Congrats to our stellar intern Sara Shanker, who has completed her summer internship in the Engle lab, where she developed new palladium-catalyzed olefin hydrofunctionalization methodology under the mentorship of Wen-Ji. Sara’s internship was supported by a generous scholarship from the Guru Kripa Foundation (GKF), the IIT Kharagpur Foundation (IITKGPF) of USA. Sara will now return to IIT Kharagpur to complete her joint B.S./M.S. degree while applying for graduate school. We can’t wait to follow your career as it unfolds, Sara! Congrats on your achievements!

We welcome our newest lab member, Letian Xu, who joins the Engle lab for a 6-months undergraduate internship. Letian is a senior at Nankai University, where he performs research in the lab of Prof. Shoufei Zhu. Outside of the lab, Letian is an avid FC Bayern Munich fan. Welcome Letian!

As per annual tradition, the Engle lab spent the afternoon at the beach celebrating our fantastic summer interns. Good food, good fun, and good people!

Starting this month, Keary will assume the role of Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies of the Skaggs Graduate Program at Scripps Research. In this role, he will build on the success of outgoing Dean Phil Dawson and lead top-10 graduate programs in Chemistry and Biology. For the official announcement, click here: https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2024/20240701-engle-dean-scripps-graduate-school-of-chemical-sciences.html

Congrats to all of the lab alumni who recently graduated! We’ve been so fortunate to have worked with this talented crew of high school and undergrad interns, and we wish them the very best as they embark on their next adventures.

Undergrad Alumni
Xiaowei Chen (Rice): Cornell University (Ph.D. in Chemistry)
Madeline Fitzgerald (Davidson): UC Berkeley (Ph.D. in Chemistry)
Hang Chi (Calvin) Ho (HKUST): UCLA (Ph.D. in Chemistry)
Chenxi Liao (Nankai U): Nankai U (Ph.D. in Chemistry)
Gabrielle Martinez (CSUSM): UC Irvine (Ph.D. in Chemistry)
Wenzhuo Qin (Nankai U): Cornell University (Ph.D. in Chemistry)
Shinjin Sun (Fudan U): Fudan University (Ph.D. in Chemistry)

High School Intern Alumna
Giada Amundson (Montrose High): Oregon State University (B.S. in Chemistry)

Today Mitsui Chemicals announced that Keary was selected as a recipient of the 2024 Chemicals Catalysis Science Award for Creative Work. The award recognizes up to two researchers under the age of 37 at the time of nomination who are affiliated with a university or public research institution and have demonstrated creative achievements in the field of catalysis science research. Keary is acknowledged for the “Discovery of selective, predictable, and modular alkene functionalization methods and the development of widely used organometallic precatalysts.” He shares the 2024 award with Prof. MJ Koh from the National University of Singapore. Congratulations!

Mitsui Chemicals will be holding “Catalysis Science Forum”, where the awardees will deliver commemorative lectures that will be followed by the award ceremony. The forum will take place as a part of the “14th CSJ Chemistry Festa 2024” held by the Chemical Society of Japan.

Click here for the announcement: https://jp.mitsuichemicals.com/en/techno/csa/index.htm

This week we are welcoming three new members to the lab.

Sourav joins as a postdoc and will be working jointly with the Jazzar Lab at UCSD. He did his PhD in Prof. M. S. Maji’s lab at IIT Kharagpur and  has worked as a postdoc in the Koenigs group at RWTH Aarchen and more recently in the Szostak Lab at Rutgers University.

Calise is a visiting SURF student from UC Santa Cruz. She will be working as a joint student with the Hang Lab.

Luka is visting from Telluride High School and is doing an internship over the summer working with Madison on palladium catalysis.

Welcome!

Written in collaboration with colleagues from catalyst manufacturing and pharmaceutical process development backgrounds, the most recent review article from the lab, which appears today in ACS Catalysis, examines the emergence of non-platinum group metals (non-PGMs) as catalysts in the modern pharmaceutical industry. Congrats to the entire team: Hui and Carin from Sinocompound, Mike from AbbVie, and Anne and Keary from Scripps Research.

For a link to the open-access paper in ACS Catalysis, click here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscatal.4c01809

As a reminder, a ChemRxiv pre-print on this work was uploaded back in March of this year: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/65fd5179e9ebbb4db940d941

Undergraduate intern Ruchira Hariharan is visiting the lab from Cornell University, where she conducts research in the lab of Prof. Song Lin. Ruchira joins the Engle lab as a SURF fellow and will be working with Al on palladium catalysis. Welcome to the group, Ruchira!

Three new members join the lab this week.

Lan is an undergraduate intern visiting from Pomona University, where he is on the swim team and conducts research in the Ball Lab. Lan will be working with Yilin on palladium catalysis.

Sara joins the lab as a visiting undergraduate student from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Last year she was an Amgen Scholar at University of Tokyo with Professor Shū Kobayashi. Sara will spend her stay in the Engle Lab exploring palladium catalysis with Wenji.

Arthur is a junior at Westview High School and will be working with Ester this summer.

Welcome to the Engle Lab!