Princeton ACS Fall Organic Chemistry Symposium

Alison Wendlandt is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts institute of Technology. Alison is originally from Colorado, and received her B.S. from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison under the guidance of Shannon Stahl. Alison was subsequently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University in the Jacobsen research group, until beginning her independent career at MIT in 2018. The Wendlandt group is interested in the development and mechanistic elucidation of new selective catalytic reactions.

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"How Base Metal Catalysis Can Impact Process Chemistry"

Biography: 

Steve Wisniewski completed his undergraduate studies at The College of New Jersey. He then moved down I-95 to the University of Pennsylvania for his graduate studies, where he worked in the lab of Gary Molander, focusing on the cross-couplings of potassium organotrifluoroborates and the synthetic utility of azaborines. After graduating in 2014, Steve moved back up I-95 to New Jersey and joined Chemical Process Development at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he is currently a Senior Principal Scientist. Steve co-leads the Catalysis Community of Practice and Base Metals Initiative, where he helps bridge the gap in developing scalable processes utilizing base metals. As part of this initiative, Steve actively collaborates with Keary Engle’s lab at The Scripps Research Institute focusing on the development of novel methodology utilizing Ni catalysis as well as the development of air-stable Ni precatalysts. He also collaborates with Paul Chirik’s group at Princeton University (as part of the Princeton Catalysis Initiative (PCI)) focusing on the development of sp2-sp3 Suzuki reactions utilizing cobalt catalysis as well as fundamental understanding and methodology development of iron catalysis. Steve was also named an ACS Young Investigator in 2019.

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"The Cation-π Interaction:  from the Gas Phase to the Human Brain"

Biography:

   Dennis A. Dougherty is the George Grant Hoag Professor of Chemistry and the Norman Davidson Leadership Chair in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (CCE) at Caltech. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Bucknell University.  He did his doctoral research with Kurt Mislow at Princeton University, and then did a year of post-doctoral studies with Jerome Berson at Yale University. Professor Dougherty joined the faculty of CCE in 1979. 

   Dougherty is perhaps best known for development of the cation-π interaction, a novel but potent binding interaction between molecules that plays a central role in establishing protein structures and in modulating drug-receptor interactions.  Dougherty has also addressed molecular neurobiology, applying the mindset and tools of physical organic chemistry to the complex proteins of neuroscience – the molecules of memory, thought, and sensory perception; of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and schizophrenia. Through these efforts, Dougherty has produced fundamental insights into drug-receptor interactions and the signaling mechanisms they can lead to.

   Professor Dougherty is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and his research has been recognized with a number of awards, including: the Arthur C. Cope Award of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the ACS James Flack Norris Award for Physical Organic Chemistry, the AstraZeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, and the Javits Neuroscience Investigator, NIH. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science. He has been recognized with a number of teaching awards at Caltech, including the Richard Feynman Prize, and he is the co-author, with Professor Eric Anslyn, of the influential textbook, Modern Physical Organic Chemistry.

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