Janine Abuyuan, a Master’s degree student at UCSD joins the group for an internship! At UCSD, Janine works in the group of Prof. Cliff Kubiak, and previously she completed her undergraduate degree at Barnard College, during which time she worked with Prof. Jack Norton at Columbia University. Welcome to the group, Janine!

During the past few years, numerous synthetic methods have been developed that take advantage of catalytic C–C bond cleavage via β-C elimination from an alkylmetal intermediate to furnish a new Pd^II(olefin)(R) (R = Alkyl, Aryl, etc.) species. Nevertheless, igorous characterization of said post-β-C-elimination organometallic species has proven elusive. In collaboration with the Liu group at the University of Pittsburgh and the X-ray crystallography facility at UCSD, we have successfully synthesized well-defined post-β-C-elimination organopalladium complexes, enabled by a combination of strain-release to provide thermodynamic driving force and chelation stabilization to suppress potential side reactions. The complexes were characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and the potential energy surface of the β-C elimination step and other relevant processes was computed using density functional theory. Congrats to Taeho, Rei, Anna, and Tanner from Scripps Research; Yue from Pitt; and Arnie, Jake, and Milan from UCSD.

For a link to the pre-print in ChemRxiv, click here: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/635875afca86b8d57fc36848

What a treat seeing our artists go all out for the annual halloween pumpkin carving party and potluck! Kudos to everyone for making this event special! Also, we all decided to dress up like our fearless leader!