Sustainability Leadership Fellow Cohort: 2019-2020

Ph.D. Student, Department of Chemistry

Research Summary: My research focuses on rare-earth elements and my goal is to harness their exceptional magnetic properties to control chemical reactions. Currently, I am building a conceptual model to prove this concept by synthesizing strong magnetic molecules with rare-earth ions that can control substrates with unpaired electrons, such as radicals. Specifically, it is my aim to study the magnetic interactions between each component and the relative influence of rare-earth ions on radical chemical reactions. Knowledge of these mechanisms is fundamentally lacking, and it is my goal to understand how magnetism in small molecules can be used to facilitate new chemistry.