Janis Louie is a Professor of Chemistry and Henry Eyring Fellow in the Department of Chemistry and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the College of Science at the University of Utah. In the Hartwig laboratory, Janis developed some of the first palladium-catalyzed amination reactions between aryl halides and amines. She was an NIH postdoctoral fellow with Nobel Laureate Professor Robert H. Grubbs at Caltech where she developed iron catalysts for atom-transfer radical polymerization and ruthenium-catalyzed tandem reactions. Janis’ independent program focuses on catalysis with base metals, such as nickel and iron. Janis has been honored with a variety of awards including the American Chemical Society Cope Scholar Award, Camille Dreyfus-Teacher Scholar Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship Award, American Academy of Arts and Science Fellow, and the University of Utah College of Science Award for Teaching Excellence. She has recently become the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, which involves overseeing and implementing reforms in the CoS curriculum and building community among the faculty, staff, and students of the College of Science.

Grace Mann is Senior Director of Global Clinical Oncology at Corcept Therapeutics. In the Hartwig laboratory, Grace conducted some of the first etherifications of aryl halides and studies on the reductive eliminations to form carbon-heteroatom bonds. After finishing her Ph.D., she began postdoctoral studies in high-throughput experimentation at Los Alamos National Laboratory, followed by a year of teaching Chemistry at the University of Hong Kong. Her industry career began at Exelixis in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery and eventually transitioned to Clinical Development where compounds she first made in the lab were given to cancer patients in clinical trials. One compound, Cometriq®/Cabometyx®, was later FDA-approved. Grace then served in roles at Onyx and Puma during which time she contributed to various stages of development and/or approval of oncology drugs Kyprolis® and Nerlynx®. She continues to develop drugs so cancer patients can have other options to fight their disease.

Clare Muhoro is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Towson University and Senior Science Partnerships Advisor at USAID. In the Hartwig laboratory, Clare studied titanium-catalyzed hydroborations of alkenes and alkynes and prepared the first borane sigma-complexes. Interested in a career as a faculty member at a primarily undergraduate institution, Clare accepted a position at UC Santa Barbara teaching introductory chemistry to gain experience teaching large classes before pursuing faculty positions. After 8 years on the faculty at Towson, she began to work with USAID as an American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellow in Science, Diplomacy and Development. In this position, she managed science and technology partnerships to support collaborative research in Pakistan and India. In her current USAID position, she leads a collaborative program in South Africa that has brought together government, academia, regional entities and the private sector to support innovative research that addresses transboundary water issues in Southern Africa.

Erik was born and raised in So Cal and attended UC Riverside for his undergraduate education. During his time there, he worked in the group of Prof. Thomas Morton on the design of chemical hydrogen storage materials for light-duty automobiles. After his 3rd year, Erik had the opportunity to travel to Los Alamos National Lab to conduct neutron scattering studies on new solid-state electrolyte materials. Following graduation, Erik moved to Prof. Guy Bertrand's lab at UC San Diego to work with stable carbenes and leverage them as ligands in transition-metal-catalyzed reactions. As part of this research, Erik traveled to Grenoble, France to apply electrochemical techniques to the preparation of organic radical species and to elucidating mechanisms of radical reactions. For postdoc, Erik moved to Prof. John Hartwig's lab at UC Berkeley to identify conditions enabling novel silylation methods of alkyl C-H bonds. Upon his move back to UCSD to open his own lab, Erik looks to bring light into the equation to drive chemical reactions of enthalpically strong bonds.

Dan Weix recently accepted a tenured faculty position at the University of Wisconsin. During his postdoctoral fellowship in the Hartwig laboratory, Dan worked on some of the first iridium-catalyzed asymmetric allylations of unstabilized enolates. Dan has risen like a meteor during his independent career studying catalytic methodologies for organic synthesis. He pioneered a new form of catalysis called “cross-electrophile” coupling, which couples two different organic electrophiles, often using a first-row metal catalyst. Dan was raised near Milwaukee and is thrilled to move to Wisconsin to join this top-flight chemistry program.

Jackie Murphy is a research scientist in the electronic materials division of a new company emerging from the Dow-DuPont merger. In the Hartwig laboratory, Jackie conducted studies on the borylation of alkanes and spearheaded the use of the borylation of arenes to generate a range of products from the combination of borylation and oxidative functionalization. After graduating from the Hartwig laboratory, she was an NIH postdoctoral fellow with Greg Fu at MIT studying enantioselective catalysis with chiral Lewis bases. She joined Dow Chemical company and worked on large scale production of polyolefins at their site in Houston TX. When Dow and DuPont recently merged, Jackie transferred to the electronic materials business at the Marlborough MA site, nearby where she was raised. With her ability to learn new science quickly Jackie joined this new venture and is looking forward to the opportunity to develop high-value materials.

Christo Sevov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and moved to the US at a young age. He spent his formative years in South Bend, IN and received his B.S. in 2009 from the University of Notre Dame. There, Christo worked with Prof. Olaf Wiest on photocatalyzed cycloaddition reactions with selectivities that complement those of traditional Diels-Alder processes. Christo earned his Ph.D. in 2014 after beginning his studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with Prof. John Hartwig and later moving with the group to the University of California Berkeley. His research involved the development of methods and mechanistic study of metal-catalyzed additions of C–H, N–H, and O–H bonds across alkenes. Following his doctoral studies, Christo conducted his postdoctoral work with Prof. Melanie Sanford at the University of Michigan. Applying an organic chemist’s approach to energy storage, Christo helped establish a new research program aimed towards the design of solvated battery materials for redox flow batteries. Christo is joining the faculty of The Ohio State University in July 2017 as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Hanna Key just accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Davidson College, after working at or receiving offers from four of the top 15 liberal arts colleges in the US. Hanna was the first student in the Hartwig laboratory to conduct research on artificial metalloenzymes, and she established the experimental infrastructure in the group to conduct reserach with proteins. She designed and assembled artificial metalloenzymes, based on heme proteins, that contain an iridium-methyl unit in place of iron. Hanna published one paper in Nature, one in Science, one in ACS Central Science and two in JACS during her time at Berkeley, while simultaneously serving as Head Teaching Assistant for Organic Chemistry and receiving numerous teaching awards. She conducted postdoctoral research with Scott Miller at Yale on catalysis with metallopeptides, There, she cracked a longstanding group problem and published a communication in JACS in just one year before being recruited to return to her alma mater Grinnell College for a two-year teaching fellowship. With this experience, she received an offer from every school that interviewed her for a position in organic chemistry, and she will begin her tenure track position at Davidson this Fall.

Rebecca Green is a Research Associate at BMS. In the Hartwig laboratory Rebecca conducted collaborative research with the Dow Chemical Company and brought the amination of aryl halides to the realm of nickel-catalyzed chemistry. Rebecca developed practical coupling of ammonium salts with aryl halides to form primary anilines, as well as the nickel-catalyzed coupling of primary amines. Rebecca was interested in applying catalysis with organometallic complexes to the large-scale synthesis of pharmaceuticals and joined the BMS process chemistry group after finishing her Ph.D. degree. Most recently, she collaborated with John and a few other former group members to write a chapter for the 100th volume of Organic Reactions on the amination of aryl halides.

Sean Natoli started at P&G in 2020 leading a research group that focuses on sustainable surface actives. Sean obtained his PhD from the laboratories of Tong Ren and David R. McMillin. After graduating from Purdue, he studied as a postdoctoral fellow in the Hartwig group contributing to the artificial metalloenzyme program. During his studies in the Hartwig group he received several awards such as a NIH F-32 fellowship, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund PDEP fellowship, a California Alliance postdoctoral fellowship, a 2019 CAS Future leader, and was selected as one of the top 100 inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in America by Cell Press. As a father of four, Sean enjoys spending time with his family and engaging with the local community. He recently founded a new SACNAS alliance that connects academic and industrial scientists from across Ohio in promoting STEM careers for underrepresented groups.