Past Seminars & Events

Professor Zhi-Xiang Yu
College of Chemistry
Peking University, Beijing, China

Transition Metal Catalyzed Ring Formation Reactions and a Mild Arene Hydrogenation Method

Many natural products and pharmaceuticals have complex polycyclic structures that present synthetic challenges. There are many powerful reactions (Diels-Alder, Pauson-Khand, Grubbs ring-closing metathesis, Wender arene-alkene photocycloadditions, and others), but new ring formations are always in high demand. For the last 20 years, my group has pioneered in the development of more than twenty new Rh-catalyzed ring-forming reactions. Applications of these new reactions in total synthesis has been demonstrated by us and by other research groups.

I will discuss the development and mechanistic elaboration of several transition metal-catalyzed reactions to construct difficult seven- and eight-membered rings, as well as applications of these reactions for the synthesis of natural products.

In the second part of the talk, I will describe our recent discovery of a new mild arene hydrogenation reaction that occurs at room temperature under 1 atmosphere of hydrogen gas, which provides a convenient approach to reach a variety of useful saturated six-membered rings in synthesis.

Zhi-Xiang Yu

Resume of Training and Appointments 

• 2008-now Professor (Chang-Jiang Professor since 2015), College of Chemistry, Peking University (Principal Investigator, Theoretical and Synthetic Organic Chemistry Lab, PKU) 
• 2004-2008 Associate Professor, College of Chemistry, Peking University 
• 2002-2004 Postdoctoral Associate with Professor Kenneth N. Houk 
• 2001-2002 Postdoctoral Associate with Professor Mark Mascal 
• 1997-2001 Ph.D, Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Computational Chemistry with Professor Yun-Dong Wu 
• 1994-1997 MS, Department of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, China. Synthetic Organic Chemistry with Qingzhong Zhou
• 1987-1991 BS, Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Inorganic Chemistry with Jie Wan

Research Interests

Computational and Synthetic Organic Chemistry to advance organic chemistry in the following areas:

1. Studying mechanisms of organic reactions
2. Developing new reactions and catalysts
3. Synthesizing natural products and pharmaceutical molecules

Hosted by Professor Tom Hoye

The 25th annual Chemistry Graduate Student Research Symposium symposium primarily consists of research presentations by third-year graduate students in the Chemistry Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota. Presentations will take place in four concurrent sessions and will be 20 minutes in length with an additional 5 minutes reserved for discussion. All presentations will be formally assessed by a committee of faculty members and distinguished celebrity judges. Travel awards will be presented to those individuals judged to have given the top three seminars in each of the four sessions for a total of twelve awards. Written feedback will also be provided to all presenters.

Check for more details at 3rd-year Graduate Student Research Symposium Website.

Dr. Chrissy Stachl
Trauma-informed somatic empowerment coach and organizational change consultant
Oakland, CA

Unwritten rules, hidden costs: Navigating power dynamics and conflict in R1 academic environments

Academic departments run on unwritten rules—implicit norms about who speaks, who defers, how conflict gets handled, and who absorbs the cost when it isn’t—shaped by entrenched power dynamics. This session opens by grounding participants in what research actually tells us about hidden curricula and power dynamics in R1 environments, with particular attention to the implicit com- munication around accountability and what that means for graduate student professional development. We’ll also examine the neuroscientific impact of unresolved conflict—what happens in the nervous system when harm goes unnamed, and how that shapes long-term capacity for learning, leadership, and belonging. 

From there, the session moves into practical, skill-based content: naming and practicing embodied tools for navigating conflict and accountability. Participants will work in small groups to practice staying regulated and rela- tional even when a conversation is uncomfortable. The goal is not a new behavioral framework to take home— it’s to gain a felt sense of how to navigate these dynamics with more steadiness and less reactivity. 

This session is designed for faculty, staff, and graduate students navigating the everyday complexity of departmental life.

Chrissy Stachl

Dr. Chrissy Stachl is a trauma-informed somatic empowerment coach and organizational change consultant based in Oakland, CA. She holds a PhD in Chemistry from UC Berkeley, a background in neuroscience and medicine, and 600+ hours of somatic coaching training—a combination that lets her bridge intellectual rigor with body-based, emotionally attuned support for her clients in a unique way. Through her coaching practice, Chrissy works 1:1 with high-achieving adults who look successful on paper but feel quietly disconnected, overextended, or unfulfilled inside. Together with her clients, she unwinds patterns of over-functioning and self-abandonment, rebuilds the capacity to feel joy and desire, and supports a return to internal authority rather than external validation. Through Reflecting Equity, her organizational consulting practice, Chrissy supports STEM organizations in creating cultures that can actually hold the discomfort that real culture change requires—integrating nervous system literacy and relational safety into equity and culture work.

Dr. Stachl's talk is the latest installment in the Chemistry Climate Event Series, a semiannual workshop series that helps us foster a department that is even more diverse, creative, and successful in every aspect of our mission. Learn more about Chemistry Climate Events.

Professor Theresa Reineke
Department of Chemistry
University of Minnesota

Tailoring Macromolecules by Design: Functional Polymers for Therapeutic Delivery and Sustainable Formulation

Multifunctional macromolecules are essential to advancing technologies in drug and nucleic acid delivery, gene editing, and sustainable materials in formulation science. Realizing this potential requires polymer architectures purposefully designed to balance multiple, often competing, functional demands: payload binding, colloidal stability, biocompatibility, cellular uptake, and intracellular release. To meet this challenge, we have developed a synthesis-centered discovery platform built around combinatorial polymerization, enabling us to systematically vary monomer chemistry, composition, sequence statistics, and chain architecture across expansive copolymer libraries. Focusing on nucleic acid delivery, we have constructed families of statistical copolymers tailored to package, protect, and deliver mRNA, DNA, and CRISPR cargoes. By rationally tuning cationic content, hydrophobic comonomers, and architectural features, we have identified distinct design principles for each payload class and uncovered macromolecular motifs that drive efficient cellular uptake, endosomal escape, and genome editing. This polymer-driven approach has produced architectures achieving high genome editing efficiency, outperforming commercial formulation agents. In parallel, we have extended this design philosophy to sustainable polymers, developing the cationic ring-opening polymerization of biomass-derived levoglucosan to access stereoregular, functional polysaccharides whose pendant chemistry and architecture can be tuned to deliver targeted thermal, mechanical, and degradation profiles for next- generation sustainable formulations. High-throughput characterization and data-driven analysis support this work, but the central advance lies in the macromolecules themselves: polymers engineered with the chemical and structural sophistication needed to function as next-generation delivery vehicles. Our framework demonstrates how purposeful macromolecular design can unlock new performance regimes and accelerate the development of functional polymer materials across biomedicine and formulation science.

Theresa Reineke

Theresa M. Reineke is the Prager Endowed Chair in Macromolecular Science and a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. She also holds graduate faculty appointments in the Departments of Chemical Engineering/Materials Science and Pharmaceutics. She received a B.S. Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, a M.S. Degree from Arizona State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She then received a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for her work in gene therapy at the California Institute of Technology prior to beginning her independent faculty career. Her research group is focused on enabling fundamental and applied technology advancements in the fields of macromolecules for nucleic acid delivery and gene editing, oral delivery of therapeutics, and sustainability. She has published over 200 manuscripts and manages a large group of researchers supported by several corporate, private and national funding agencies. Reineke is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, along with the Kavli and Alfred P. Sloan Foundations. She has received numerous awards, including in the 2005 National Science Foundation CAREER and Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Awards, 2008 Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher- Scholar Award, 2009 National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, 2012 Outstanding New Investigator Award from the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, 2017 Carl S. Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society Division of Polymer Chemistry, 2018 DuPont Nutrition and Health Sciences Excellence Medal, and 2022 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society. Reineke has also served for 11 years as an Associate Editor for the journals ACS MacroLetters and Chemical Science and in 2023 became Editor-in Chief of Bioconjugate Chemistry. Further, Reineke is cofounder of two biotech companies in the field of nucleic acid delivery: Nanite, Inc., and LiberateBio, Inc.

Hosted by Professor Jessica Lamb

Professor Nathan Romero
Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of California, San Diego

New Synthetic Tools for Precision Polymers & Sustainable Materials

Research in the Romero Polymer Lab focuses on the development of novel methodologies for precision synthesis and functionalization of polymeric materials, seeking to address longstanding challenges in stimuli-responsive materials, optoelectronically active polymers, and polymer sustainability. Our efforts utilize a variety of synthetic tools to achieve molecular- level control over polymer structure and properties, with a particular emphasis on photochemistry, electrochemistry, and main group chemistry. This seminar will highlight recent advances from my group, including our work on Frustrated Lewis Pair (FLP) polymers as photochemically active and catalytic materials, electrochemical functionalization of commodity polymers, and the synthesis and characterization of novel non-fluorocarbon fluoropolymers.

Nathan Romero

Nathan Romero joined the Department of Chemistry at UC San Diego as an Assistant Professor in 2020. Nate grew up in Grand Rapids, MI and attended Calvin College, receiving a B.S. in chemistry in 2012. He received a PhD in 2017 from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, where he studied photoredox catalysis under Prof. Dave Nicewicz as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Nate carried out postdoctoral research as a NIH Fellow in the lab of Prof. Tim Swager at MIT from 2017 to 2020. The Romero Polymer Lab at UCSD merges synthetic methodology, inorganic and main group chemistry, and polymer science.

Hosted by Professor Jessica Lamb

Professor Naomi Lee
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Northern Arizona University

The more you know... about HPV and cervical cancer in Native American women

The Lee Lab uses culturally informed community-based biomedical research and applies Two-Eyed Seeing as a guiding principle to address health disparities in Native American communities. For example, cervical cancer impacts Native American communities at higher rates than other racial and ethnic groups. Despite the differences in cervical cancer rates, little is known about the patterns of HPV infection. More recently, research has identified role of the vaginal microbiome (VMB) in HPV acquisition and progression to cervical cancer. Unfortunately, Native communities were not included in earlier studies focused on the VMB. Thus, the talk will highlight multiple efforts to raise awareness about HPV among Native communities. In addition, Dr. Lee will discuss the most recent findings within the VMB and HPV within a pilot study conducted in Flagstaff, AZ. Finally, she will also discuss ongoing efforts to address cervical cancer disparities including develop new HPV vaccines to offer broader protection.

Naomi Lee

Dr. Naomi Lee is from the Seneca Nation of Indians and grew up on the Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York. Dr. Lee received a B.S. in biochemistry from Rochester Institute of Technology. She also completed an M.S. and Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Rochester. From 2013-2015, Dr. Lee was an NINDS postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Steven Jacobson. Currently, Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University located in Flagstaff, AZ. She is also affiliated with the NIMHD-funded Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative (SHERC), the NCI-funded Native American Cancer Prevention (NACP) partnership, and the NCI- funded Southwest Transformative Educational Advancement and Mentoring Network (STEAM). She is The Director of Community and Cultural Engagement through NAU’s Center for Materials Interfaces in Research and Applications (¡MIRA!). Dr. Lee is the founder and co-director of the Cultural and Academic Research Experience (CARE) program that aims to encourage historically excluded high school students into STEM and health science careers. Her research focuses on vaccine and therapeutic design and addressing health disparities in Native American communities using chemistry, biology, and public health tools. In addition, Dr. Lee is also Major in the Army Reserves assigned as a Functional Specialist (FxSP/38G) to the 322nd Civil Affairs Brigade in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Hosted by Shelby Davis

Professor Guilhem de Hoe
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
University of Florida

Hosted by POLY/PMSE

Professor James Cahoon
Department of Chemistry
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Designing and Understanding Energy-Harvesting Materials from the Vapor Phase: From Water Splitting Single Nanostructures to Solar Absorbing Hybrid Perovskites

The vapor-phase provides a unique capacity to encode precise composition and morphology within semiconductor materials and interfaces for energy-harvesting functionality. Here, we highlight recent work on the vapor-phase synthetic control of Si nanowires, photoelectrochemical interfaces, and hybrid perovskite materials. Together, these processes provide a platform to design chemically precise, nanostructured systems for applications ranging from solar water splitting to photovoltaic solar cells. First, we introduce the vapor-liquid-solid growth process of Si nanowires and demonstrate operando pump-probe microscopy, a method that provides detailed, microscopic understanding of charge carrier drift, diffusion, recombination, and separation. Second, we discuss how abrupt transitions between p-type, intrinsic, and n-type silicon allow nanowire p-i-n superlattices to be synthesized that behave as multijunction photovoltaic devices with extraordinarily large photovoltages. Using spatioselective photoelectrochemical deposition of co-catalysts, water splitting or carbon dioxide reducing particle suspensions can be demonstrated. Third, we show how planar silicon interfaces can be functionalized with nanoscale oxide and graphene layers, facilitating the integration of molecular catalysts for solar-driven CO₂ reduction. Finally, we demonstrate the first metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth of hybrid perovskite materials. Use of separate vapor precursors for the lead, organic, and halide components allows the tuning of reaction conditions to grow the material directly with high purity. Overall, the projects highlight the precise and tunable control of material composition, morphology, and functionality provided by the vapor phase.

Jim Cahoon

Prof. Jim Cahoon received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and philosophy from the College of William and Mary in 2003 and then moved to the University of California-Berkeley to pursue a PhD in Physical Chemistry, studying the femtosecond light-driven reactions of molecules in solution with Prof. Charles Harris. In 2009, he moved to Harvard University for a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Charles Lieber, where he worked to develop nanostructured photovoltaic devices. In 2011, Jim started his faculty career in the Department of Chemistry at UNC Chapel Hill, being promoted to Associate Professor in 2017 and Professor in 2022, becoming the department chairperson in 2024. He has received awards including a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, Sloan Research Fellowship, Cottrell Scholar Award, and UNC Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement. He currently serves as the Executive Director of UNC’s nanofabrication and characterization facility (CHANL), UNC site director of the Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network, and thrust leader for the DOE Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels.

Hosted by Professor Renee Frontiera

Professor Bobby Arora
Department of Chemistry
NYU

Short stories in molecular recognition (of protein surfaces) and catalysis (of amide bonds)

Protein-protein complexes are difficult targets for inhibitor design, and therefore, offer a testing ground for new approaches. We are developing a rational design approach that begins by mimicry of protein interfaces by constrained peptides and peptidomimetics. The first part of this presentation will discuss the application of our approach to the discovery of inhibitors for oncogenic targets Ras and, the intrinsically disordered, Myc. The second part of the talk will focus on a rational design approach to develop catalysts for peptide bond formation. This work aims to address the significant challenge of excess reagent use in peptide synthesis.

Paramjit Arora

Paramjit Arora is a Professor of Chemistry at New York University. He obtained his B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley and UC Irvine, respectively. He was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology before joining the faculty of New York University. His research focuses on designer protein mimics that modulate biomolecular interactions.

Hosted by Professor William Pomerantz

Professor Richard Vachet
Department of Chemistry
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Protein Structure, Binding, and Aggregation in Complex Mixtures

Characterizing the higher-order structures (HOS) and interactions of proteins in complex mixtures is challenging and requires the development of new tools. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques are emerging as valuable tools in structural biology, and among these tools covalent labeling (CL) methods have some unique advantages that can be exploited to study protein structure, protein interactions, and protein aggregation, including in live cells. In CL-MS, HOS and binding information are encoded via the formation of covalent bonds that can survive the many steps (i.e. cell lysis, extraction, digestion, separation, MS/MS) needed to analyze proteins by MS. We are developing and applying new CL-MS methods to study the pre-amyloid forms of two important amyloid systems. One is β-2-microglobulin (β2m), which forms amyloids in dialysis-related amyloidosis. The second is Tau, which is important in various tauopathies such as Alzheimer’s disease. We are also developing an approach that can study Tau binding to the low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) in live cells. In our work on β2m, we have used CL-MS to characterize the initial amyloidogenic change that this protein undergoes and have mapped the energy landscape of this structural change. In addition, we have used CL-MS to determine the structures of pre-amyloid oligomers that have led to the development of small- molecule inhibitors that prevent β2m amyloid formation. Our work on Tau is focused on understanding the transition of this structurally disordered protein into ordered aggregates, and we have also recently been studying its interaction with LRP1, which is a membrane-associated receptor that is a critical determinant for Tau spread and aggregation. To study the ordering of Tau’s structure as it aggregates, we use native MS to monitor its conformational heterogeneity over time. Tau binding to LRP1 relies on CL-MS based mapping of this protein-receptor interaction on live H4i neuroglioma cells. Tau-LRP1 interactions promise to reveal potential approaches for drug intervention for Tau uptake.

Richard Vachet

Richard Vachet is a Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He received a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill and did postdoctoral research at the US Naval Research Laboratory from 1997 to 1999 as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associate. He began his independent career at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1999. His current research focuses on (a) the development and application of mass spectrometry-based methods to study protein amyloid formation; (b) the development of new tools to study the higher order structure of protein therapeutics; and (c) the detection and imaging of nanomaterial drug delivery agents in biological systems. He has published over 180 peer-reviewed journal articles and has been a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry and the Features Panel for Analytical Chemistry. He has also won several awards, including the Outstanding Research Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the GlaxoSmithKline Lectureship in Analytical Chemistry, and the Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry.

Hosted by Professor Varun Gadkari