Organic Chemistry
Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894)
Norbert Rillieux, widely considered to be one of the earliest chemical engineers, revolutionized sugar processing with the invention of the multiple effect evaporator under vacuum. Rillieux’s great scientific achievement was his recognition that at reduced pressure the repeated use of latent heat would result in the production of better quality sugar at lower cost. One of the great early innovations in chemical engineering, Rillieux’s invention is widely recognized as the best method for lowering the temperature of all industrial evaporation and for saving large quantities of fuel.
Sugar manufacturers around the world in Cuba, Mexico, France, and Egypt, as well as the United States, adopted Rillieux’s evaporator. Moreover, the device was not limited to sugar production but came to be recognized as the best method for lowering the temperature of all industrial evaporation and for saving large quantities of fuel.
Source: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/norbertrillieux.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Rillieux
Julia Lermontova (1846-1919)
In 1877, after the death of her father, she moved to Moscow with her family, and began working in Markovnikov's laboratory, in oil research. She was the first woman to work in this area of research. Additionally, she developed a device for the continuous distillation of petroleum, however the device was unable to be adapted to an industrial scale.
At the January 1878 conference of the Russian Chemical Society, A. P. Eltekov reported on a new method of synthesizing hydrocarbons of the formula CnH2n, which Butlerov noted that many of these experiments had been previously conducted by Julia. This research later became of value when highly branched hydrocarbon synthesis was further studied for its industrial production and use for some types of motor fuels. This process later became known as the Butlerov–Eltekov–Lermontova's reaction
Vera Popova (1867-1896)
Vera Yevstafievna Popova was a Russian chemist. She was one of the first female chemists in Russia, and the first Russian female author of a chemistry textbook. She "probably became the first woman to die in the cause of chemistry" as a result of an explosion in her laboratory which occurred while she was attempting to synthesize H-C≡P (methylidynephosphane), a chemical similar to hydrogen cyanide.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Yevstafievna_Popova
Anna Volkova (d.1876)
Anna Feodorovna Volkova was a Russian chemist working predominantly with amides. During the late 1860s, she was educated in chemistry through public lectures at St. Petersburg University. She was the first woman to graduate as a chemist (1870), the first woman member of the Russian Chemical Society, the first Russian woman to publish a chemical work, and regarded as the first woman at all to publish her own chemical research from a modern chemical laboratory.
From 1869, she worked in the laboratory of Alexander Nikolayevich Engelhardt. She led practical courses for female students in St. Petersburg under the tutelage of Dmitri Mendeleev. In 1870, she was the first chemist to prepare pure orthotoluenesulfonic acid and its acid chloride and amide. She was also the first to prepare paratricresol phosphate, a component of a now-important plasticizer, from para-cresol.
One of the craters of Venus is named after her.
Astrid Cleve (1875-1968)
Cleve's early research, in 1895 and 1896, included studies of diatoms in the high-altitude lakes in the Lule Lappmark region. She published work identifying and drawing newly discovered diatoms from Arctic lakes. She also surveyed the plant ecosystems in the far north regions and their adaptations to the harsh environment. Between 1896 and 1898, Cleve published four chemistry papers, all of which concerned nitrogenous organic chemicals in varying structures. Her research on ytterbium, also performed at Uppsala University, was published after she moved to Stockholm University; she discovered the atomic weight and various other properties of the element. She obtained her doctoral degree in May 1898 at Uppsala University, 23 years old, on a thesis entitled "Studies on the germinating time and the juvenile stage of some Swedish plants". She was the second Swedish woman to do so, and the first in a scientific discipline. From 1898 to 1902, she was employed as an assistant professor of chemistry at the Chemical Institution at Stockholms högskola (later Stockholm University) which proved progressive in its willingness to hire women. During her tenure at Stockholm, she published a paper on lanthanum and selenium. She left the chemistry department upon her marriage to Hans von Euler-Chelpin, with whom she published 16 papers in the five years after her departure. The couple worked on nitrogenous organic compounds, the synthesis of ketoses from formaldehyde, metal-ammonia complexes, the chemicals in resin, and industrial alcohol synthesis.
St. Elmo Brady (1884-1966)
St. Elmo Brady is the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States—earned from the University of Illinois in 1912. Brady also became the first African American admitted to the University’s chemistry honor society, Phi Lambda Upsilon, and he was one of the first to be inducted into Sigma Xi, the science honorary. After completing his doctoral degree, Brady taught at historically black universities, including Tuskegee Institute, Howard University, Fisk University, and Tougaloo College, leaving an impressive teaching legacy of strong undergraduate and graduate chemistry programs.
Salimuzzaman Siddiqui (1897-1994)
Siddiqui is credited for pioneering the isolation of unique chemical compounds from the Neem (Azadirachta indica), Rauwolfia, and various other flora. As the founder director of H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, he revolutionised the research on pharmacology of various domestic plants found in South Asia to extract novel chemical substances of medicinal importance. During his career, Siddiqui published more than 300 research papers and obtained 40 patents mainly from the field of natural product chemistry. In addition to his scientific talents, Siddiqui was also an avid painter, a poet, and a great connoisseur of Western music. His paintings were exhibited in the United States, Germany, India, and Pakistan.
Rachel Fuller Brown (1898-1980)
Rachel Fuller Brown was a chemist best known for her long-distance collaboration with microbiologist Elizabeth Lee Hazen in developing the first useful antifungal antibiotic, nystatin, while doing research for the Division of Laboratories and Research of the New York State Department of Health. Brown received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and her Ph.D from the University of Chicago. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994.
Nystatin, still produced today under various trade names, not only cures a variety of potentially devastating fungal infections, but has also been used to combat Dutch Elm disease in trees and to restore artwork damaged by water and mold.
Dorothy Virginia Nightingale (1902-2000)
She began her career teaching at the University of Missouri, and returned there after earning her PhD. When she joined the faculty at the University of Missouri she was one of only two female chemistry instructors. During her time there she published numerous papers, focusing in particular of chemiluminescence and explaining the Friedel-Crafts reaction. Her work helped to build a more complete scientific understanding of these complex chemical reactions. In addition, her work had a significant impact on the development of production methods for various chemicals that involve dangerous reactions such as high-octane gasoline, synthetic rubbers and plastics, and detergents.
From 1942-1945 she served as a consultant to the United States’ Office of Scientific Research and Development. In 1959, she was award the Garvan Medal, given by the American Chemical Society, for distinguished service to chemistry. In 1975, she published the book A History of the Department of Chemistry: University of Missouri-Columbia, 1843-1975.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Virginia_Nightingale
Allene Rosalinde Jeanes (1906-1995)
Listed among the ingredients of countless foods, such as salad dressing, ice cream, canned soup, and condiments, is a mysterious-sounding substance called xanthan gum. This groundbreaking product and a process for producing it in large quantities was discovered in the 1950s by chemist Allene Rosalind Jeanes. It has since become an indispensable thickening and texturizing agent not only for foods but also for a wide range of cosmetic, automotive, and healthcare products.
After completing her doctoral work, Jeanes accepted a position with the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., where she served as a corn industries research foundation fellow until 1940, when she moved on to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northern Regional Research Lab (NRRL) in Peoria, Illinois. She spent the majority of her career with the NRRL, remaining with the organization until her retirement in 1976.
Source: https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/allene-jeanes; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allene_Jeanes
Anna J. Harrison (1912-1988)
In 1942 while on leave from teaching during World War II, Harrison conducted secret wartime research at the University of Missouri. In 1944, she conducted research on toxic smoke for the National Defense Research Committee, the A.J. Griner Co. in Kansas City, Missouri and Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York. This work was instrumental in the creation of smoke-detecting field kits for the United States Army. She received the Frank Forrest Award from the American Ceramic Society for her research.
In 1945, she joined the chemistry department at Mount Holyoke College as an assistant professor. Harrison's research focused on the structure of organic compounds and their interaction with light, particularly in the ultraviolet and far ultraviolet bands. She received a grant from the Petroleum Research Fund Advisory Board of the American Chemical Society for "an experimental study of the far ultraviolet absorption spectra and photodecomposition products of selected organic compounds."
Henry McBay (1914-1995)
As a graduate student at Atlanta University, Henry analyzed properties of plastics in an effort to learn how they compared and contrasted with natural rubber. He received an MS in organic chemistry in 1936. Upon receiving his MS degree, he spent the next 4 years teaching chemistry at Wiley College.
In 1942, he enrolled in the graduate program at the University of Chicago and received a PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1945. McBay’s dissertation topic, “Reactions of Atoms and Free Radicals in Solution," came by chance. Organic chemist Prof. Morris Kharasch assigned him to synthesize commercially unavailable compounds using acetyl peroxide. In collaboration with his advisor, he developed a method for safely handling these compounds and then for synthesizing other compounds for them. Their most important development was to synthesize from acetyl peroxide, a protein that proved to be useful in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Source: https://aaregistry.org/story/henry-mcbay-was-a-great-scientist/; https://www.nobcche.org/henry-c--mcbay-award
Elizabeth MacGregor Hardy (1915-2008)
Elizabeth MacGregor Hardy was a North American chemist who discovered the Cope rearrangement while working in Arthur C. Cope's research group at Bryn Mawr College. The rearrangement drew upon the electronic models of Edward D. Hughes and Christopher Kelk Ingold, but also the non-electronic work of Rainer Ludwig Claisen and Ernst Tietze.
Hardy worked as assistant professor of Organic Chemistry at Bryn Mawr College in 1939 and 1940. In the years 1942–1958, Hardy worked as a chemist at Calco Chemical Division, subsequently she worked as a literature chemist at Lederle Labs from 1958 to 1975. After working for Lederle, Hardy worked as a senior resident literature chemist for American Cyanamid Company from 1975 on. She was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society and Chemical Institute of Canada. Hardy worked in a number of different research areas including molecular rearrangements, preparation of unsaturated esters and ketones, vat dyestuffs, esterification of leuco vat dyes, organosulfur compounds, and pharmaceutical chemistry. Hardy has a considerable number of publications and patents under her name and in collaboration with other scientists.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hardy_(chemist); https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja01859a055
John Cornforth (1918-2013)
Sir John Cornforth was an Australian–British chemist whose life and career were shaped by a hearing disorder that left him profoundly deaf by the age of 20. In 1975, he received a Nobel Prize for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions.
After his arrival at Oxford and during World War II, Cornforth significantly influenced the work on penicillin, particularly in purifying and concentrating it. Penicillin is usually very unstable in its crude form; as a consequence of this, researchers at the time were building upon Howard Florey's work on the drug. In 1940, Cornforth and other chemists measured the yield of penicillin in arbitrary units to understand the conditions that favoured penicillin production and activity, and he contributed to the writing of The Chemistry of Penicillin.
In 1946, the Cornforths, who had by now married, left Oxford and joined the Medical Research Council (MRC), working at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), where they continued on earlier work in synthesising sterols, including cholesterol. The Cornforths' collaboration with Robinson continued and flourished. In 1951, they completed, simultaneously with Robert Burns Woodward, the first total synthesis of the non-aromatic steroids. At the NIMR, Cornforth collaborated with numerous biological scientists, including George Popják, with whom he shared an interest in cholesterol. Together, they received the Davy Medal in 1968 in recognition of their distinguished joint work on the elucidation of the biosynthetic pathway to polyisoprenoids and steroids.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cornforth; https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/diversity-in-science/scientists-with-disabilities/john-cornforth/; American Science Language for chemistry at https://aslcore.org/
Lloyd Noel Ferguson (1918-2011)
Ferguson then earned his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from University of California, Berkeley in 1943, making him the first African American to do so. After receiving his Ph.D., he took a faculty position at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College and then approximately two years later moved to Howard University, where he became the chair of his department and founded a doctoral program there, the first in chemistry at any black college.
Ferguson is the author of seven chemistry textbooks and more than 50 research papers. His research included work on organic chemistry, the relation between structure and function in biochemistry, chemotherapy treatments for cancer, and the chemical basis for the human sense of taste. In 1972, Ferguson was one of the founders of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers.
Source: https://aaregistry.org/story/lloyd-noel-ferguson-chemist-born/; https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/lloyd-noel-ferguson-research-chemist-and-educator https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Six-black-chemists-should-know/97/web/2019/02
Samuel P. Massie Jr. (1919-2005)
Born July 3, 1919 in North Little Rock, Arkansas, Samuel Proctor Massie was as one of the few African American scientists to work on the Manhattan Project during World War II. He later became a distinguished professor of chemistry.
He conducted pioneering silicon chemistry research and investigated antibacterial agents. With two midshipmen and colleagues from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, he was awarded a patent for chemical agents effective in battling gonorrhea.
Source: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/massie-samuel-proctor-1919-2005; https://aaregistry.org/story/samuel-massie-a-genius-and-20th-century-chemist-and-teacher/
Luis E. Miramontes (1925-2004)
The scientific contributions of Luis Miramontes are extensive, including numerous publications and nearly 40 national and international patents in different areas such as organic chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, petrochemistry and atmospheric chemistry and polluting agents. Among his multiple contributions to world science is the synthesis on October 15, 1951, when Miramontes was only 26 years old, of norethisterone (norethindrone), that was to become the progestin used in one of the first three oral contraceptives (combined oral contraceptive pills).
Madeleine M. Joullié (b. 1927)
Madeleine M. Joullié is a French-born American organic chemist. She was the first woman to join the University of Pennsylvania chemistry faculty as well as the first female organic chemist to be appointed to a tenure track position in a major American university. She was one of the first affirmative action officers at the University of Pennsylvania.
Working with Judah Folkman at Harvard Medical School and Paul B. Weisz at the University of Pennsylvania, Joullié helped to synthesize beta-cyclodextrin sulfate, a ring-shaped sugar molecule that attaches to the walls of growing blood vessels. By capturing and delivering cortisone molecules, it decreases the growth of new capillaries. Chemotherapies can thus target aberrant angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels, and restrict the growth of malignant tumours. Joullié's specialized compounds made Folkman's original treatments 100 to 1000 times more potent. Beta-cyclodextrin sulfate is also useful in limiting restenosis, growth of cells on artery walls that can lead to blockages at the site of surgical procedures.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_M._Joulli%C3%A9
George Ellis Johnson Sr. (b. 1927)
In 1944, he went to work as a production chemist for S. B. Fuller, the Chicago-based Fuller Products Company, a Black-owned cosmetics firm. Encouraged by a German-born chemist at S. B. Fuller, George Johnson parlayed a $500 loan into a multi-million dollar cosmetics business to found Johnson Products Company. Johnson Products became the first Black owned company to be listed on the American Stock Exchange in 1971. That same year Johnson became the first African-American to be elected a director on the board of Commonwealth Edison.
The company's first product was Ultra Wave, a hair relaxer for men. In 1957, Ultra Sheen, a revolutionary hair straightener that could easily be used in the home, was introduced for women. During the next quarter century, more product lines were introduced like Afro Sheen. Afro-Sheen, one of Johnson's best-known products, was released in the late 1960s, at a time when the "Afro" became a popular hairstyle for African Americans.
Source: https://aaregistry.org/story/george-e-johnson-was-a-natural-businessman/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Johnson_Sr.
Osamu Shimomura (1928-2018)
Osamu Shimomura is a Japanese organic chemist and marine biologist, and Professor Emeritus at Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and Boston University School of Medicine. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein (GFP) with two American scientists: Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and Roger Tsien of the University of California-San Diego.
John R. Cooper (1930-2016)
Dr. Cooper has several patents in development of fluorine-rubber compounds that are resistant to heat which have applications for seals in jet engines. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Yale University in 1952 and was awarded a doctoral degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Cincinnati four years later.
Dr. Cooper has several patents in the development of fluorine-rubber compounds resistant to heat, with applications for seals in jet engines. The Cooper Family of three then moved to Wilmington, Delaware where Dick worked thirty-five years employed by the E. I. DuPont Company. He had seventeen patents as Director of Environmental Affairs. He ran their Research and Development Division from 1969 until his retirement.
Source: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/african-americans-in-sciences/john-r--cooper.html; https://aaregistry.org/story/john-r-cooper-chemist-born/
Irina Beletskaya (b. 1933)
Irina Petrovna Beletskaya is a professor of chemistry at Moscow State University. She specializes in organometallic chemistry and its application to problems in organic chemistry. She is best known for her studies on aromatic reaction mechanisms, as well as work on carbanion acidity and reactivity. She developed some of the first methods for carbon-carbon bond formation using palladium or nickel catalysts, and extended these reactions to work in aqueous media. She also helped to open up the chemistry of organolanthanides.
Jean'ne Shreeve (b. 1933)
After earning her Ph.D. in 1961, Shreeve took a post as assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Idaho, where she has remained for her entire career, bar short stints as a visiting professor at various institutions, including the University of Cambridge. Her time at Cambridge was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Ramsey Fellowship.
She has spent much of her career advocating for women chemists and research into fluorine chemistry, serving on a variety of committees for the American Chemical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Throughout her career, Shreeve has published 468 scientific papers and earned one patent. She is known for working with highly energetic nitrogenous and fluoridated compounds, and created syntheses for a variety of widely used rocket propellant oxidizers.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean%27ne_Shreeve; Image by http://www.inventricity.com/jeanne-shreeve-chemist-inventor;
Ryōji Noyori (b. 1938)
Ryōji Noyori is a Japanese chemist. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001, Noyori shared a third of the prize with William S. Knowles for the study of chirally catalyzed hydrogenations; the second third of the prize went to K. Barry Sharpless for his study in chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions (Sharpless epoxidation).
Noyori is most famous for asymmetric hydrogenation using as catalysts complexes of rhodium and ruthenium, particularly those based on the BINAP ligand. (See Noyori asymmetric hydrogenation) Asymmetric hydrogenation of an alkene in the presence of ((S)-BINAP)Ru(OAc)2 is used for the commercial production of enantiomerically pure (97% ee) naproxen, used as an anti-inflammatory drug. The antibacterial agent levofloxacin is manufactured by asymmetric hydrogenation of ketones in the presence of a Ru(II) BINAP halide complex.
He has also worked on other asymmetric processes. Each year 3000 tonnes (after new expansion) of menthol are produced (in 94% ee) by Takasago International Corporation, using Noyori's method for isomerisation of allylic amines.
Darshan Ranganathan (1941-2001)
Darshan Ranganathan was an organic chemist from India who was known for her work in bio-organic chemistry, including "pioneering work in protein folding." She was also recognized for her work in "supramolecular assemblies, molecular design, chemical simulation of key biological processes, synthesis of functional hybrid peptides and synthesis of nanotubes."
Ranganathan's special passion was reproducing natural biochemical processes in the laboratory. She created a protocol which achieved the autonomous reproduction of imidazole, an ingredient of histadine and histamine with pharmaceutical importance. She also developed a working simulation of the urea cycle. As her career developed, she became a specialist in designing proteins to hold a wide variety of different conformations and designing nanostructures using self-assembling peptides.
Slayton A. Evans Jr. (1943-2001)
Professor Slayton Evans Jr. was born in Chicago, IL, in 1943 but spent his childhood in Meridian, Mississippi. Upon moving south, the Evans’ family lived in a segregated public housing project and Slayton and his younger brother and sister attended a segregated Catholic School. Slayton helped pay for his school tuition by mowing lawns and by working as a junior assistant janitor at his elementary school. His interest in chemistry began early, when he was given a chemistry set. Slayton’s initial plan was to enlist in the Air Force with the goal of eventually becoming an astronaut, but his height disqualified him from flight training. Instead, he was able to secure both an academic and athletic scholarship to cover his higher education at Tougaloo College.
Prof. Evans was the first Black chemistry professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where we made significant contributions to the field of organophosphorus chemistry and specifically in asymmetric synthesis. Prof. Slayton also had an outsized impact through his mentorship of students from underrepresented groups, including winning the ACS Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences. His namesake memorial lecture is used to highlight contributions from contemporary chemistry faculty from underrepresented groups and also funds a STEM outreach program with local HBCUs.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slayton_A._Evans_Jr.; https://chem.unc.edu/slayton-evans-memorial-lectureship/
Eusebio Juaristi (b. 1950)
Dr. Juaristi is an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV) at México City. He is a world leader in the anomeric effect field. Member of the National College, Fellow of the American Chemical Society, 1998 National Award of Sciences and Arts, 1990 Manuel Noriega Award of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Source: https://twitter.com/LatinXChem/status/1286346383570743299
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba (b. 1951)
He was born in Solares village, municipality of Medio Cudeyo, in Cantabria autonomous community. He obtained a doctorate in chemistry at Complutense University in Madrid, where he went on to become a professor of chemistry, specializing in reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry. He represented Toledo in Congress from 1993 to 1996, Madrid from 1996 until 2004, Cantabria from 2004 to 2008 and, despite not being Andalusian, was put forward for the safe parliamentary seat of Cádiz in the 2008 election, which he won.
Antonio M. Echavarren Pablos (b. 1955)
Antonio M. Echavarren Pablos is a Spanish chemist who has contributed to the recent advances in gold and palladium chemistry.
He obtained his PhD at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 1982. Since 1992 he is a full professor at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, where he heads the Research Group on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis. Since 2004 he is working as Group Leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_M._Echavarren; Image by https://alchetron.com/Antonio-M-Echavarren
Amir H. Hoveyda (b. 1959)
Amir H. Hoveyda is professor of chemistry at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA, and currently holds the position of department chair. He studies asymmetric catalysis, and is particularly noted for his work on developing catalysts for asymmetric olefin metathesis. In recent years he has worked extensively with N-heterocyclic carbenes as ligands. His research also focuses on copper-catalyzed allylic alkylations and conjugate additions using these ligands.
Prof. Hoveyda received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1986, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He received the Cope Scholar award from the American Chemical Society in 1998.
Ingrid Montes
Ingrid Montes received a B.S. in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. She has taught chemistry at this Institution for 32 years, earning Full Professorship and tenure in 1998. Dr. Montes has two areas of current research: Organometallic chemistry and Chemical education. In the organometallic chemistry area, she explores the synthesis and characterization of various ferrocene derivatives and studies their potential applications including as redox-sensors, polymers and in drug design. She develops new methodologies applying green chemistry principles.
Dr. Montes is an American Chemical Society and IUPAC (International Pure and Applied Chemistry) Fellow; this year was selected as one of the twelve IUPAC 2017 Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering, deserved the 2012 ACS Volunteer Service Award, since 2013, Honorary Member, Golden Key International Honour Society, and has received many recognitions In Puerto Rico and internationally.
Source: http://chemistry.uprrp.edu/index.php?page=ingrid-montes; https://www.ingridmontes.org/home/bio/
Margaret Faul
Faul received her undergraduate degrees from University College, Dublin before embarking on doctoral studies with Professor David A. Evans at Harvard. Her studies focused mostly on metal-catalyzed nitrene transfer reactions to produce aziridines, strained nitrogen precursors valued as pharmaceutical intermediates. Faul introduced multiple new wrinkles into this chemistry, including using chiral copper(I) catalysts to produce enantiomerically-enriched aziridines, and using a variety of different nitrene sources for the transfer.
Faul joined the process chemistry group at Eli Lilly in 1993, and joined Amgen's process group in 2003, rising eventually to its Executive Director. According to a biosketch at Organic Syntheses, Faul has expertise in Good Manufacturing Process scale-up of both chemical and biological therapeutics, and coordinates groups of external partners through licensing, regulatory, and program development issues.
Source: https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i13/Executive-reveals-Amgen-shifted-greener.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Faul
M. Christina White
M. Christina White was born in Athens, Greece where she lived until the age of five. She received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Smith College, where she worked with Professor Stuart Rosenfeld in the area of host-guest chemistry. After a brief stint in the biology graduate program at Johns Hopkins University working with Professor Christian Anfinsen, she began her doctoral studies in chemistry under the direction of Professor Gary Posner. During that time, she initiated the hybrid Vitamin D3 analog program in his group.
In 1999, she joined Professor Eric Jacobsen's labs at Harvard University as an NIH postdoctoral fellow. During this time, she developed the first synthetically useful methane monooxygenase (MMO) mimic system for catalytic epoxidations with hydrogen peroxide. Christina began her independent career as a member of the chemistry faculty at Harvard University in July of 2002. She joined the department of chemistry at the University of Illinois in the summer of 2005, where she is currently a Professor of Chemistry. Her group's research interests center around the development of highly selective C—H functionalization methods for streamlining the process of complex molecule synthesis.
Source: http://www.scs.illinois.edu/white/index.php?p=mcw_bio
Tehshik Yoon
Yoon was born in Montreal, Quebec and grew up in Blacksburg, VA. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he became fascinated by organic chemistry working in the laboratories of leading experts in contemporary asymmetric synthesis. He investigates how the energy-packed punch that photons deliver can open new realms of organic reactions. The University of Wisconsin–Madison professor specializes in developing photochemical techniques that drive a reaction to produce a desired molecule.
Yoon says his identity as a gay man is an integral part of his scientific success. “I could probably draw a straight line from the self-preservation mechanisms I put in place as a queer youngster all the way to where I am now,” he says. Stories like his highlight the fact that identity is not incidental to a chemist’s scientific work, he says. For him, it is central.
Source: https://chem.wisc.edu/staff/yoon-tehshik-p/; https://cen.acs.org/articles/100/i12/Tehshik-P-Yoon-wields-light-to-open-new-possibilities-for-organic-synthesis.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehshik_Yoon
Melanie Sanford
Melanie Sanford is an American chemist, who currently works at the University of Michigan, where she holds the positions of Moses Gomberg Collegiate Professor of Chemistry and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry.
Sanford is best known for her studies of high-valent organopalladium species, particularly those implicated in Pd-catalyzed C–H functionalization reactions. She has received numerous awards and honors, including a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship and the 2013 Sackler Prize in Chemistry. She is also a Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Sanford; Image by http://umich.edu/~mssgroup/people.html
André K Isaacs
A native of Jamaica, André moved to the US to attend the College of the Holy Cross where he received his B.A. in Chemistry in 2005. As an undergraduate, he conducted research in the labs of Kevin J. Quinn focusing on the total synthesis of annonaceous acetogenins Muricatacin and Rollicosin. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 (under the guidance of Professor Jeffery D. Winkler), where he focused on the design and synthesis of novel steroid-derived inhibitors of Hedgehog-signaling, based on the alkaloid cyclopamine. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher with Professor Richmond Sarpong at the University of California, Berkeley, where he focused on the synthesis of diterpenoids and the radiolabeled insecticide chlorantraniliprole. In 2012, Andre accepted a tenure-track position at the College of the Holy Cross. In 2018, Andre was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. In addition to teaching courses in Organic Chemistry, Andre conducts research utilizing copper-mediated organic transformations. He is one of the co-founding members of Outfront - the college's LGBTQ faculty and staff alliance and serves as faculty advisor to a number of student groups including the Caribbean African Students' Assemblage, acapella group Fools on the Hill and Club Tennis.
Source: https://www.isaacslab.com/people.html; https://cen.acs.org/articles/100/i12/Andre-Isaacs-inspires-future-chemists-on-social-media-and-on-campus.html
Anne M. Andrews
Anne Andrews is Professor of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA, Andrews leads efforts in basic and translational research on anxiety and depression, and at the nexus of nanoscience and neuroscience. Andrews' interdisciplinary research team focuses on understanding how the serotonin system and particularly, the serotonin transporter, modulate neurotransmission to influence complex behaviors including anxiety, mood, stress responsiveness, and learning and memory. Dr. Andrews was a guest of the White House during President Obama's announcement of the BRAIN initiative, which she helped to shape.
Source: https://www.serotonin.ucla.edu/pages/people; https://axial.acs.org/2018/02/26/anne-andrews-discovery/
Sarah Reisman
Sarah Reisman began her independent career at Caltech in 2008. Since that time, she has established a world-class, innovative research program on the total synthesis of a diverse array of complex biologically active natural products. The creativity of her research has provided not only advances in fundamental chemistry but also lasting additions to the repertoire of useful methods available to synthetic chemists.
The group completed the first enantioselective total syntheses of (–)-acetylaranotin (40 years after its isolation), (–)-maoecrystal Z, (–)-8-demethoxyrunanine, and (–)-cepharatines A, C and D. Their total synthesis of (+)-ryanodol was completed in 15 synthetic steps, a significant improvement on the previous shortest synthetic route of 35 steps developed by Masayuki Inoue of the University of Tokyo. In 2019, Reisman and coworkers published the first total synthesis of isoryanoid diterpene (+)-perseanol in Nature. Other completed total syntheses include natural products (+)-naseseazines A and B, (+)-salvileucalin B, (+)-psiguadial B and (+)-pleuromutilin. The group's reaction methodology work has focused primarily on nickel catalysis, cycloadditions, and opening of strained-ring precursors.
Source: https://www.thieme.de/en/thieme-chemistry/winner-of-the-women-in-chemistry-award-has-been-announced-140149.htm; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_E._Reisman
Morgan Cable
Dr. Morgan Cable is a Technologist in the Instrument Systems Implementation and Concepts Section at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. She is also the Assistant Project Science Systems Engineer for the Cassini Mission, which has been exploring the Saturn system for over 10 years.
Morgan’s research focuses on organic and biomarker detection strategies, through both in situ and remote sensing techniques. While earning her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, she designed receptor sites for the detection of bacterial spores, the toughest form of life. As a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at JPL, Morgan developed novel protocols to analyze organics such as amines and fatty acids using small, portable microfluidic sensors. She is currently working as a Collaborator on the Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE), an instrument selected for NASA’s next mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa; this spectrometer will map Europa’s surface and search for organics, salts and minerals.
Source: https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/people/m_cable Image by: https://cen.acs.org/physical-chemistry/astrochemistry/Morgan-Cable/96/i33