The discovery of new catalysts is central to the pursuit of more efficient and sustainable processes in organic synthesis. Research in our group encompasses the various aspects of synthetic methodology and is broadly aimed at accomplishing fundamentally challenging bond activations and constructions while providing practical solutions to unsolved synthetic problems. Our approach capitalizes on the unique opportunities in the molecular sciences to rationally manipulate catalyst structure in order to control function and probe mechanism. We address the latter in a highly interdisciplinary manner, drawing on a diverse array of physical organic and inorganic, spectroscopic, and computational tools to characterize catalytic intermediates and transition states.
Our group currently has three major research focus areas:
1) Design and study of catalytic active sites containing metal-metal bonds.
2) Development of catalytic carbene transfer reactions for the synthesis of complex building blocks relevant to drug discovery.
3) Synthesis of conjugated materials containing photoactive and electroactive N=N linkages.