Professor Amir Hoveyda ranked as one of the Top 100 Chemists

Professor Amir Hoveyda has recently been identified as one of the Top 100 Chemists in the world for the last decade.

In a recently released report by Thomson Reuters, data on more than one million chemists worldwide were used to rank chemists according to the impact of their published research since the year 2000, as judged by the average number of citations per publication. These 100 represent the top hundredth of one percent. The 122 scientific papers published by Hoveyda during the most recent decade were cited 6,967 times, giving him an impact factor of 57.11.

A complete list of Top 100 Chemists, including statistical information about the institutions and countries where they work, can be found at: http://www.sciencewatch.com/dr/sci/misc/Top100Chemists2000-10/

Professor Hoveyda is the Patricia and Joseph T. ’49 Vanderslice Millennium Professor and chair of the chemistry department at Boston College.

Professor Kian Tan Awarded 2011 Sloan Research Fellowship

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Kian L. Tan has been named a 2011 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.  This highly competitive award recognizes early-career scientists whose work shows outstanding promise and provides financial support for fundamental research.

The Tan research group works on a reaction known as hydroformylation, an important process currently used to make commodity chemicals (current worldwide production is approximately 9 million tons per year). The Tan group has developed a novel catalyst that diverts the reaction to form organic compounds that were previously not accessible via hydroformylation. This breakthrough raises the possibility of applying hydroformylation in other chemical sectors such as fine and pharmaceutical chemical synthesis.

Professor Tan came to Boston College in 2006 after earning his PhD at the University of California Berkeley. He received a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2004 and worked in the laboratory of Professor Eric Jacobsen at Harvard University.

Professor Dunwei Wang wins NSF CAREER Award

Professor Dunwei Wang has received a prestigious career award from the National Science Foundation to further his research efforts over the next five years.

Wang, who has just completed his fourth year at BC, received a $550,000 award to advance his clean energy technology research and expand the community outreach programs of his lab. Wang, whose work has focused on developing novel technologies for clean energy applications, has a research portfolio that includes the development of Nanonets, a flexible webbing of nano-scale wires that have shown promise in laboratory tests for use in extracting hydrogen from water.

The grant will allow Wang to expand on that research and also continue his community outreach, including a summer research collaboration with high school science teachers and an interactive display at FanFest, a pre-game festival held before Boston College home football games, where he and his researchers use toys and games to demonstrate solar and hydrogen power technologies [watch a video on this at: www.youtube.com/bcchronicle].

“We’re very excited to receive this recognition and support for our research from the National Science Foundation,” said Wang. “With this support, we hope to see our technologies used to make a real impact on the world and making a real difference in people’s lives.”

Wang said community outreach is a natural outgrowth of his lab’s research into solutions that could one day provide cleaner fuel or help to build a better lithium-ion battery.

“The pure science and our work with the public are not difficult to balance because they are organically integrated,” said Wang. “The science that we pursue we hope will one day make an impact on society. That is our ultimate goal. So based on that, outreach is a part of our research activity.”

Dr. Jeffery A. Byers Joins Chemistry Faculty

Dr. Jeffery A. Byers has joined the department as an assistant professor of organic chemistry this summer. Formerly, a postdoctoral fellow in the research laboratory of Professor Timothy F. Jamison, his research is focused on the mechanism of epoxide opening cascade reactions directed towards the synthesis of ladder polyether natural products, as well as the development of novel nickel-catalyzed reductive coupling between alkynes and epoxides for the construction of homoallylic epoxides. After receiving a B.A. in Chemistry Summa Cum Laude from Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Byers conducted his doctoral work with Professor John E. Bercaw at the California Institute of Technology. His graduate research involved the synthesis of zirconocenes and understanding their application in catalyzing the kinetic resolution of racemic α-olefins by polymerization.

Dr. Byers’ independent research program will focus on in transition metal catalysis and its application in organic, inorganic, and materials chemistry. Projects will be centered on the development of useful technologies while addressing fundamental questions in organometallic chemistry. Applications include: the synthesis of densely functionalized organic molecules for fine chemical applications, the synthesis of useful polymer and copolymer architectures such as biodegradable polymers, and reversible hydrogen sequestration for energy storage purposes.