Current Members
Riley Coffer
Riley is a junior biochemistry major that joined in the summer of 2024. His project involves the synthesis of lanthanide containing compounds that may predictably introduce different lanthanide ions into specific binding sites.
Hannah Flamion
Hannah is a second year chemistry major that joined the group in the spring of 2024, originally from Jasper, IN. Her project is working towards structures with predictable binding for multiple unique lanthanide ions as well. Hannah hopes to continue her study of chemistry after college.
Ivan Ortez
Ivan joined the group in the fall of 2023 as a senior psychology major. He is working on improving the brightness of metallacryptate compounds by introducing fully deprotonated carboxylic acids that form 5-member chelate rings.
Current Collaborations
Prof. Stéphane Petoud and Dr. Svetlana Eliseeva (CNRS–Orléans)
Dr. Matthias Zeller (Purdue University)
Past Members
USI
Easton Sibbitt: Easton joined in the fall of 2022, and has graduated from USI in May of 2024 with a major in chemistry. He has worked on projects that involve the synthesis of coordination compounds with multiple lanthanide ions towards applications in energy upconversion and metallacrowns with unique lanthanide ion binding sites.
Lauren Stilwell: Lauren joined in the fall of 2023, and graduated from USI in May of 2024 with a major in biochemistry and a minor in biophysics. Her project aimed to redesign the quinaldic hydroxamic acid ligand to include a 6,5-fused chelate motif rather than a 5,5-fused chelate motif. She was hired by AstraZeneca in Mount Vernon, IN.
Mary Wonzik: Mary is a junior chemistry major who joined in the fall of 2023. She has contributed to a project related to Yb–Er upconversion in tetralanthanide-containing MC-like compounds.
Alexis Carmack: Lexi joined as a sophomore in the fall of 2022 and is a psychology major at USI. Her project involved the synthesis of lanthanide-containing gallium-based metallacryptate complexes that exclude high energy oscillating bonds.
Wayne State University
Kailyn Fields: Kailyn graduated with a dual major in Physics and Biomedical Physics at Wayne State in 2022. She joined in 2021 as a part of the MARC program, and was working on synthesizing dimeric and heterotrimetallic metallacrown scaffolds for lanthanide based luminescence. Her progress was presented at the National American Chemical Society Meeting in spring of 2022. She is now a graduate student in the Chemistry Department at Wayne State since the fall of 2022.
Fardusee Jaigirdar: Fardusee graduated with a major in chemistry in 2021, and is now a technician in the Lumigen Instrument Center. She was working on synthesizing new 12-MC-4 compounds using quinaldic hydroxamic acid.
Elizabeth Biros: Liz graduated with a pre-dentistry degree from Wayne State. She has synthesized iron metallacrowns for potential application as MRI contrast agents. Her iron 15-MC-5s have been published in the Journal of Chemical Crystallography.
Enas Al-Ani: Enas graduated with honors as a pre-optometry student at Wayne State University who joined in 2019. She was synthesizing N,N,N’N’-tetrakis(ethylenebenzohydroxamic acid)ethylenediamine for the same purpose of forming a stable arylhydroxamic acid scaffold for trivalent lanthanide sensitization. She has also made amine-containing metallacrowns. Her next endeavor was to teach fifth grade in Detroit.
Christian Cook-Jones: Chris was a pre-med at Wayne State University when he worked with me during the summer of 2019. His project involved synthesizing N,N,N’,N’-tetrakis(methylenebenzohydroamic acid)ethylenediamine. This ligand is intended to function as a stable arylhydroximate ligand scaffold for trivalent lanthanide sensitization.
John Karns: John graduated with honors as a pre-med student from Wayne State University and joined in 2019. John was able to synthesize a novel lanthanide-encapsulating metallacrown compound using zinc, quinaldic hydroxamic acid, and phthalate, which has been published in Inorganic Chemistry. He has presented this work at two internal symposia and has won awards for his efforts at both symposia. He has also presented at the 2019 Ohio Inorganic Weekend. He has begun medical school at Michigan State University.
Abdur-Rahman Siddiqui: Abdur-Rahman graduated with a Chemistry degree from University of Michigan-Flint and worked with me at Wayne State University during the summer of 2019 as a part of his degree requirement to perform research. His project involved complexing trivalent lanthanides into [2.2.2]iminocryptands to see if sensitization is possible. He discovered a strong charge-transfer band that might place limits on this application. He has moved on to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for graduate school.