Morken Research Group Members

POST DOCS

Dan Custar

Sarah Lihoa Poe

Bin Wang

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Laura Brozek (4th year)

Laura hails from Sacramento, CA where her initial interests in chemistry were shaped by baking soda and vinegar volcanos. Upon moving to Berkeley, CA for college, she fell in love with organic chemistry, and spent her undergraduate years in the lab of Professor Dean Toste. Her graduate research focuses on enantioselective conjugate allylation. In her free time, Laura enjoys cycling, live music, and giving and receiving high fives. Laura can be reached at: brozek@bc.edu

Ping Zhang (4th year)

Ping Zhang was born in 1983 in Sichuan, China. She obtained her B.S. in 2006 from Fudan University, where she worked on the improvement of ultra-thin batteries and Zn-air batteries in the laboratory of Professor Zhiyu Jiang. Now she is focusing on the development and study of the Nickel-catalyzed asymmetric allylation of unsaturated ketones. Email: ping.zhang.1@bc.edu

Hee Yeon Cho (3rd year)

Hee Yeon Cho was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. She was trained as a musician and graduated with a Bachelor of Music with honors from Seoul National University. After she came to the States, she earned a B.S. in chemistry with highest honors from the University of New Hampshire at Durham. As an undergraduate, she conducted research on graphite-sensitized microwave flash pyrolysis and thermal rearrangement of a linear butatriene in the laboratory of Prof. Richard Johnson at UNH. She is currently working on nickel-catalyzed multicomponent diboration of dienes and aldehydes. She can be reached at: chohv@bc.edu

Robert Ely (3rd year)

Rob Ely was born and raised in western Colorado. In 2003 he made the trip across the Rocky Mountains to be a Buff at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There he earned a B.S. in chemistry and biochemistry. During his last year and a half at CU he had an internship at Array BioParma Pharmaceuticals where he spent his time trying to cure cancer. As an avid Red Sox fan, Professor Jim Morken's lab was a perfect fit where he currently works on catalytic hydroboration of alkenes. He can be reached at: elyro@bc.edu

Robert Kyne (3rd year)

Bob was born on a beautiful, sunny day back in 1984 in the seaside city of New London, CT. After being raised in the next town over, he decided to make a return trip to New London for college. Bob spent four years at Connecticut College earning his B.A. with honors in chemistry. His undergraduate research included the total synthesis of (+/-)-frondosin C and microwave assisted [2+2] cycloaddition reactions to obtain naturally occurring 5-6-4 contiguously fused ring systems. Now, as a member of the Morken Group at Boston College, Bob is starting on the total synthesis of bromophycolide F and related methodologies. He can be reached at: kyner@bc.edu

Kai Hong (2nd year)

Hai Le (2nd year)

Scott Mlynarski (2nd year)

Chris Schuster (2nd year)

Grace Bauer (2nd Year)

UNDERGRADUATES
Landon Durak (Senior)

Landon is a senior studying chemistry at Boston College. He was born in Santa Barbara, California but moved to Buffalo, New York at a young age and grew up in the great white north. Much like the territorial transient Franco-Bavarian Alsace-Lorraine, the mother country of Buffalo, either Canada or The United States, is ambiguous. Thus Landon's current citizenship remains a mystery. Landon began working in the Morken lab in January of his sophomore year, when he began exploring the synthisis of unique ligand scaffolds to be used in various types of transition metal-catalyzed asymmetric reactions of unsaturated systems. Landon enjoys reading about theoreical physics, heavy metal and is an avid fan of the future Super Bowl Champion Buffalo Bills. Additionally, Landon has proven his ineptitude in manipulating copy machines.

Catherine Nuccio (Senior)

Mike Ryan (Senior)

Matt Cerundolo (Junior)