Eight graduate students receive competitive dissertation fellowships
Eight Department of Chemistry graduate students have been award highly competitive Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships for the 2020-21 academic year, including Derek Batiste, Angela Carlson, Ryan Daley, Julia Early, Sheng-Yin "Dima" Huang, Siu Yi Kwang, En-Chih Liu, and Rebeca Rodriguez.
Derek C. Batiste is a fourth-year graduate student advised by Professor Marc Hillmyer. Derek's research is focused on the synthesis and characterization of novel aliphatic polyesters. His dissertation focuses on novel aliphatic polyesters in the context of each of the four subcategories of the NSF Center for Sustainable Polymer Framework. To wit, his research explores polyesters with potential to be produced from biomass and renewable resources, synthesizing materials using the principles of green chemistry, targeting materials with competitive mechanical properties to existing petroleum derived analogues, and designing materials that can potentially be chemically recyclable and/or biodegradable.
Angela Carlson is a fourth-year graduate student advised by Professor Joseph Topczewski. Her research interests encompass developing efficient synthetic routes to challenging organic molecules. Her dissertation entails working azides to develop new synthetic routes to nitrogenous heterocycles and bromodomain inhibitors. After earning her doctorate, Angela would like to get a job in industry.
Ryan Daley is a fourth-year graduate student advised by Professor Joseph Topczewski. Ryan's research is focused on overcoming the current limitations of decarboxylative cross-coupling methods. His dissertation focuses on developing palladium and gold catalyzed cross-couplings and improving the mechanistic understanding of these reactions. After finishing his doctorate, he hopes to find a position where he can continue to advance catalytic methods.
Julia Early is a fourth-year graduate student advised by Professor Timothy Lodge. Her research interests are in understanding the dynamics of block copolymer self assembly in solutions. Julia's dissertation focuses on studying the equilibration kinetics of block copolymer micelles in ionic liquids. Specifically, she uses small angle scattering and liquid phase transmission electron microscopy to study micelle fragmentation kinetics. After earning her doctorate, Julia plans to pursue a postdoctoral position at a national laboratory.
Sheng-Yin "Dima" Huang is a fourth-year graduate student advised by Professor Valerie Pierre. His general research interests are supramolecular chemistry, organic/inorganic chemistry, and polymer chemistry. His dissertation focuses on the basis for molecular recognition of inorganic phosphate in water with trivalent metal complexes. Dima has been developing and optimizing metal complexes for molecular recognition in water, particularly for inorganic phosphate. These metal complexes are tailored to remediate conditions where phosphate over-accumulate, such as eutrophication and hyperphosphatemia. He is currently investigating metal complexes with earth abundant metals that will be immobilized onto biocompatible polymers for facile phosphate management. After finishing his doctorate, he hopes to pursue a postdoctoral position in the field of supramolecular chemistry.
Siu Yi Kwang is a fifth-year graduate student advised by Professor Renee Frontiera. Her general research interests encompass using vibrational spectroscopy techniques to study molecular electronics in order to figure out how to tailor-make new molecules to suite specific functions such as photovoltaics or field effect transistors. Her dissertation focuses on spatially-offset femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy to track vibrations in molecular electronics when charges pass through them in order to directly study and identify molecular interactions that facilitate charge movement. After finishing her doctorate, Siu Yi would like to establish a career in an industry setting that involves lots of troubleshooting and problem solving.
En-Chih Liu is a fourth-year graduate student advised by Professor Joseph Topczewski. His general research interests encompass enantioselective heterocycle synthesis and synthetic method development. His dissertation focuses on the enantioselective click reaction, and a cascade reaction of cinnamyl azide. He will continue his research on other asymmetric synthesis of heterocycles. After earning his doctorate, he hopes to pursue a postdoctoral position and continue his research on asymmetric catalysis.
Rebeca "Becky" Rodriguez is a fourth-year graduate student working with Professor Christy Haynes. Her research is focused on using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and polymer affinity agents to detect various types of food contaminants. She has focused on mycotoxins, small molecule toxins naturally produced by fungi, and am moving onto detecting bacteria like Listeria and Salmonella. A lot of this research is about understanding how to exploit the interactions between target and affinity agents for sensing purposes by monitoring the changes made in the spectra once target and affinity agents have complexed together. After earning her doctorate, Becky hopes to work for a government agency detecting chemical and biological warfare.
The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship gives the University's most accomplished doctorate candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year.