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Visiting professorships in 2022

The Liebig-College invites every year visiting research professors, who give top-cailber lectures and seminars complementary to the themes of the JLU research groups. In 2022 our visiting professors will be:

Prof. Scott E. Denmark (University of Illinois, USA)

Prof. Scott E. Denmark was born in Lynbrook, NY in 1953. He obtained a S. B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and a D.Sc. Tech. from the ETH-Zürich under the direction of Albert Eschenmoser in 1980. That same year he was appointed as assistant professor at the University of Illinois and since 1991 has been the Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry.

Professor Denmark’s research involves the invention of new synthetic reactions, mechanistic and stereochemical aspects of carbon-carbon bond forming reactions and the design and development of asymmetric catalysts using chemoinformatics.

Professor Denmark has won a number of honors including the Pedler and Robert Robinson Medals (RSC), the Aldrich Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods, the F. S. Kipping Award in Silicon Chemistry (ACS) and the Prelog Medal.  He is currently the Editor in Chief and President of Organic Reactions.

Professor Denmark will be our guest from 30th of May till 3rd of June.

Prof. Erik Alexanian (The University of North Carolina, USA)

Prof. Erik Alexanian received his A. B. degree from Harvard University in 2001. During his undergraduate education, he performed research with Prof. Amir Hoveyda at Boston College focusing on enantioselective alkene metathesis. Erik continued his studies at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Prof. Erik Sorensen, moving to Princeton University before receiving his Ph. D. degree in 2006. His doctoral training involved the total synthesis of the furanosteroid viridin and the development of a palladium-catalyzed alkene aminoacetoxylation. Erik’s postdoctoral work with Prof. John Hartwig at the University of Illinois centered on synthetic and mechanistic studies of transition metal enolates. Erik enthusiastically joined the Chemistry Department faculty at UNC Chapel Hill in 2008 and was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 2019. The Alexanian group focuses on the development of enabling reaction methods in chemical synthesis. These projects aim to address important challenges facing society, ranging from the sustainable synthesis of small molecules to treat human disease, to the upcycling of post-consumer plastic waste.  A primary focus is the late-stage functionalization of unactivated C–H bonds in both small molecules and polymers to efficiently access complex molecules and materials with enhanced properties. We also pursue the development of new modes of reactivity in transition metal catalysis, with an emphasis on the use of common molecular feedstocks and earth-abundant first-row catalysts.

Professor Alexanian will be our guest from 1st till 5th of August 2022.

Prof. Anat Milo (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)

Prof. Anat Milo received her B.Sc./B.A. in Chemistry and Humanities from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, her M.Sc. from UPMC Paris with Berhold Hasenknopf, and her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science with Ronny Neumann. Her postdoctoral studies at the University of Utah with Matthew Sigman focused on physical organic descriptors and data science approaches in chemistry. At the end of 2015 she joined the Department of Chemistry at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where her research group develops experimental, statistical, and computational strategies for identifying molecular design principles in catalysis with a particular focus on stabilizing and intercepting reactive intermediates in organocatalysis by second sphere interactions.

Professor Milo and her family will be our guests from 12th till 18th of August 2022.