October 2025: José, Courney, and Hawa's paper on "Stereoselective Synthesis of Alkenyl Fluorides and Alkynes by Defluoro Coupling of Trifluoromethyl Arenes" is accepted to Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
October 2025: José, Hawa, and Mario's paper on "Selective Synthesis of α,α-Difluoro- and α‑Monofluoro Methylene Substituted Arenes by Defluoro C−C Bond Coupling" is accepted to Organic Letters.
July 2025: Congratulations to Devin and José on defending their dissertations! We wish you all the best!
July 2023: Congratulations to Emilie on defending her dissertation! We wish you all the best, Dr. Wheatley.
July 2023: Congratulations to Hawa on defending her dissertation! We wish you all the best, Dr. Keita.
June 2023: Hawa's paper on "Synthesis of Quaternary and Tertiary Carbon-Substituted Arenes by Lewis Base Promoted Site-Selective Coupling with Allylic Nucleophiles" is accepted to Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
January 2023: Emilie, Joe, and Miles's paper on "A Catalytic Method for the Enantioselective Synthesis of α-Quaternary Ketones, α-Ketoesters and Aldehydes" is accepted to Angewandte Chemie International Edition
Research in my group is involved with the discovery, design, and development of new chiral catalysts and catalytic methods for chemical synthesis. We focus on developing practical and effective catalysts that enable the use of simple and abundant starting materials for useful carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bond forming reactions.
We are interested in understanding reaction mechanisms (efficiency and selectivity) as well as demonstrating and challenging our catalytic transformations (reliability) in efficient enantioselective total synthesis of complex biologically important molecules. Areas of interest include catalysis, stereoselective organic synthesis, and organometallic chemistry.