Three Chemistry graduate students have been selected to receive a 2014 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. The three years of stipend support the award provides will allow Ms. Melanie Short to continue her PhD thesis research on the development of earth abundant transition metal complexes with the vision that these "green" catalysts will someday improve access to biologically active small molecules with Professor Jennifer Roizen. Ms. Zeenat Razvi will use the funding support to investigate the coordination chemistry of copper in biological contexts with Professor Katherine Franz and Ms. Jessica Reel will work toward the synthesis and structural and spectroscopic investigation of cationic gold(I) carbene complexes with Professor Ross Widenhoefer. The objective of Jessica's research is to develop and experimentally-derived understanding of the nature of the Au–CR2 bond and the extent to which a gold phosphine fragment stabilizes an adjacent carbocation. Congratulations, Ladies!
Chemistry