Valerie earned her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Towson University. She then pursued graduate studies under the supervision of Prof. Erik Alexanian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a Burroughs-Wellcome and Venable Fellow she synthesized a series of oxygen-centered radical precursors to achieve olefin difunctionalizations and developed an N-haloamide reagent for selective aliphatic C-H halogenation. She subsequently moved to the laboratory of Prof. Paul Chirik at Princeton University where she studied as a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow. While at Princeton, Valerie synthesized reduced iron and cobalt complexes supported by redox active ligands that catalyze [2+2] cycloadditions of unactivated alkenes. She then made the journey across the country to join the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego in July 2016.

Degree: B.S. UC San Diego 2025

Research Interests: Synthesis, Silicon, Phosphorus, Sulfur

Strengths: Collecting plushies, night demon

Fatal flaw: Plushies

Patronus: Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum)

Degree: B.S. Harvey Mudd College 2022

Research Interests: catalysis, synthesis,

Strengths: catching pokemon

Fatal flaw: staying awake

Patronus: Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens)

Degree: B.S. UC Merced 2022

Research Interests: Bismuth, Catalysis, Colorful Reactions

Strengths: Glove box troubleshooting, trinket collecting

Fatal flaw: Speling

Patronus: Northern Racoon (Procyon lotor)

Degree: B.S. UC Merced 2021

Research Interests: methods development and synthesis, radical reactions

Strengths: chocolate

Fatal flaw: chocolate

Patronus: Eurasian blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)