Dr. Corrie Burlas, Dr. Benjamin Headford, and Dr. Corrie Burlas were hooded during the winter commencement ceremony.  All three defended their dissertations during the fall.

Corrie Burlas defended her dissertation entitled, An Evaluation of the Ligand Effects on Neopentyl Phosphine Derived Precatalysts for N-Arylation Reactions and for the Cross-Coupling of Aryl Acetylenes with Propargyl Alcohols and Amides, on July 25th.

Benjamin Headford defended his dissertation entitled, Development of Modular Synthetic Pathways Towards
Novel P‑Unsymmetric Bidentate Ligands, on August 3rd.  

Congratulations to Dr. Burlas and Dr. Heaford.

The Shaughnessy group presented 5 papers at the ACS meeting in New Orleans.
Kevin Shaughnessy gave a talk in the Homogeneous Catalysis for Applied Organic Synthesis symposium entitled, "Alkylphosphine cyclometallation as a mode of catalyst deactivation and a source of active catalysts." 
Ethan Hu gave a talk entitled, "Methods to reduce Pd(II) precatalysts to Pd(0) for cross-coupling reactions" in the Organic Division.
Benjamin Headford presented a poster entitled, "Synthesis and catalytic application of asymmetrically substituted 1,3-diphosphines," in the Organic Division.
James Howard presented a talk entitled, "Synthesis and catalytic application of asymmetrically substituted 1,3-diphosphines," in the Division of Chemical Education.
Connar Franklin gave a poster in the Division of Chemical Education entitled, "Phosphine-free palladium catalysts for the direct arylation of heterocyclic aromatic compounds."