Chen Research Group 

Group News

10/02/2024: Congratulations to Gabriel Negrao de Morais and Marisa Ih on their recent publications in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Organic Letters, respectively!

05/15/2024: Congratulations to Isabella Moppel and Barbara Elliott (former STRONG Scholar) on the publication of their paper in Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry! This is our first work focused on amino acids -- some of Nature's most popular molecules -- yielding interesting insight into their intermolecular hydrogen-bonding behavior in radical cationic form. 

03/23/2024: We are beyond excited to announce that Professor Chen has received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation! The award will enable a spectrum of new research developments in selective transition-metal catalysis in our lab, as well as support educational initiatives designed to foster broader, more equitable participation in STEM fields by underrepresented groups.

03/22/2024: Marisa Ih and Zachary Cheng traveled with Professor Chen to present their work at the ACS Meeting Spring 2024 in New Orleans! An incredible trip filled to overflowing with chemistry inspirations, Cajun food, and rotund cat worship.

12/31/2023: It's been a while! Greetings from the down under, where Prof. Chen has been spending a fantastic time as a Visiting Scholar at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. More importantly -- congratulations to all of our group members/alums who have put out marvelous papers since the last update! They are:

4/28/2023: Julia Cronin, Nola Smith, Gabriel Negrao de Morais, Kyogo Nagashima, Marisa Ih, Peter Choi  and Barbara Elliott (STRONG Scholar) present their work as part of the the Oberlin College Undergraduate Research Symposium. Aziz Mohammed also gives his Honors talk at the same event!

4/4/2023: Congratulations to Hieu Nguyen on the publication of his collaborative paper on Pd-catalyzed hydrazone chemistry with the Lv and Li groups in Angewandte Chemie!

3/23/2023: Congratulations to Drew Dansby, whose collaborative paper with the Meggers group on the expedited synthesis of α-amino acids is published in Nature Synthesis today!

1/3/2023: We are excited to kick off Winter Term 2023 with Aziz Mohammed (Honors student), Gabriel Negrao de Morais, Kyogo Nagashima, Reefayat Bin Shahjahan, Marisa Ih and Barbara Elliott (STRONG Scholar)! 

12/15/2022: Professor Chen receives a competitive Research Status award from Oberlin College, which will support her scholarship during her 2023–2024 sabbatical year. 

10/19/2022: We are awarded a grant from the ACS Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) to carry out synergistic computational-experimental research on complex post-transition state bifurcations in reactions between boroles and unsaturated hydrocarbons. Thank you, ACS-PRF!

10/10/2022: Group alum Elizabeth Rigby's collaborative paper with the Ellman group is published in ACS Catalysis. Congratulations Elizabeth!

9/15/2022: Group alum Sam Le's collaborative paper with the Houk (UCLA), Glorius (Uni Münster) and Brown (IU Bloomington) groups is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Congratulations Sam!

8/5/2022: Peter Choi and Cassie Davies both scored new publications today! Check out Peter's collaborative paper with the Meggers group in ACS Catalysis and Cassie's collaborative paper with the Wang group in Nature Communications! In other news, we conclude our first-ever summer research period with Nola Smith and Hieu Nguyen, laying down another milestone for the lab.

6/16/2022: Our paper on visible light-mediated diastereoselective epimerization of lactams with the Ellman and Mayer groups is published in  ACS Catalysis. Congratulations to Cassie Davies!

5/20/2022: Group member Sam Le receives the David A. Evans '63 Chemistry Scholarship. Congratulations Sam!

5/17/2022: Our collaborative paper with the Lv and Li research groups is published in ACS Catalysis. Aided by computational chemistry, we were able to predict and experimentally implement an elegant regiodivergent defluorinative allylation reaction using gem-difluorocyclopropanes. Congratulations to group member Anna Crowell on an awesome first publication! 

5/13/2022: Anna Crowell, Sam Le,  Sofia Bielinski Leitão (STRONG Scholar) and Ophelia Ortiz (STRONG Scholar) present their work at the Oberlin College Undergraduate Research Symposium!

4/4/2022: Professor Chen co-authors a publication in Nature Chemistry with the Meggers research group! We demonstrate that non-covalent interactions, such as π–π stacking, hold the key to stereocontrol in a novel synthesis of chiral α-amino acids catalyzed by Ru and Fe complexes.

3/15/2022: We are awarded computational time to study several transition metal-catalyzed reactions through the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). Thank you XSEDE! 

1/25/2022: Seven Obies will be joining our group to take on our Winter Term 2022 projects. A warm welcome to Jay Aghanya, Katie Austin, Sofia Bielinski Leitão (STRONG Scholar), Julia Guenther, Ophelia Ortiz (STRONG Scholar),  Emma Rekate, and Clayton Ritter!

8/24/2021: Group member Sam Le receives the Norman C. Craig '53 Chemistry Scholarship. Congratulations Sam!

8/18/2021: Anthony Gao makes it two in a week with this insightful paper in the Journal of Organic Chemistry (JOC) elucidating the unexpected outer-sphere mechanism that explains the selectivities in Ru-catalyzed hydroalkylations of 1,3-dienes and enynes!

8/14/2021: Group member Anthony Gao's collaboration with the Meggers group on Rh-catalyzed α-deracemization of ketones is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Congratulations Anthony! 

5/1/2021: The group website is up and running!