​

Graduate News:

Rana Mohamed Represents FSU Chemistry at the 2015 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

Rana Mohamed went to Lindau, Germany to attend the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. At the meeting, young scientists and several Nobel Laureates from around the globe gather to present and share ideas. Pictured above is Rana with Dr. Ei-ichi Negishi. Read more about it here.

Physical Organic Gordon Conference

In June of 2015, Chris Evoniuk and Trevor Harris traveled to Holderness, NH to attend the Gordon Research Conference for Molecular Synthesis, Properties, Theory and Function.

Above, Chris and Trevor are passing through Portland, ME on their way to New Hampshire.

Congrats, Kemal!

Kemal Kaya has successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis and accepted an Assistant Professor position at Dumlupinar University in Turkey!

Goodbye to Dr. Gold

Brian Gold has successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis and will continue working as a postdoctorate researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In 2014, Brian was awarded the FSU Graduate Research and Creative Activity Award, and in 2015, he won the Dorothy and Russell Johnsen Best Dissertation Award from the department. Congratulations and we hope to continue to see more great things from you, Brian!

​

Undergraduate News:

C.J. wins a SMART scholarship!

C.J. Kelsheimer has won a SMART scholarship from the U.S. Department of Defense to fund five years of graduate education. C.J. will pursue a doctoral degree in analytical chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. Congratulations, C.J.! More about this recognition can be read here.

Undergraduate Research All-Stars

Congratulations to Joe Guerrera, Liam Speranza, Juan Nogues, CJ Kelsheimer, Ilya Piskun and David Allenger for winning awards for their research from FSU!

Waving goodbye to Ilya

Ilya Piskun will pursue a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. Good luck and all the best, Ilya!

Ilya has been involved in research with the Alabugin group since 2012, and was recognized by receiving the ACC Collaborative Summer Research Award from Florida State University in 2014 and the ACS Organic Research Award from the American Chemical Society in 2015.

More on Ilya's work as an undergraduate can be read here.

​

Other News:

Best of Florida State in Mexico City

The first "Best of Florida State in Mexico City" symposium was organized by Professors Juaristi and Alabugin in February of 2016.

Report of this symposium can be found here.

Read: The last of the cycloaromatization reactions discovered

"A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is.""

A recent JACS paper by Rana Mohamed describes how the drunkard is correct - just shining light can help to find things that are hard to find otherwise. In chemistry, light itself can create things, processes, or reactions that would never even exist in the dark... Read more about it here.

First firsts

Congratulations to Gabriel dos Passos Gomes and Christopher J. Evoniuk for publishing their first first-author papers!

Gabriel's work, "Stereoelectronic source of the anomalous stability of bis-peroxides", has been published in Chemical Science.

Chris' work, "Coupling cyclizations with fragmentations for the preparation of heteroaromatics: quinolines from o-alkenyl arylisocyanides and boronic acids", has been published in Chemical Communications.

These and other publications by the group can be found here.

Dr. Alabugin presents a mini-course in Mexico

Dr. Alabugin traveled to Mexico City in April 2015 to present a four day course on Stereoelectronic Effects on Structure and Reactivity at UNAM.

First 1/2K citations

The first paper from the group with ½ of 1000 citations!