April 09, 2025

Congrats to Hao for his recent publication in JACS, on the in-depth investigation of oxygen coordination in the transmetallation of boron to copper! Check it out here! 

February 04, 2025

Congrats to Hao and Lorenzo for their work on the stereodivergent desymmetrization of cyclic 1,4-allyldiboronates, in collaboration with our colleagues at Pfizer! Check it out here! 

January 06, 2025

Massive welcome to our newest member, Kelsey!

August 21, 2024

Congratulations to Mingkai, Matt & Hao for their work, Catalytic asymmetric synthesis of meta benzene isosteres, now out in Nature!

July 02, 2024

Huge congratulations to Hao and Mike for the publication of Stereospecific Phosphination and Thioetherification of Organoboronic Esters in JACS, out today!

July 01, 2024

If you're interested in synthesising enantioenriched vicinal diborons from terminal alkenes, go check out our Org. Synth. prep by Chenpeng & Paul, checked by Matthieu Maciejewski in the Yoon Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison!

June 25, 2024

Congratulations to Nina and John for publishing on the non-directed activation and functionalisation of diboronic esters in ACIE! Great work!

June 13, 2024

Paul presented his previous work on the enantioselective Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reaction, and his latest work on a migratory Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reaction at the American Chemical Society Connecticut Valley Section Symposium on Applied Synthesis.

May 08, 2024

Congratulations to Nina (Ningxin) Xu for passing her thesis defense! She's now working at Amgen in Cali.!

January 18, 2024

Congratulations to Zinnia (Ziyin) Kong for passing her thesis defense! She's now working at Relay Therapeutics in Mass.!

December 13, 2023

Paul will be heading to Ulm, Germany in March 2024 as a Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) Delegate to the JungChemikerForum der GDCh Spring Symposium!

December 12, 2023

Welcome to our newest members of the group Sarah, Jin Ook, Trevor, Ling, and Jared!!!

December 01, 2023

We were excited to host Professor Suginome to Boston College where he gave a fantastic seminar, and enjoy dinner together afterwards.

August 31,2023

Want to learn about the activation of enantiomerically enriched tertiary alkylboronic esters in cross-coupling reactions? Read our new paper on substrate plasticity enables group-selective transmetalation: catalytic stereospecific cross-couplings of tertiary boronic esters on JACS! Nice work Hao! 

August 16, 2023

Read about the enantioselective synthesis of 1,2-diborylsilanes and subsequent site-selective cross-coupling on ACS Catalysis! Fantastic work Ziyin (Zinnia) and Weipeng! 

July 27, 2023

Congratulations to Mingkai - the recipient of this year's Fall 2023 ACS graduate student symposium travel awards! 

July 24, 2023

Read about the enantioselective construction of carbocyclic and heterocyclic tertiary boronic esters by conjunctive cross-coupling reaction on JACS! Nice work, Xuntong (Charlie) and Chenpeng! 

June 15, 2023

Paul is an invited speaker for the Northeastern Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in the "Enablement of Novel and Sustainable Cross-Coupling Methodologies for Increasing Saturation" section!

June 8, 2023

Congratulations to our second-year students Matt, John, Paul and Xieyang for passing their oral qualification exam! 

April 26, 2023

A new paper by Hao Liang is now available on JACS today and is absolutely worth a read! Come and learn about a stereospecific transmetalation of alkylboronic esters to zinc!  

April 6, 2023

Huge congrats to Mingkai and Paul for their new JACS paper on desymmetrization of vicinal bis(boronic) esters! Check it out! 

Mar 15, 2023

Jasmin has received this year's John Kozarich Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship! Congrats! 

Mar 12, 2023

Nina's abstract has been accepted and she will be presenting at this year's Gordon Research Conference: Organic Reactions and Processes in July! Congratulations and stay tuned! 

Jan 25, 2023

Congratulations to Chenpeng and Chris for their paper getting accepted at JOC which shares some new electronically asymmetric ligands that enable palladium-catalyzed conjunctive cross-coupling!