{"id":6441,"date":"2016-07-08T03:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T02:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/?p=6441"},"modified":"2016-07-06T15:39:59","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T14:39:59","slug":"reactions-ellen-matson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2016\/07\/reactions-ellen-matson.html","title":{"rendered":"Reactions: Ellen Matson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"matson\"Ellen Matson\u00a0is an Assistant\u00a0Professor\u00a0in the Department of Chemistry\u00a0at\u00a0the University of Rochester<\/a>. She studies\u00a0cooperative reactivity between non-traditional ligand platforms and first-row\u00a0transition metals\u00a0and goes on Twitter by @MatsonLab<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1. What made you want to be a chemist? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As a result of a short-minded freshman physics teacher, I ended up taking both biology and chemistry during my sophomore year of high school.\u00a0The connection between the two fields of science completely blew my mind! In college, I found that the more upper level chemistry classes I took, the more I loved the subject. When I finally got to graduate school and into a lab, I knew that research had to be a part of my future. The ability to ask and answer questions through synthesis is a feeling of gratification I can\u2019t even describe!<\/p>\n

2. If you weren\u2019t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019d be a politician or lobbyist. Our world needs some help!<\/p>\n

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In my young research group, we are working on the synthesis and characterization of transition metal functionalized polyoxovanadate-alkoxide clusters. So far, we\u2019ve been able to generate these compounds and study their electrochemical properties by cyclic voltammetry. We aim\u00a0to develop a new class of three-dimensional, robust, redox-active reservoirs for first-row transition metals\u00a0in an effort to facilitate multi-electron bond activation processes with earth abundant elements.<\/p>\n

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why? <\/em><\/p>\n

I think I would like to meet with a group of\u00a0the United States’\u00a0founding\u00a0fathers, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin especially. In addition to chatting about normal science-related things (it\u2019s so amazing to consider how far we have come as a community!), I would like to understand their thought processes when they wrote our constitution. I feel like a meal with these gentlemen would help to clear up some of the ambiguity!<\/p>\n

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?<\/em><\/p>\n

As a newly minted second-year assistant professor, my life still predominantly revolves around my own experiments. I\u2019ve got a great team of graduate students and a phenomenal postdoc who have provided me with opportunity to remove myself from the bench when necessary, but assisting them\u00a0with experiments is still a major part of my academic life. Last week, I helped an undergraduate put together a reaction exploring oxidative pathways for the generation of manganese-substituted POV-alkoxide complexes. Yesterday, I started to make some interesting mixed-metal precursors for cluster formation. Today, I\u2019m going to distill a thioether one of my graduate students has synthesized.<\/p>\n

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Exiled on a desert island is probably the appropriate place for my reading and music interests! I\u2019m majorly interested in any music that I can sing along to, much to the chagrin of my students. From a book standpoint, I\u2019d probably bring along Bard and Faulkner\u2019s \u201cElectrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications\u201d, as the solitude and quiet might actually give me an opportunity to sit down and learn something new!<\/p>\n

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

My colleague, Bill Jones. The man knows everything and he has an epic perspective on the world!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ellen Matson\u00a0is an Assistant\u00a0Professor\u00a0in the Department of Chemistry\u00a0at\u00a0the University of Rochester. She studies\u00a0cooperative reactivity between non-traditional ligand platforms and first-row\u00a0transition metals\u00a0and goes on Twitter by @MatsonLab.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}