Projects

Harnassing Nature's chemistry (Prof. Bill Baker). Students will contribute to chemical analysis and spectroscopic characterization of metabolites from marine organisms with biomedical activity. Students will be exposed to the full natural product workflow, and gain skills in chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, biological screening, marine biology, and marine ecology.

Functional materials for organocatalysis (Prof. Kirpal Bisht). Students will synthesize and characterize a new class of macromolecular cavitand catalysts for aqueous reactions. Students will gain skills in organic and supramolecular synthesis and instrumentation.

Non-natural peptidomimetics mimicking bioactive peptides (Prof. Jianfeng Cai). Students will synthesize and characterize novel peptidomimetics as drug leads or probes for cellular processes. Students will gain synthetic and analytical chemistry skills.

Liposomes for PFAS sequestration (Prof. Theresa Evans-Nguyen). Students will explore sonification of lipid aggregates to sequester harmful pollutants like PFAS. Students will be exposed to range of analytical chemistry techniques including mass spectrometry and dynamic light scattering.

Taming radicals for organic synthesis (Prof. Minsoo Ju). Students will learn how new organic reactions are designed and developed. Students will acquire essential skills for synthetic chemists, including the synthesis, isolation, and characterization of organic compounds.

Metal organic framework materials for light harvesting (Prof. Randy Larsen). Students will synthesize and characterize guest-encapsulated metal organic framework materials for photochemical applications such as catalysis. Students will gain skills in inorganic synthesis and instrumentation.

Organic synthesis of natural products (Prof. Jim Leahy). Students will synthesize natural products with antibacterial or other medical activities. Students will gain skills in organic synthesis, isolation and characterization.

Supramolecular materials for lithium sensing (Prof. Wenqi Liu). Students will develop hybrid and polymeric materials embedding molecular receptors for selective lithium-ion capture from water, enabling sustainable lithium recovery. Students will learn to design, synthesize, and characterize lithium-ion receptors and assess their extraction performance using modern analytical techniques. 

Solvent-resistant sol-gel coatings (Prof. Abdul Malik). Students will work on novel materials for solvent-free extractions, and learn a range of analytical chemistry techniques and chemical synthesis.

Unraveling the non-catalytic functions of peptidylglycine α-amidating monooxygenase in the heart (Prof. David Merkler). Students will help develop a mechanistic understanding between mutations in the pro-ANP protein that have been correlated to heart disease.  Students will learn how to express recombinant and site-directed mutant proteins in E. coli, quantize ligand binding by isothermal calorimetry, and perform steady-state kinetic analysis.

Molecular photoswitches (Prof. Chavdar Slavov). Students will characterize molecular switches that can be controlled with high precision using light. Students will be exposed to time-resolved laser spectroscopy and data analysis.

Hybrid multifunctional semiconductors (Prof. Ioannis Spanopoulos). Students will help develop next-generation multifunctional semiconductors for quantum computing, spintronics, and other applications. Students will be trained in organic and inorganic synthesis and instrumental analysis.

Metamorphic protein switches (Prof. Arjan van der Vaart). Students will characterize a highly peculiar class of proteins that spontaneously adopt more than one fold. Students will be trained in molecular simulation, visualization, and data analysis.

Engineering plastic degrading enzymes (Prof. Lee Woodcock). Students will use computational enzyme engineering to increase the versatility and efficiency of plastic degrading enzymes. Students will be exposed to molecular simulation and docking and hybrid quantum-classical simulation techniques.