Chenfeng Ke is in the Department of Chemistry at Dartmouth College and works on developing supramolecular 3D printing materials, porous organic materials and carbohydrate sensors.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I chose to be a chemistry major during my undergraduate studies and then followed the track. Nothing special, but my passion has always been learning new chemistry.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I want to be a chef if I can choose another job. I like watching cooking shows and I am a fan of Gordon Ramsey. I enjoy the moment that people like my food.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

I am working on developing supramolecular 3D printing materials. I hope to transfer the molecular functions that the supramolecular community has been investigating for decades to the macroscopic scale and make useful materials and devices. I hope to 3D print molecular machines and build a macroscopic machine in the future.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

Linus Pauling. He is my hero. He probably would suggest that I take 5 grams of Vitamin C every day!

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

I am still working in the lab. My last reaction was a one-pot Boc-deprotection¹ and imine condensation.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

One book… could that be Wikipedia in print? I often find I waste too much time on Wiki.

I like a traditional Chinese instrument — GuZheng (Chinese zither)².  Any GuZheng album will work.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

Jeremiah Gassensmith at UT Dallas. I want to see his crazy answers.

[1] Editor’s note: Boc = tert-Butyloxycarbonyl, a common protecting group in organic synthesis.
[2] Editor’s note: As someone who hadn’t really listened to it before reading this interview, I really recommend checking this instrument out! It’s very relaxing.

David Sarlah is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois and works in the area of synthetic organic chemistry. David recently published “Dearomative dihydroxylation with arenophiles” in Nature Chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

My parents, indirectly. We had a small family-owned company that manufactured fruit syrups, and we had a small lab for quality-assurance. As a kid, I often spent time in this lab and eventually convinced my parents that they should get me an arsenal of chemicals and glassware to do organic synthesis. By the end of high school I had done most of the common reactions, including Grignard addition, LAH reduction, ozonolysis, and luminol synthesis. At that point, my mind was set to become an organic chemist.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I would be a food scientist or engineer, because that profession runs in my family.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

We are involved in both the chemistry and biology of natural products and methodology development. We work on how to streamline the synthesis of high-value chemicals by defining new chemical disconnections, as well as how to provide rapid and controlled access to natural products of broader significance.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

Robinson and Woodward at the same time, with me being there to moderate the conversation and observe their interactions. They both contributed significantly to the field of organic chemistry, yet they had very different views, principles, and personalities. Importantly, they are both from an era that was long before my time — it would be great to get a glimpse into it.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

I synthesized MTAD¹ a few months ago. I was helping to make more of this reagent so my graduate students could use it in their work. At some point, I had reactions running for days and weeks because I didn’t have time to work them up. Ahhh, I wish I could spend more time in lab, but my time is getting more and more limited these days.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

Led Zeppelin’s Mothership. It helped me through grad school, so I guess it could help me keep my sanity on a desert island as well.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

I can’t answer that — I know way too many candidates that should be featured and can’t really pick only one or two!

[1] 4-methyl-1,2,4-triazoline-3,5-dione

Ariane Vartanian studied materials chemistry at the University of Illinois before moving to New York, where she is now an Associate Editor for Nature Communications.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

Strong undergraduate advising and a gallon of Red Bull. In college I wanted to be a cinematographer, but I took general chemistry to fulfill a requirement. I had found chemistry dry in high school; add that to an early morning class and some sort of teenage rebellious phase — I skipped class and found myself on the verge of failing as the semester ended. So I crammed the entire textbook in three sleepless days. By the 65^th hour I was full-on hallucinating molecules. It was right around the chapter on molecular orbital theory when delocalized electrons started (in some sense literally) swimming around in front of me. My grade in the class was horrible, but it was worth it because I emerged totally fascinated.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I’d move to the Continental Divide, foster a bunch of dogs, and open an ice cream petting zoo bar. Essentially people would come to eat ice cream and play with my dogs. I’d try to encourage more people to adopt dogs and get them out of shelters. I’ve thought through this plan to the extent that it combines many of my favorite things, but there might be holes in the money-making part.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

I’m an editor for Nature Communications, and I love it. There’s this hungry, feverish feel of continuously taking in new knowledge and trying to shape the way my field is represented. It’s a great feeling to fight for a paper I find really interesting, and then see it published. One of my eventual aims is to be a molecular animator, making big screen films featuring giant, dynamic molecules to convince people that chemistry is more than just balancing equations.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

I’d be kind of interested in dining with Lucy the Australopithecus. She has a mythical reputation in grade school history books but I imagine there’s more to her story than the single paragraph we get.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

About half a year ago. I was attempting to use DOSY NMR to figure out the conformational flexibility of ligands attached to different axes of anisotropic gold nanocrystals.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

I would be a terrible hunter, so I doubt I’d survive any longer than a week. Therefore my choice would be about maximizing lifetime knowledge. I’d take The Western Intellectual Tradition, which I own for some reason but would never read otherwise. As far as music, I think listening to music created by humans would make me too lonely and sad¹.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

Any chemist who does research in a developing country. I’d like to learn about the differences in their experience and the unique challenges they face.

[1] Editor’s note: In this case, might I recommend music made by non-humans?

Abraham Mendoza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Organic Chemistry at Stockholm University, and works on scalable and automatic synthetic methods involving C–H functionalization and main-group organometallics towards natural and artificial molecules.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

When I was pursuing my International Baccalaureate in high-school, I chose chemistry for my final project. I was given the keys to the lab during holidays to do some experiments and I guess that the feeling of freedom in a lab was too captivating for a teenager.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I think I would have loved being a program developer or a digital freelancer of some sort… creativity and computers!

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

We are developing new synthetic reactions with common organometallic nucleophiles to enable abbreviated syntheses of useful molecules. Lately, we have been quite busy applying a natural product total synthesis mindset to artificial molecules, like ligands. We hope that our research will enable explorations in tailored ligand design that are unthinkable now.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

I’d be thrilled to share table with the double Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling (Peace and Chemistry!). I guess that an amazing scientist with such a social commitment would be just too good of company.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

It was some weeks ago — I acquired and solved the structure of a single crystal. I happen to have recently turned into a crystallography aficionado…

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

Probably, I wouldn’t read or listen to music on a desert island… diving all day long sounds better to me!

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

Prof. K. Barry Sharpless. I’d love to read the answers of the true genius.

Haibo Ge is a Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), and works on the development of novel transition metal-catalyzed C–H functionalization processes and structure-activity relationship studies of anticancer agents. His group recently published a paper entitled “Site-selective C–H arylation of primary aliphatic amines enabled by a catalytic transient directing group” in Nature Chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I was amazed by the “magic” results from arranging different elements when I was a middle school student. Later, I was attracted by the art of synthetic chemistry and the applications in pharmaceuticals.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

If I weren’t a chemist, I would want to be a pilot since I enjoy the feeling of flying “freely” in the sky. However, I have never had this experience, and thus it might not be realistic.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

We are working on the site-selective C–H functionalization of simple substrates such as aliphatic amines and aldehydes via transition metal catalysis. I hope that it will lead to the practical use of these methods in process chemistry.

4. Which historic figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

Mozi, an ancient Chinese philosopher and the founder of the school of Mohism. More impressively, he was also a great scientist with prominent knowledge in geometry, physics, optics, etc.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

I was running a Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction together with a new graduate student about two weeks ago if that counts.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

For the book, I would like to take the ancient Chinese book Strategies of the Warring States. For the music album, I would like to have the Collection of Chinese Classical Music with me.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

Vy Dong because she is such a creative chemist.

Javier Pérez-Ramírez is a Full Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich, and works on the design of catalytic materials and reactor concepts for the production of chemicals and fuels, with emphasis on sustainability and resource efficiency. His group published “Catalyst design for natural-gas upgrading through oxybromination chemistry” in Nature Chemistry earlier this year.

1. What made you want to be a chemical engineer?

My passion throughout my youth was playing tennis, which I hoped to make a career. This did not work for various reasons, prompting a change in direction to attend university. The choice of chemical engineering was somewhat improvised, since I hadn’t considered an academic path, but after the first semester I was really attracted to chemical processes, a flame which still burns today.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I could commit to any activity driven by a strong dose of creativity, like any expression of art.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

We are interested in the discovery, understanding, and implementation of catalytic processes devoted to sustainable technologies. The latter secure the efficient utilization of natural resources, the transition to renewable feedstocks, reduced energy consumption and waste, and minimized environmental impact. More specifically, we target the design of practically relevant catalysts for natural gas functionalization, carbon dioxide valorization, the conversion of biomass to chemicals and fuels, and novel manufacturing approaches to specialty chemicals.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

I would meet with John Hutchinson, John McClelland, William Gossage, Holbrook Gaskell, and Henry Deacon at the time they conceived the modern chemical industry in Widnes, England.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

I am still experimentally active and master the process of coffee making every day; this is done in a highly reproducible way.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

Given the remote setting, I would take a thick notebook to write and draw. As for a music album, if Spotify is out of the question I would face the dilemma between The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 or The Ties that Bind: The River Collection. I need more time to think…

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

I would be curious to read the answers of my colleague and friend Núria López.

Ellen Sletten is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles.  The Sletten Group develops fluorinated nanomaterials and imaging agents for applications in medicine, chemical biology, and energy.  Ellen can be found on Twitter at @EllenSletten.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I was hooked ever since taking Advanced Placement Chemistry in high school¹. The ability to explain everything around me with elements and molecules was fascinating. I was particularly drawn to organic chemistry because of its synergy with biology, which ultimately led me to carrying out my graduate work with Carolyn Bertozzi.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I would be a horse trainer. My first job was working on a farm and teaching horseback riding lessons.  I loved it and spent every free second in high school at the barn. I managed to ride horseback a little in college but gave it up completely to go to graduate school.  Someday I’ll find time for it again!

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

We are exploiting the fluorous phase to create advanced nanotheranostics.  Perfluorinated materials have unique, orthogonal properties to biomolecules which allow us to control the localization and delivery of imaging agents and therapeutics.  We envision these materials will lead to a general approach for personalized medicine.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

Marie Curie — perhaps she is an obvious choice, but it is incredible what she accomplished in a time when it was difficult for women to do anything outside of their homes.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

I ran a TLC plate yesterday — does that count?  As a new faculty member, I’ve spent many hours in lab teaching my students and helping them with their chemistry; however, I haven’t actually done any of my “own” experiments here at UCLA.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

I’m a big Billy Joel fan so any of his albums would do but if I had to pick one it’d be The Stranger, which has “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” on it.  There are many books I’d like to find time to read but I’d have to go with Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, which is a perfect mix of science and inspiration.  Shout out to my graduate school book club for introducing me to this book!

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

John Jewett because he always has great answers!

[1] For our non-American readers, “Advanced Placement” classes (commonly referred to as AP) are upper-level classes that can be taken in lieu of the corresponding introductory course at a university, should the student score well enough on the associated AP exam. While not identical by any means, these are similar to an A-level in regard to who takes them and why.

Rein U. Kirss is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Northeastern University, and works on mechanistic organometallic chemistry related to homogeneous catalysis as well as co-authoring two general chemistry textbooks.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

My father was a PhD chemist, so I had a pre-disposition toward science. In my junior year of college I was deciding between history and chemistry as my major¹. I took a course in qualitative organic chemistry and realized that I enjoyed the challenge of solving chemical problems.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I would be an historian. Surprisingly, history and chemistry share some of the same intellectual challenges. Both disciplines require identification of important questions that lead to hypotheses. Those hypotheses are then tested by archival research and experimentation, respectively.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

I am currently exploring substitution reaction mechanisms of catalytically important ruthenium complexes, which I hope will lead to the design of new compounds with greater reactivity and selectivity.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

There are many to choose from but I imagine it would be really interesting to chat with Winston Churchill, a prolific writer, a man with wide interests and great gifts for oration that might help in teaching chemistry.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

I carry out the majority of the experiments in my laboratory as I do not have a graduate research group. My most recent experiment was last week as part of a kinetic study of halide substitution in cyclopentadienyl ruthenium compounds using ³¹P NMR spectroscopy.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

Depending on the nature of my exile I might need a book on survival, but intellectually speaking I might settle for Larry McMurty’s Lonesome Dove, a saga of 19th century life on the American frontier. Choosing a single album in an era of iPods with playlists of hundreds of songs is difficult, but I would pick an album from a sparingly known artist, Rodriguez, whose album Cold Fact still speaks to the human condition.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

For many years I have admired the work of Prof. William Geiger at the University of Vermont. As I got to know Bill, I was impressed with how he chooses the projects he does and how he came to become one of the leading organometallic electrochemists.

Continue reading →

Thomas Faust studied in the UK and Australia before moving to London, where he was previously an editor at Nature Communications. He is presently an Associate Editor for Nature Chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

My chemistry education started at a young age, which is pretty much unavoidable when your Dad is a chemistry teacher. Take, for instance, our family summer holiday in a lovely cottage, which included an educational trip to a nearby nuclear power station. Or our kitchen, which was periodically populated with all manner of apparatus for the synthesis of home brewed beer. In this setting, it’s pretty hard not to pick up an interest in science. At age five, my favourite chemistry involved trips to the school’s prep room, where I’d insist on seeing ‘magic smoke’¹ or ‘colours from nothing’².

My Dad tells of a time when, around the age of nine, I asked what the highest qualification he held was. After finding he had a BSc in Chemistry and a Masters’ in Education, I asked what was one better than that. A PhD, he said…

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

I’m a real sports fan. Most weekends I’m at a game of some description; I’m always looking to visit a new stadium, see a new team or learn about a new sporting code. Conveniently this hobby can coexist with conference travel quite nicely. My dream job would combine this with an interest in photography. I think I’d really enjoy being a sports photographer.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

Well I’m currently on secondment to Nature Chemistry, from my permanent position at Nature Communications. I enjoy working with a new team, and getting involved with all of the extra roles associated with a print journal. I want to bring my experiences back to Nature Communications and think about how some of the practices here might translate back into Open Access publishing.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with — and why?

Jesus, I think. He could clear up a lot of queries I have.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab — and what was it?

My last experiment was about two years ago and will have been performing magnetometry on some new framework materials I’d prepared. They behaved quite unusually, and a satisfactory interpretation of those results continues to elude me.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

The book would be David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity; I’ve starting reading it twice but have yet to make meaningful headway. If you haven’t read his earlier book, The Fabric of Reality, I suggest you try. It took me quite a while to finish, and I found myself re-reading each chapter multiple times to make sure I fully understood it. I still don’t fully appreciate some of the concepts. Nevertheless, it was a rewarding experience. Music-wise, definitely something by Kasabian. It’s tough to pick one, but I’m going to go with West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions — and why?

Stephen Curry; does he qualify as a chemist? In any case, he always has something interesting to say, and that’s more important, right!?

——————–

1. Bringing together stoppers wetted with hydrochloric acid and ammonia solution to generate plumes of ammonium chloride.

2. Any number of pH sensitive indicators, but adding base to a phenolphthalein solution was a winner.

[Editor’s note: Previously this article referred to the acidifcation of a phenolphthalein solution; a reader pointed out that Thomas had this backwards in his original post, and it has been modified accordingly.]

David Schilter studied in Australia, the United States and South Korea before making the move to London, where he now serves as Associate Editor for Nature Reviews Chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I found high school science experiments to be kind of fun. Getting decent grades in chemistry didn’t hurt my enthusiasm either; fast forward to undergraduate lab, and I’ve got this black ooze in my flask. I complained to my teaching assistant—a certain Mr. (now Prof.) Nilay Hazari— “I don’t know if this slime is the right stuff, I just wish my eyes could see the structure of this compound”. His response: “If that’s the way you think then chemistry isn’t for you.” Far from being discouraged, I now try to visualize—using equal parts experience and imagination—what’s going on in any material I set my eyes on. So I ended up being a chemist after all. And what of the black ooze? Well, that mysteriously transformed into shiny crystals of the product, of course.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be—and why?

I fancy some cooking, although my enthusiasm for that probably exceeds my skill (perhaps to the disappointment of any dinner guests). But isn’t a chef just a chemist anyway? Or perhaps it’s the other way around. In any case my real answer is that I’d be a yoga instructor (I wouldn’t go so far as to use the word ‘guru’). I do enjoy teaching and leading an active lifestyle, for which yoga is perfect. Ommmmmm….but I’d still want to be a chemist on the side.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

I just joined the editorial team at Nature Reviews Chemistry, a journal that doesn’t exist yet! Having said that, Nat. Rev. Chem. will open with a bang in 2017, showcasing high-visibility articles on all sorts of interesting chemistry. My hope is that this will be the go-to forum for experts and non-specialists alike to learn from our fantastic and diverse authors.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with—and why?

That would have to be Alexandre Yersin. Raised in Europe and trained by Louis Pasteur, Yersin was a prolific microbiologist, physician and all-round polymath who traversed much of Europe and Asia as a doctor aboard a ship. Along the way he treated the poor, mapped unchartered jungles of Indochina, and just happened to discover the bacterium responsible for the bubonic plague: the eponymous Yersinia pestis. All this before settling in Vietnam, where he spread his scientific acumen while manufacturing quinine (as well as a certain ‘reinvigorating’ cocaine-containing soft drink that went unpatented…). Yersin’s ‘biography’ Plague and Cholera, penned by Patrick Deville, is a must-read.

More than worthy of an honorable mention is Charles Pedersen, also a man of the world, and one that I—as a Eurasian and a synthetic chemist—have long wished to emulate.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab—and what was it?

A month ago I prepared a nickel complex I had designed as an electrocatalyst.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

The book is a no-brainer: On Writing by Stephen King is both hilarious and educational. I might still be an awful writer, but I’d be an even more awful writer had a friend of mine not gifted me this gem a few years back. As for music, Disintegration by The Cure is pretty damn near perfect. It is a little dark though, so I might cheat and also take Riot on an Empty Street by Kings of Convenience.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions—and why?

Emeritus Professor Leonard Lindoy is a great friend of mine and a font of arcane knowledge. I could retell here many of his stories, but you’d do much better by going straight to the source.