Kehinde Ogunmola has joined the Shaughnessy group as a PhD student.  Kehinde came to UA from Nigeria.  His research is focused on metal-catalyzed methods for modification of closo​-borate anions.

Makynna Koper has joined the group as a new PhD student.  Makynna received her BS degree in chemistry at Southwest Oklahoma State University.  Her work is focused on understanding mechanisms of palladium precatalyst activation.

Kevin Shaughnessy organized a symposium on "New Directions in Metal-Catalyzed Reactions" at the 2021 SERMACS meeting held in Birmingham, AL.  Speakers included Xin Cui (Mississippi State), Jesse Carrick (Tennessee Tech), Eric Ferreira (University of Georgia), Jake Soper (Georgia Tech), Dale Wilger (Samford), Nathan Schley (Vanderbilt), Chris Goldsmith (Auburn), and Vicky Monteil-Palma (Mississippi State).  The symposium was generously sponsored by Organic Reactions, VWR, and Biocryst Pharmaceuticals.

Four new students joined the Shaughnessy group as undergraduate researchers this semester.  Geoffrey Alintoff is a New College student and a University Fellow.  He is working on new ligands for extraction of heavy metals from water sources.  Lindsey Hiatt is a Chemical Engineering major and a Randall Research Scholar.  Lindsey is working on new palladium precatalysts for cross-coupling reactions.  Allison Rhoads is a chemistry major and a member of the Emerging Scholars program.  Allison is working on new ligand for cooperative catalysis applications.  Trey Vardaman is a New College student.  He is working on catalysts for alkyne cross-coupling reactions.

Emily McEachern presented a virtual poster at the fall 2021 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.  Her poster was entitled, "​Investigation into the role of reactive sites on PNP pincer ligands in activation of important bond classes."

A collaborative paper involving the Piotr Kaszyński group at the Center for Marcomolecular and Molecular Chemistry, Łódź, Poland, Prof. Michael Sponssler at Syracuse, and the Shaughnessy group was recently published in Organometallics.  The paper is entitled, "Decaborate [closo-B10H10]2– as an efficient conduit of electronic effects: Comparative studies of Fe…Fe communication in [{(η5-Cp)(dppe)Fe}2{μ2-(NC-X-CN)}]n+ (n =0,2)."  A portion of the experimental work on this project was completed during Kevin Shaughnessy's Fulbright stay in Łódź in spring 2020.

Tattum Denham joined the group as an undergraduate researcher.  Tattum is a Health Professions major from Piedmont, AL.  She is working on the synthesis of new ligands for metal-ligand cooperative catalysis.

Group members Maddie Plunkett and Brendan Rosamond earned BS degrees in chemistry this past weekend.  Congratulations and best of luck in the future.