Dennis Chung-Yang Huang

Principal Investigator

Dennis was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1988.  After high school, he moved to the United States and obtained his B.S. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010, where he conducted his undergraduate research with Prof. Rick Danheiser on total synthesis.  In 2009, he carried out summer research in the group of Prof. Eiichi Nakamura at The University of Tokyo through MIT-Japan MISTI Program.  He then joined the laboratory of Prof. Abigail Doyle at Princeton University for his PhD study, where in his thesis work a new class of electron-deficient olefin ligands for nickel catalyzed cross-coupling reactions was developed.  Upon completion of his PhD in 2015, he moved to Germany to work with Prof. Stefan Hecht as a Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where he developed a series of photoswitches based on indigo compounds.  Afterwards, he returned home briefly for military service and a year of industrial work at ScinoPharm Taiwan.  In 2021, Dennis began his independent career at the Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery (WPI-ICReDD) of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.  In 2025, he moved to Oklahoma State University as a tenure-track assistant professor.

CV (link) (updated March 2025)

Contact

Dennis Chung-Yang Huang

Email: dcyhuang AT okstate.edu

Vishal Jyoti Roy

ICReDD postdoctoral researcher

Vishal was born in Assam, India in 1996. He obtained his B.Sc. (Hons.) in Chemistry (Gold Medallist) in 2017 and M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry (Gold Medallist, 1st Class Distinction) in 2019 from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, where he conducted research on the synthesis of novel bis-flavone derivatives. He was awarded the CSIR Junior Research Fellowship to pursue doctoral research in chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi under the guidance of Dr. Sudipta Raha Roy. Subsequently, he was awarded the prestigious Prime Minister's Research Fellowship (PMRF) for a 4-year tenure during his PhD. His thesis work focused on photochemical synthesis and non-covalent interactions to carry out carbon-centered radical transformations, earning him a PhD in 2024. He then joined a pharmaceutical company in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, as a R&D scientist, working on active pharmaceutical ingredients-apixaban, empagliflozin, and dabigatran. Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow in the Huang group at ICReDD, Hokkaido University. Outside of research, he enjoys traveling, playing the guitar and keyboard, and singing Indian classical music.

Priya Saha

PhD student

Priya has her roots in India: born in Assam, brought up in Kolkata, and has completed her bachelor and master degrees from Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India.  After obtaining her master degree, she joined Integrated Product Development Organization, Dr. Reddys Laboratory in Hyderabad, India as an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Research and Development scientist, where she worked on the projects of Empagliflozin, Apalutamide, and Obeticholic acid.  She then worked under the supervision of Prof. Maya Shankar Singh on the construction of carbocycles or heterocycles by employing α-enolic dithioesters, β-ketothioamides as well as their sister analogues.  Currently she is a doctoral student at ICReDD, Hokkaido University, working in the field of photochemistry.  During her leisure time, she enjoys painting and listening to music.

Chun-Yang Huang

Visiting student (2025 summer)

Chun-Yang is from Taiwan and currently an undergraduate at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. For his undergraduate research, he joined Prof. Chan group in NYCU, working on the application of near-infrared region II fluorescent polymers in cancer detection test strips. In summer 2025, He received the Science Dream-Building Scholarship from NYCU and joined the MANABIYA program in ICReDD, Hokkaido University for 2.5 months, where the research project is dedicated to the synthesis of functional molecules and photochemistry. In his free time, he enjoys studying Japanese, travelling, and experiencing the life in Japan.

Amit Kumar Jaiswal

ICReDD postdoctoral researcher (2022-2025)

Amit was born in New Delhi, India and raised in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) where he completed his B.Sc. (Hons) in Chemistry at St Pauls` Cathedral Mission College under Calcuuta University in 2013. Later, he finished his M.Sc. in Chemistry in 2015 at  Pondicherry University, where he worked under Prof. N Dastagiri Reddy on the development of main group Lewis acid complexes for the ring opening polymerization of cyclic esters and amide. In 2016, he started his PhD journey at National University of Singapore with Prof. Rowan Drury Young, where Amit was awarded NUS research Scholarship . His thesis work focused on the development of Lewis acid catalysis for the activation and functionalization of carbon-fluorine bonds. Outside of lab, Amit enjoys travelling and exploring different countries to learn about culture, history, art, cuisine and music. Besides enjoying reading, he is also a big fan of football.

Kai Sun

Joint PhD student from Sawamura group (2021-2024)

SUN graduated from Nankai University, China with a bachelor’s degree in 2017.  In 2019, he moved to Japan to carry out graduate studies in Sawamura lab at Hokkaido University and obtained his master's degree in 2021.  Since then, he joined ICReDD to pursue a joint PhD study between the Sawamura group and the Huang lab.  His work focuses on the direct functionalization of carboxylic acid using boron catalyst.  Presently, he is investigating the methodology of developing his chemistry with the aid of data science tools.  He enjoys broad while trivial knowledge.

Ervin Kovács

Visiting scientist (2024 summer)

Ervin grew up in Szeged, Hungary and later moved to Budapest, where he completed his MSc and PhD at Budapest University of Technology and Economics. His doctoral research focused on the superbase-promoted synthesis of four-membered heterocycles, earning him his PhD in 2015. Afterward, he began research on the olefin metathesis of conjugated dienes at the Research Centre for Natural Sciences in Hungary. In 2019, Ervin relocated to the United Kingdom to work with Prof. Michael Greaney as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Manchester, where he specialized in the development of the Smiles rearrangement. Upon returning to Budapest, he took on roles as a Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Natural Sciences and as a Senior Researcher at Femtonics Ltd. His research interests include electrosynthesis and the development of fluorescent probes for two-photon imaging. His research stay as a visiting researcher for six weeks focused on selective C-F functionalization.

Anna Nožičková

Visiting student (2023 summer)

Anna started her chemistry journey during bachelor thesis in calixarene chemistry in Prof. Lhoták laboratory, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague.  She then joined Dr. Kovaříček group also at UCT Prague.  At present, she is working on photoswitches with catalytic function based on acyl hydrazones. She visited the lab for three months as an intern student, working on multi-centered photoswitches by combining the indigo chemistry with acyl hydrazones.