Future Leaders 2018 Gallery

Martine is a Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College, the University of Oxford. Her doctoral work focused on the use of a wide range of ligand- and protein-observed biophysical and biochemical methods to study hypoxic response and antimicrobial resistance. Her work provided novel information about substrate selectivity of dioxygenases, linked to pathology, and mechanistic insights into lactamases. Martine completed her undergraduate studies at the Lebanese American University, Lebanon, where she received the President's Award for academic excellence and leadership skills. In 2013, she came to St. John's College, Oxford, as Sir Hans Krebs Memorial Scholar, Biochemical Society. She has undertaken her doctoral research at Oxford under the supervision and guidance of professors Christopher Schofield and Timothy Claridge. She was awarded a Pfizer-sponsored prize and a Thesis Commendation from the Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division, Oxford, for her doctoral work. In 2018, she was selected to represent the University of Oxford at the 68th Lindau-Nobel Laureates Meeting, received the first ever Eddy Fischer Lindau Fellowship from the Vallee Foundation, and was selected as a leading young scientist by Baden-Württemberg International. Her work to date has been presented at several international conferences and described in over 20 publications.

Manuel received his B.Sc. in chemistry at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. In 2016, he completed his Ph.D. in chemistry at the same institution studying solute transport through lipid membranes in the presence of transmembrane proteins. He then joined the group of Drs. Alarcon and Suuronen at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute as a Postdoctoral Fellow. During that time, Manuel was involved in several projects related to the biomaterials and nanotechnology fields. Currently, Manuel holds an appointment as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Mass General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, in Boston.

Jennifer is an environmental engineer who studies the environmental fate of organic pollutants. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich’s Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics and is investigating the degradation of commonly used pesticides. Dr. Apell received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she researched the transport and accumulation of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in aquatic systems. She received her B.S. and M.Eng. in environmental engineering sciences from the University of Florida with a specialization in water treatment processes.

Lucka started her studies at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and finished at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), obtaining MPharm qualification. After spending a year in Sydney (Australia), where she worked as a pharmacist while studying academic English, she was awarded with a BBSRC DTP scholarship and started her Ph.D. studies at the School of Pharmacy, UEA (UK). Lucka is now looking at how spider venom toxins might come in handy when treating chronic pain. During her Ph.D., she worked with the Naked Scientists (University of Cambridge), organized and led science communication workshops "From Geek to Low-Tech Speak", created a virtual reality game “Bug Off Pain” on the idea of her Ph.D. and led the winning CryoThaw team on the Young Entrepreneurial Scheme competition.

Dario was born in 1989 and grew up near Bergamo, Italy. He studied chemistry and pharmaceutical technologies at the University of Milan, where he obtained his M.Sc. degree in 2014. His master thesis was conducted under the supervision of Professor Sergio Romeo. Previously, he has been an intern at Bayer in Leverkusen, Germany. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the group of Dr. Timothy Noël. His work focuses on the development of photonefficient luminescent solar concentrator-based photomicroreactors (LSC-PM) to enable green, sunlight-driven photoredox reactions.

Gari obtained a B.Sc. degree in pharmacy and biochemistry at the University of San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Peru and a M.Sc. degree at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. His thesis research focuses on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based metabolomics as a tool for chemical characterization of commercial medical plants and chemotaxonomic studies.

Chong-You is currently a Ph.D. student in Prof. Wei-Ssu Liao’s group in the Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in the Department of Applied Chemistry, National Chiao Tung University in 2011 and 2014, respectively. His research is focused on surface chemistry in spatially controlling molecular environments via chemical lift-off lithography to manipulate biomolecule anchoring, nanoparticle alignment and microdroplet formation for analytical platforms.

Tristan is a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow at the University of Western Australia working on the development of nanomaterials for applications in medicine. His research to date has focused on nano-based, multifunctional drug delivery systems for the aided delivery of therapeutics in cancer, heart disease, wound healing following burns and central nervous system injuries. Outside of his research, Dr. Clemons is an accomplished hockey player representing Australia on 51 occasions with the Australian men's hockey team, an advocate for science outreach in schools, a husband and a soon to be father.

Alexander obtained a B.Sc. in chemistry from Imperial College in 2013, and an M.Sc. in polymer chemistry from the University of Warwick in 2014, conducting research involving the design and characterisation of self-assembling peptide-polymer conjugates. Following this, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Warwick in the group of Professor Sébastien Perrier, investigating functional polymers for nucleic acid delivery applications in collaboration with an industry sponsor. In 2018, Alexander took up a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Cofund Fellowship, working with Professor Paolo Decuzzi in the Laboratory of Nanotechnology for Precision Medicine at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genova.

Justine was born and raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a city that she promptly escaped after high school. Following a several year stint in New York City, she returned home to attend New Mexico State University where she received the NIH MARC Fellowship to support her undergraduate research with Dr. William Maio. On receipt of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Justine moved to The Scripps Research Institute to pursue studies under the guidance of Professor Phil S. Baran. While there, she has helped to initiate the first research program within the laboratory to explore complex biomolecules as targets for total synthesis.

Jie is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He received his B.S. (2014) and M.S. (2017) degrees from Sichuan University, China under the supervision of Prof. Changsheng Zhao. During 2016-2017, he joined Prof. Joachim P. Spatz's group at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research as a research based project student. His scientific interests were focused on stimuli responsive biointerfaces, hydrogel materials and cell/material interactions. Jie's current research interest in Prof. Andreas Walther's group is to fabricate non-equilibrium, life-inspired DNA-based active matter and time-programmed materials.

Dana is from Pomona, NY. She started graduate school at the University of Rhode Island in the fall of 2014 for a Ph.D. in chemistry and an MBA. She works for Professor Mindy Levine studying fundamental non-covalent intermolecular interactions of aromatic and non-aromatic molecules using cyclodextrin-promoted energy transfer and fluorescence modulation. Dana has published 13 publications and presented her research at several conferences. She has helped coordinate several female-specific educational outreach programs. Dana is also co-owner of a small business called The Party Elements that specializes in kids’ science birthday parties. Upon finishing her degree, Dana plans to move to Maryland to work on science policy.

Jesús obtained his BEng and MEng degrees in chemical engineering at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) after spending one year at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2015, he finished his Ph.D. degree in Madrid after a research stay at the Technical University of Dortmund (Germany) sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service. As a postdoctoral researcher, he joined the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom) before returning to Dortmund in 2017 thanks to the Green Talents Program and then joined the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim an der Ruhr (Germany) in 2018.

Madison graduated from Bard College in 2012 where she discovered a love for organic chemistry with the help of her advisor Prof. Emily McLaughlin. She earned her Ph.D. in 2017 from Temple University working with Prof. Bill Wuest where she explored methods to harness chemistry for studying antibiotic resistance. She next moved to the always sunny UC Irvine as a postdoc with Prof. Gregory Weiss. Her current work involves developing a continuous flow system to enhance biocatalysis. Madison is passionate about translating science for students of all ages, working to improve representation in chemistry, and of course, her cats.

Gabe received his B.Sc. in chemistry from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2013. His research at that university focused on computational studies of electrophilic aromatic nitration via single electron transfer. In the fall of 2014, he joined the laboratory of Prof. Igor Alabugin at Florida State University as a Ph.D. student. He was awarded the 2016 IBM Ph.D. Scholarship and 2018 ACS COMP Chemical Computing Group Excellence Award. At that group, he explored the use of stereoelectronic effects to control chemical reactivity. Gabe is interested in solving problems in organic chemistry using computational and theoretical tools.

Jesus received his bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He is currently working toward a Ph.D. at the University of Buenos Aires addressing the epistemological study of the quantum theory of atoms in molecules and its role in the definition of molecular structure. Jesus is interested in the foundational relationship between chemistry and physics and his goal is to build and develop new arguments in favor of the independence of chemistry as a scientific discipline, especially with regard to the education of new chemists who acquire solid chemical concepts proper to our scientific practice.

Christopher was born and raised outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied chemistry, physics and statistics at Ohio Northern University. Christopher spent a year abroad as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, working with Professor Penelope Brothers. In 2010, he began his Ph.D. studies at MIT and then Harvard University under the supervision of Professor Daniel Nocera, where he developed quantum dot-based oxygen sensors. In 2016, he began postdoctoral studies at UC Berkeley in the laboratory of Professor Michael Marletta as a Miller Fellow. He is currently developing red fluorescent proteins for biological sensing applications.

Yuanhe was born in Shandong, China in 1993. He received his bachelor's degree in 2015 in organic chemistry at Peking University. After that, Yuanhe stayed in Peking University as a Ph.D. candidate in Prof. Dr. Zhen Yang and Prof. Dr. Jiahua Chen's group. The group focuses on total synthesis of complex natural products, while his research has been in the crossing area between developing new asymmetric methodologies for total synthesis purposes and using computational chemistry to understand the processes in the group's research.

Felicia joined Assoc. Prof. Anton Dolzhenko's Laboratory of Organic & Medicinal Chemistry at Monash University Malaysia as a Ph.D. student after receiving her BPharm (First Class Honours) from Curtin University, Australia in 2014. She is currently working on the development of practical methods with the focus on microwave-assisted synthesis and multicomponent reactions for the preparation of potentially bioactive 1,3,5-triazine based purine isosteres.

Victor was born in Hong Kong in 1989. He obtained his B.S. degree in chemistry at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2012. Currently, he is a fifth-year graduate researcher in the Department of Chemistry, Emory University under the tutelage of Prof. Khalid Salaita. Here, his primary research centers on understanding the biophysical mechanism of T cell activation. In recognition of his graduate research, Victor has received a number of awards including: Osborn Quayle and Charles Lester Awards (Emory University), BASF/Lindau Fellow for the Nobel Laureate meeting (Lindau Foundation) and the F99/K00 predoc to postdoc transition award (National Cancer Institute).

Jana earned her B.Sc. from Oklahoma State University in 2010, where she graduated as a Niblack Research Scholar and the Chemistry Department's Outstanding Senior. In 2010, she entered the graduate program at the University of Kansas and joined the laboratory of Prof. Paul Hanson, where her research focused on the development of phosphorus-based tether methods for the synthesis of polyol-containing natural products. After completing her Ph.D. (2016), Jana began a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis in the laboratory of Assistant Professor Timothy Wencewicz, working on the synthesis and biological evaluation of small molecule inhibitors of tetracycline-inactivating enzymes.

Abby-Jo is a chemistry Ph.D. student at the University of Calgary (Canada) in the Welch research group working on the synthesis of organic pi-conjugated materials and their use in solar cell devices. Abby's focus had been on exploiting low-cost and readily available organic building blocks in the development of practical and sustainable synthetic methods to access new materials for their use as the active component in organic solar cells.

Yunyan is currently a postdoctoral fellow with Sir Fraser Stoddart at Northwestern University, where he researches in the field of molecular machines and related functional materials. He earned his Ph.D. degree in chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) under the guidance of Professor Kevin Noonan and Tomek Kowalewski. At CMU, his research interests included organometallic chemistry and polymer science. Recently, he was selected to be one of the 2018 PMSE Future Faculty Scholars. Outside the lab, he enjoys watching movies and hiking with his family.

Yoshito was born in Tokyo, Japan and was raised in Tokyo. He received a B.S. degree in 2015 from Keio University, and is currently working in his doctoral course at Keio University with Profs. Noritaka Chida and Takaaki Sato. His thesis work is developing an iridium catalyzed reductive nucleophilic addition to amides. This reaction showed high chemoselectivity and was also applied to the total synthesis of complex alkaloids. When Yoshito is not in the lab, he loves reading JoJo's Bizzare Adventure (Japanese manga). Outside the area of organic chemistry, he is interested in AI and machine learning.

Siddulu Naidu is a Research Associate at the Global Innovative Center for Advanced Nanomaterials (GICAN), The University of Newcastle, Australia. His research encompasses the design and development of multifunctional nanoporous materials in which the resulting structural features are controlled at a molecular level to tackle grand challenges of energy and environment, including capturing and sensing of flue and toxic gases, CO₂ capture and conversion technologies, H₂ production, heterogeneous catalysis, electrodes in efficient energy storage batteries and supercapacitors. He has published more than 40 original research papers in high impact factor peer reviewed journals.

César was born in Venezuela and studied chemistry at Universidad Simón Bolívar (Venezuela). He completed his Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry and catalysis at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) under the supervision of Prof. Steven P. Nolan. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) with Profs. Walter Leitner and Jürgen Klankermayer. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University under the supervision of Prof. Mark Saeys. His research focuses on the development of new catalysts to transform CO₂ into valuable chemicals and elucidating reaction mechanisms.

Galina graduated from the chemistry department of Moscow State University (MSU) in 2014. She decided continue her research in the field of biochemistry and now is a Ph.D. candidate at MSU under the supervision of Dr. Galina Sud'ina and Natalia Soshnikova. She is focused on human blood cells and processes which happen during differentiation and immune response. In addition to her scientific activities, Galina has experience in the organization of conferences, marketing and startups.

Julian is a Canadian-American chemist who is deeply interested in finding creative solutions to problems in catalysis and compelling stories to tell the world. After receiving his B.Sc. (Hons.) in chemistry at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver in 2013 advised by Prof. Glenn M. Sammis, he moved to Princeton University where he completed his doctoral studies in organic chemistry and catalysis in 2017 with Prof. Erik J. Sorensen. Julian is currently an NIH and Resnick Sustainability Institute Prize Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology working in the labs of Profs. Harry B. Gray and Brian M. Stoltz to invent green methods for making fuels, pharmaceuticals and high-performance materials. Outside of lab, Julian likes to play music (piano, guitar and sing), run and write magazine articles.

Anita obtained her M.Sc. degree in chemistry from Delhi University, India in 2011. She obtained her M.Tech. degree in "Molecular Engineering: Chemical Synthesis and Analysis" from the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India in 2014 under the supervision of Prof. Siddharth Pandey. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the same research group. Her research interest focuses on the investigation of various excited-state aggregation and complexation processes within ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents and their judiciously selected cosolvent mixtures.

Qi was born in 1993 in Anhui, P. R. China. He attended the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) in 2011 for his undergraduate studies and obtained his B.S. in fine chemicals in 2015. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the group of Prof. He Tian. His current research focuses on supramolecular chemistry and smart materials. He has published several first-author papers in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Mater., Chem. Sci., Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., etc. His scientific dream is to do complex tasks by simple chemistry.