Past Seminars & Events

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Professor Dean Johnston

Professor Dean Johnston
Department of Chemistry
Otterbein University
Abstract

New synthetic routes to metal-halide cluster materials

Octahedral metal-halide clusters have unique electrochemical and photophysical properties making them excellent precursors to inorganic materials with potential applications in optical devices, catalysts, or sensors. Metal salts of the molybdenum halide clusters are typically prepared using high-temperature solid-state reactions. Working with a team of undergraduate research students at Otterbein University, my lab seeks to develop milder routes to materials via solvated metal cation and metal complex cation cluster salts. The hexaacteonitrilenickel(II) and hexaaquanickel(II) salts of the cluster were prepared via direct combination of the hydronium or cesium salt of the molybdenum halide cluster and nickel nitrate in ethanol or acetonitrile, respectively. Diffraction-quality single crystals of bipyridyl, terpyridyl, and cyclam complex ion salts with the molybdenum chloride cluster were successfully grown using non-aqueous gel diffusion in polyethylene oxide / acetonitrile gels. The resulting products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman, FT-IR and thermogravimetric analysis.

Dean Johnston

As an inorganic chemist working at an undergraduate institution, my teaching focuses primarily on General and Inorganic Chemistry and ChemInformatics. My research encompasses the areas of synthetic inorganic chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry and crystallography. Our current research goals center on developing new synthetic approaches to preparing extended materials containing metal halide clusters. I also have created several instructional websites including an extensive set of materials for teaching concepts of point group symmetry (https://symotter.org).

Hosted by Mik Patel of the Blank group

Professor Rodrigo Noriega

Professor Rodrigo Noriega
Department of Chemistry
The University of Utah
Abstract

Local interactions in biomolecular recognition and photochemistry

My research approaches the interactions between a reactant and its surroundings as active chemical components, with the view that accounting for the local environments where molecular complexes are formed, charges are exchanged, and chemical bonds are made or broken is a necessary step to solving challenges in energy, sustainability, and health. To achieve this goal, my lab uses time-resolved spectroscopy with an emphasis on in-situ probes and external stimuli.

In the first part of this talk, I will discuss our efforts to disentangle the link between molecular recognition and biochemical function of protein-RNA complexes. From antiviral defense to gene expression and repair, key biological events need proteins to bind specific nucleic acid structures, irrespective of sequence, via shape and charge complementarity. Our group has linked the terminus-specific biochemical activity of the endonuclease enzyme Dicer-2 (D. melanogaster) to a terminus-dependent molecular recognition step, which is overridden by its cofactor protein Loquacious-PD. To understand how electrostatic interactions regulate biomolecular complex formation, we localize them at an interface and study their formation and stability with mid-IR plasmons and ultrafast fluorescence. In this way, we identify the basis for the activity of Loquacious-PD, whose protein-RNA complexes display diffusion-limited association rates, stoichiometry-dependent dissociation rates, and equilibrium constants affected by electric fields.

In the second portion of my talk, I will share our work on a different platform to study biological interactions: dual-functionality biosensors used for correlative fluorescence and electron microscopy. Chromophore-binding proteins and RNA aptamers can be made into genetically-encodable biosensors with substantial photon emission while also providing an effective photochemical route to yield localized contrast agents in the form of metal-chelating polymer particles. However, while the photophysical parameters that determine their fluorescence under live-cell imaging conditions have been characterized in detail, the photochemical cycle that leads to the in-situ growth of metal-chelating polymers is not well understood. Our results indicate a need to reevaluate the traditional assumption that reactive oxygen species are the driver for the photo-oxidative coupling of aromatic amine monomers. We find that quenching by electron-transfer from monomers outcompetes quenching by molecular oxygen and, while this alternate pathway is significantly less efficient than the one mediated by singlet oxygen, it can be responsible for a significant portion of the polymer yield.

Rodrigo Noriega

Rodrigo Noriega is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Utah. His research aims to understand how heterogeneous and dynamic environments affect the structure of soft matter and tune their functionality, with a specific interest in charge/energy transfer and molecular recognition. He is originally from Mexico, where he attended Tecnologico de Monterrey for his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics. He obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University working with Professor Alberto Salleo on the structural and optoelectronic characterization of organic semiconductors. His postdoctoral work in the group of Professor Naomi S. Ginsberg at the University of California Berkeley used ultrafast laser spectroscopy to probe the effects of local environment on the photophysics of fluorescent organic molecules.

Hosted by Professor Renee Frontiera

Professor Jani C. Ingram

Jani C. Ingram, PhD
Regents’ Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Northern Arizona University
Abstract

Environmental Health Studies on Navajo Lands

During the mid-1900s, the United States was locked in a nuclear arms race with the former Soviet Union in an era known as the Cold War. To meet demands, uranium mines were dug across the Navajo reservation in the Southwest United States. Although the Cold War officially ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, these abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo reservation have left a legacy of contamination that infiltrates all aspects of life on the reservation. Uranium is a known toxicant due to its properties as a heavy metal, and uranium mining has been suggested to exacerbate exposure to other elemental toxicants, such as arsenic. Current understanding of the extent of contamination on the Navajo lands is ill-defined. Our research team seeks to elucidate exposure to uranium and other potential elemental toxicants through chemical quantification in environmental samples including water, soil, plants, and sheep, so as to understand the nature of exposure. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and atomic absorption spectroscopy were used for the elemental characterization. The presentation will focus on how the chemical characterization of these samples provides a “big picture” of exposure to communities living on Navajo lands, particularly those living near abandoned mines. Dissemination of the results is provided to the communities and the Navajo tribal leaders. The collected data is used to usher change to environmental public policies on Navajo and to increase discussions of the issue through community meetings.

Jani C. Ingram

Jani C. Ingram, PhD is a Regents’ Professor in the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department at Northern Arizona University. Her research focuses on investigating environmental contaminants with respect to their impact on health in at risk populations. A critical aspect of her research is to foster collaborations with the Native American community and leaders to build trust and gain insights into their health concerns. She works with a diverse group of students in her research. This diversity represents students with different ethnic backgrounds, academic disciplines, and sexual orientations as well as where they are in their academic careers (middle school to graduate students). She is a member of the Navajo Nation and has been involved in outreach activities for Native American students in K-12, undergraduate, and graduate research. She is the principal investigator of the Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention and the director of the Bridges to Baccalaureate program. She was named the 2018 recipient of the American Chemical Society Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences. She received an associate degree from Yavapai College, a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from New Mexico State University, and a Doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of Arizona. She was a staff scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory for twelve years before joining the faculty at Northern Arizona University in 2002.

Hosted by Professor Christy Haynes

Professor Michael McGuirk

Professor Michael McGuirk
Department of Chemistry
Colorado School of Mines
Abstract

Exploring Flexibility and Connectivity in Synthetic Porous Frameworks

Synthetic permanently porous materials are poised to play a key role in our transition to a more sustainable society. Owing to their structural and chemical modularity, synthetic frameworks, such as metal–organic, covalent, and hydrogen- bonded networks, are uniquely amenable to realizing highly specific functionality for emergent clean energy applications. However, desired performance for many pressing challenges, such as H2 delivery and light alkene purification, continue to elude established framework classes. Thus, the pursuit of synthetic porous frameworks with emergent behaviors and of entirely new classes of frameworks is essential. In this vein, this talk will cover two distinct efforts to diversify function and form. First, recent efforts to harness reversible framework flexibility to enhance usable capacities of hydrogen storage and delivery and for direct purification of propylene will be discussed. Then, the recent discovery of a novel class of frameworks assembled and stabilized through noncovalent chalcogen bonds, called Chalcogen-Bonded Organic Frameworks (ChOFs), will be detailed.

Michael McGuirk

Professor McGuirk attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in chemistry and worked in the lab of Prof. Bill Tolman studying copper-oxo complexes. Mike then pursued his Ph.D. in chemistry under Prof. Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University, where he focused on the design and synthesis of stimuli-responsive coordination complexes for regulated catalysis. After completing his Ph.D. studies, Mike joined Prof. Jeffrey Long’s group at UC–Berkeley as a Philomathia post- doctoral fellow. In the Long Group, Mike’s work was focused on the design, discovery, and characterization of non- classic gas adsorption in metal– organic frameworks. In 2019, Mike took his position in the Department of Chemistry at Colorado School of Mines, establishing the Supramolecular Materials Chemistry laboratory. The lab’s work addresses fundamental scientific challenges related to porous materials, supramolecular assembly, and environmental sustainability, leveraging expertise in noncovalent interactions, structural order, and chemical reactivity to develop synthetic tools for the by- design construction and programmed destruction of functional materials. The McGuirk Lab was recognized with the NSF CAREER award from the DMR SSMC program in 2022 and the DOE Early Career Research Program Award from the Separations Science program in 2023.

Hosted by Professor Wayne Gladfelter

Professor Dan Fabris

Professor Dan Fabris
Department of Chemistry
University of Connecticut
Abstract

Exploring the Interactions of Drug-like Ligands with Viral RNA by Native Mass Spectrometry

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the ability of viral pathogens to evolve in ways that can rapidly degrade the effectiveness of the latest vaccines. It also highlighted the dearth of first-line antivirals for the urgent care of patients who might not have received the vaccine or have contracted a resistant strain. The realization of these limitations has ignited the race to develop new effective classes of antiviral drugs. In this context, native mass spectrometry (MS) could play a leading role in early drug discovery by enabling the screening of potential ligands for new viral targets and by providing valuable information on their interactions. The talk will illustrate MS-based strategies for the identification and functional investigation of drug-like molecules capable of binding to essential regulatory structures of the viral RNA. Examples will be provided in which the platform enabled the determination of stoichiometries and binding modes, as well as the evaluation of the binding affinities for selected RNA targets and the inhibitory properties of specific complexes involving such targets and cognate viral proteins. The report will also illustrate the ability of Trapped Ion Mobility Spectrometry (TIMS) MS to provide valuable insights into the effects of drug-like ligands on the stability of target RNA structures and their protein complexes, which have become the basis for ongoing structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies necessary to develop the new actual antivirals.

Dan Fabris

Dan Fabris is Professor and the Harold S. Schwenk Sr. Distinguished Chair in Chemistry. He grew up in Italy, hiking in the Dolomites, playing rugby, and studying chemistry. He received his Ph.D. from University of Padova (Italy) and was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Research Council in Padova and the University of Maryland Baltimore County. At the dawn of the field proteomics, he was involved in the development of novel approaches for protein analysis based on mass spectrometry (MS). As an independent investigator at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, his research focus shifted to the investigation of the structure- function relationships in RNA systems involved in infectious diseases. His group developed new MS approaches for the elucidation of RNA and protein-RNA complexes that were not directly amenable to X-ray crystallography or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He investigated the ability of selected nucleic acid ligands to affect the structure and dynamics of the packaging signal of the genome of immunodeficiency virus type- 1 (HIV-1), which induced inhibition of essential chaperoning activities of the viral nucleocapsid protein. After moving to University at Albany to become one of the founding members of The RNA Institute, his research interests expanded to include the investigation of the effects of covalent RNA modifications of both endogenous and exogenous origin on the structure/dynamics of viral RNA. His group developed new strategies for epitranscriptomics analysis that enables the investigation of RNA post-transcriptional modification at a system level. At University of Connecticut since 2020, he is now capitalizing on these unique technologies to explore the role of the epitranscriptome in virus-host interactions and to identify new targets for the development of more effective antiviral therapies.

Hosted by Professor Varun Gadkari

Professor Phillip Milner

Professor Phillip Milner
Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Cornell University
Abstract

Simplifying Synthesis at the Interface of Organic and Materials Chemistry

Porous framework materials, including metal- organic frameworks (MOFs), are highly tunable materials with myriad potential applications ranging from chemical separations to gas storage to catalysis. This is due to the unusual local environment offered by their pores. Herein we will discuss how this tunability can be used to unlock new reactive species relevant to organic synthesis and catalysis, focusing on fluorination chemistry, which is critical to the pharmaceutical, polymer, and agrochemical industries. We will also draw inspiration from organic chemistry for the design of new chemical separations and electrocatalytically active materials.

Phillip Milner

Phill was born a stone’s throw from Ithaca in Towanda, PA and grew up near Rochester, NY. Phill attended Hamilton College near Utica, NY, where his love of synthetic organic chemistry was born while working on radical cyclizations with Prof. Ian Rosenstein. Phill graduated from Hamilton College in 2010 with B.A.s in Chemistry and Mathematics, and went on to pursue his Ph.D. in Chemistry with Prof. Stephen Buchwald at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the Buchwald group, Phill carried out extensive mechanistic studies of the Pd-catalyzed fluorination of aryl (pseudo)halides, a reaction of importance due to the prevalence of aryl fluorides in pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Phill also developed the nearly instantaneous 11C-cyanation of aryl halides for the synthesis of PET radiotracers. Phill joined the group of Prof. Jeffrey Long at the University of California, Berkeley upon graduating from MIT in 2015. As a post-doctoral Fellow in the Long group, Phill designed amine-functionalized metal–organic frameworks for the removal of CO2 from the flue gas emissions of power plants. In 2018, Phill joined the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University, where his research is focused broadly at the intersection of organic, inorganic, and materials chemistry. Phill is a member of the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and the Cornell Energy Systems Institute (CESI), a Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Faculty Fellow, and a field member in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Phill’s independent awards and honors include: Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2023), NSF CAREER Award (2021), Robert A. and Donna B. Paul Award for Excellence in Advising (2021), Scialog Fellowship (2020), Department of Energy Early Career Award (2020), and NIH Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award (2020).

Hosted by Professor Courtney Roberts

Professor Aleksandr V. Zhukhovitskiy

Professor Aleksandr (Alex) V. Zhukhovitskiy
William R. Kenan Jr. Faculty Fellow
Department of Chemistry
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Abstract

Advancing the logic of polymer synthesis, modification, and degradation

The polymer backbone is fundamental to the polymer’s identity and properties. My seminar will focus on the development of metathesis mechanisms to access heteroatom-rich polymer backbones, new editing tools to transform existing polymer backbones into different ones, and both strategies and tactics to depolymerize commodity polymeric materials into valuable small molecules. Specifically, I will discuss iridium-guanidinate catalyzed ring-opening metathesis of cyclic carbodiimides and the current directions toward diazene metathesis, as well as an array of rearrangement transformations—including Ireland-Claisen and aza-Cope—applied to edit the backbones of polymers. Besides the focus on polymer backbones, retrosynthetic logic applied to polymeric materials will be another common thread woven throughout this seminar, as it is a central element of the research in the Zhukhovitskiy group.

Alex Zhukhovitskiy

The Zhukhovitskiy Group at the University of North Carolina is focused on fundamental methods development as related to polymer chemistry. They blend polymer science, organometallic chemistry, and mechanistic studies to uncover new strategies for the synthesis of polymers such as carbodiimide ring-opening metathesis polymerization sigmatropic rearrangements as a strategy for polymer skeletal editing.

Hosted by Professor Ian Tonks

Professor Titel Jurca

Professor Titel Jurca
Department of Chemistry
University of Central Florida
Abstract

Building a Toolbox for Sustainable Synthesis and Catalysis

Our multidisciplinary research group focuses on molecular inorganic synthesis, thin film materials via atomic layer deposition (ALD), and heterogeneous catalysis for fine chemical transformations. Our goal is the convergence of these subdisciplines of inorganic chemistry towards the synthesis of complex hierarchical catalyst systems that are active, selective, and highly reusable. Specifically, we are seeking to discover and develop sustainable synthetic methodologies enroute to our desired end products – often these alternative routes enable the synthesis of previously inaccessible, or difficult to access products. To that end, the presentation will focus on three of our current areas of interest:

Mechanochemical synthesis: by leveraging mechanochemical forces via vibratory ball milling or ultrasonic irradiation, we can expedite the synthesis of Schiff base coordination complexes. These reactions can be performed solvent-free or solvent-minimal and facilitate the formation of target compounds in one-pot and one- step from multiple starting materials in minutes-to-hours compared to conventional multi-day, multi-step processes.
Silane-based reductions: using stoichiometric silanes, high- valent, mid d-block metal halides can be stoichiometrically reduced to highly reactive mid-valent synthons (e.g. MoCl 3 from MoCl 5 ). The reactions are facile and produce only H 2 and recoverable and reusable chlorosilanes as byproduct. The resulting mid-valent metal chlorides form ideal starting points towards new precursors for ALD and chemical vapor deposition (CVD); enabling technologies for coatings, electronic materials, and heterogeneous catalysis.
Monolith-based nanocatalysts: controlled growth of nanocatalysts on contiguous Ni foams; porous, contiguous membranes that enable facile handling, reuse, and direct applicability to flow reactions. The application of these materials towards the catalytic hydrogenation of nitro, alkene, and alkyne moieties, in batch and flow, under mild conditions will be discussed.

Titel Jurca

Originally from Romania, Titel emigrated to, and grew up in Ottawa Canada. He received his BSc in 2008 from the University of Ottawa, where he worked with Deryn Fogg on high throughput screening of metathesis catalysts. In the interim, he spent a summer in the lab of Doug Stephan at the University of Windsor working on FLP chemistry. He then returned to the University of Ottawa to pursue a PhD in main group coordination chemistry with Darrin Richeson (2012). He followed this with a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Bristol with Ian Manners (2012-15) working on main group polymers and a second postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University with Tobin Marks (2015- 2017) working on ALD precursors and supported catalysts. In 2017 he began his independent career at the University of Central Florida.

Website: jurcalab.com

Hosted by Professor Gwendolyn Bailey

Professor Lingjun Li

Professor Lingjun Li
School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract

Advancing Biomedical Research via Innovation in Mass Spectrometry (MS)-based Approaches

Comprehensive characterization of all signaling molecules in a biological system with chemical, spatial and temporal information is often critical to deciphering their functional roles, yet it poses a daunting challenge. In this presentation, I will present our recent progress on the development of a multi-faceted mass spectrometry (MS)-based analytical platform to probe neuronal signaling with enhanced sensitivity and selectivity. By combining chemical labeling, micro-scale separation, and tandem MS sequencing techniques, we discovered more than 300 novel neuropeptides in several model organisms. Moreover, both mass spectrometric imaging (MSI) technology and in vivo microdialysis sampling tools have been developed and implemented to follow neuropeptide distribution and secretion with unprecedented details. Additionally, several in situ chemical derivatization strategies have been developed to enable spatial mapping of various biomolecules including lipids and glycans in complex biological samples, such as human cell lines and cancer tissue samples. Recent progress towards single- cell lipidomics enabled by dual-polarity ionization and ion mobility MS imaging will be highlighted as well.

Furthermore, we are developing multiplexed isobaric and isotopic tagging strategies to discover, identify and evaluate candidate biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in cerebrospinal fluids (CSFs) obtained from asymptomatic cognitively-healthy middle- aged adults, older cognitively-normal adults, and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD. A large-scale comparative glycoproteomic analysis via the 12-plex DiLeu (N,N-dimethyl leucine) tagging strategy revealed distinct glycosylation patterns and dynamic changes of certain glycoforms in CSF samples collected from the control, MCI, and AD patients. Additionally, we report on a multiplexed quantitation method for simultaneous proteomics and amine metabolomics analyses via nanoflow reversed phase LC-MS/MS, exploiting mass defect-based DiLeu (mdDiLeu) labeling. Several on-going efforts and future perspectives provided by these enabling technologies will be highlighted and discussed.

Lingjun Li

Dr. Lingjun Li is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and the Charles Melbourne Johnson Distinguished Chair Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). Dr. Li received her Ph.D. degree in Analytical Chemistry/ Biomolecular Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. She then did joint postdoctoral research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Brandeis University before joining the faculty at UW-Madison in December 2002. Dr. Li’s research interests include the development of novel mass spectrometry (MS)- based tools such as new isotopic and isobaric labeling strategies that enable hyperplexing for quantitative proteomics, peptidomics, and glycomics, and their applications in neuroscience and cancer research. She and her team also develop microscale separations, in vivo microdialysis and imaging MS tools for functional discovery of neuropeptides in model organisms and (glyco)protein biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases with a strong focus on Alzheimer’s disease. Her lab also explores novel use of ion mobility MS to address technical challenges in peptidomic research. Professor Li has established a highly productive research program and published more than 400 peer-reviewed research journal papers (with H-index of 64, and more than 15,340 citations) and has given more than 300 invited talks. Dr. Li is passionate about training next generation of scientists and has successfully trained and graduated 65 PhDs and is currently training 25 PhD graduate students, 5 postdoctoral scientists, and 6 undergraduate students. Dr. Li has been recognized with numerous awards, including ASMS Research Award, NSF CAREER Award, Sloan Fellowship, PittCon Achievement Award, and ASMS Biemann Medal, and was named one of the Top 50 most influential women in the analytical sciences in 2016 and was recently featured in the 2019 and 2021 Top 100 Power List by the Analytical Scientist (on a global scale). Dr. Li is currently serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (JASMS) and sitting on the Advisory Board for Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry Reviews.

Hosted by Professor Varun Gadkari

Professor Christopher A. Alabi

Professor Christopher A. Alabi
Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Cornell University
Abstract

Sequence-defined macromolecules with tunable nonbonding sites

The precise placement of functional groups along a polymer chain plays a key role in encoding specific intra- and intermolecular interactions that direct self-assembly into discrete architectures. Biopolymers known to associate with specific geometries and stoichiometries have been exploited for the assembly of synthetic building blocks. However, such systems are neither scalable nor amenable to the relatively harsh conditions required by various materials science applications, particularly those involving non-aqueous environments. To overcome these limitations, I will discuss our work on sequence-defined oligocarbamates (SeDOCs) and data highlighting the effect of sequence on network topology, mechanical and optical properties. I will then discuss SeDOC ligands that assemble into duplexes through complementary hydrogen bonds between thymine (T) and diaminotriazine (D) pendant groups. We’ve successfully synthesized monovalent, divalent, and trivalent SeDOCs and characterized their hybridization via a variety of techniques, including diffusion ordered spectroscopy, 1 H-NMR titration, and isothermal titration calorimetry. Our findings reveal that the binding strength of monovalent oligomers with complementary pendant groups is entropically driven and independent of monomer sequence, that hybridization of multivalent oligomers is cooperative, and that SeDOCs ligands bearing D and T groups exhibit signatures of enthalpy- entropy compensation.

Christopher A. Alabi

Christopher Alabi holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from New York University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He completed his PhD in Materials Chemistry under the guidance of Mark Davis at the California Institute of Technology. In 2009, he pursued an NIH Postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working alongside Robert Langer and Dan Anderson. In 2013, he joined the Cornell faculty as an Assistant Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His early research achievements include investigations into synthesis and properties of novel sequence-defined macromolecules, recognized through accolades such as the PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Award, NSF CAREER Award, Cornell Engineering Research Excellence Award (2016), and the PMSE Young Investigator Award. Acknowledging his commitment to teaching and mentorship, he received the 2017 Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year Award and, more recently, the 2022 Richard F. Tucker Excellence in Teaching Award. Research conducted in the Alabi lab is focused on deciphering how the composition and sequence of macromolecular chains influence their chemical, structural, and biological attributes, with the ultimate aim of engineering sustainable functional materials and biomolecular therapeutics.

Hosted by Professor Theresa Reineke