Hui Ding

Ph.D., Chemistry
University of Vermont, 2004
huiding@chem.ucla.edu

Aleksandras Lotuzas

B.S., Chemistry
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2021
alek.lotuzas@chem.ucla.edu

Alek got his Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he worked on the total synthesis of Ineleganolide, a complex, marine natural product found in a species of soft coral. He worked there under the advisement of Dr. David Sarlah for 2.5 years before graduating in 2021.

Emma Greene

B.S., Chemistry
UCLA, 2021
emmagreene@chem.ucla.edu

Emma graduated in 2021 from the University of California, Los Angeles with a B.S. in Chemistry. She is interested in research at the interface of organic synthesis and biochemistry with medicinal applications.

Jacqueline Bustamante

B.S., Chemistry
UC Merced, 2021
jackie.b@chem.ucla.edu

Jacqueline earned her BS in Chemistry from UC Merced. As an undergrad she performed research for 3 years in Professor Jennifer Lu’s lab as part of a NASA funded project. She worked on the synthesis of small molecules known as Dibenzocycloocta-1,5-dienes (DBCOD) that were used for the development of low-energy driven smart polymers. Prior to starting graduate school, she completed an internship in Discovery Chemistry at Merck. The work she did prior to graduate school ultimately inspired her interests in organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry.

Gabriella Cooper

B.S., Chemistry
Northeastern University, 2020
gacooper@g.ucla.edu

Gabby received her Bachelor's degree in chemistry from Northeastern University. During her time at Northeastern she studied cysteine protease inhibitors as targets for neglected tropical diseases under the direction of Dr. Lori Ferrins. She also worked as a medicinal chemistry intern at EMD Serono and Goldfinch Bio where she synthesized small molecules in support of drug discovery.

Gilbert Walker

B.S., Chemistry
California State University, 2020
gilbertleewalker@chem.ucla.edu

Gilbert Walker received his Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry degree from California State University, Los Angeles. As an undergraduate he worked in the lab of Dr. Tunstad studying the synthesis of resorcin[4]arene derived molecular capsules for the determination of factors affecting host-guest complexation.

Marcelo Mazariego

B.A., Chemistry and Mathematics
Williams College, 2022
mam13@chem.ucla.edu

Marcelo graduated in 2022 from Williams College with a B.A. in Chemistry and Mathematics, where he worked in the Sarah Goh Lab on the synthesis of hydrogels from Lignin-based monomers for his thesis. His main research interests are in the natural product synthesis of bioactive molecules.

Jerry Hsu

B.S Chemistry,
National Taiwan University, 2018
M.S Inorganic Chemistry,
National Taiwan University, 2021
hungkaihsu@g.ucla.edu

Jerry finished his undergraduate degree in chemistry in 2018, and his master’s in 2021 at National Taiwan University. While there, he joined Prof. Yi-Tsu Chan’s laboratory of supramolecular and polymer chemistry to study the coordination-driven self-assembly of supramolecules utilizing terpyridine. He designed and synthesized the metalloligands for the construction of multicomponent dendritic metallo-supramolecules.

Emily Murzinski

B.S., Chemistry
University of San Francisco, 2014
emurzinski@chem.ucla.edu

While at the University of San Francisco, Emily worked with Dr. Megan Bolitho on the efficient synthesis of S-ribosyl homocysteine analogs for enzyme LuxS. Upon graduating, Emily worked at Gilead Sciences where she served as a medicinal chemist on the design and synthesis of various antiviral drug candidates.

Ruthy Shin

Chemistry

Ruthy is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Global Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She hopes to pursue a PhD in medicinal chemistry and work in the field of drug discovery and development.

Jacob Newman

Chemistry

Jacob is a third year chemistry major at UCLA. In the future he hopes to pursue a PhD in either medicinal or organic chemistry to work in pharmaceutical research.

Ashely Michel

Chemistry

Ashley Michel is a second-year undergraduate biochemistry major at the University of California, Los Angeles. She hopes to pursue a career in medicine with the goal of one day becoming a surgeon.

Vanlinh Nguyen

Chemistry

Vanlinh Nguyen is a second-year undergraduate chemistry major at the University of California, Los Angeles. She hopes to pursue a career in medicine with the goal of becoming an anesthesiologist.

Liubo Li

B.S., Chemistry
Nankai University, 2016
CSST Fellow
rupertlee@chem.ucla.edu

Liubo performed undergraduate research in the laboratory of Professor Baiquan Wang, where he focused on Ru(II)-catalyzed C−H activation reactions. He completed his thesis on Ru(II)-catalyzed C−H amidation of 2-phenylpyridines with dioxazolones. He is now devoted to the beautiful world of total synthesis

Luke Sisto

B.S., Chemistry
Brandeis University, 2016
ljsisto@chem.ucla.edu

As an undergraduate at Brandeis, Luke worked in the laboratory of Professor Li Deng on the synthesis of cinchona alkaloid based phase transfer catalysts for an umpolung imine isomerization. Additionally, he completed his thesis on a comparative study of the reactivities of several generation catalysts for said reaction.

Evan Hurlow

B.S., Chemistry
University of Utah, 2017
NIH-CBI Training Grant Fellow
evan.hurl.o@gmail.com

Evan began his undergraduate career at the University of Utah while working as a laboratory assistant at SymbioCellTech, a biotechnology company concerned with the development of a cure for type I diabetes mellitus using three-dimensional aggregations of islet and mesenchymal stem cells. He then transitioned to the laboratory of Dr. Jon Rainier where he developed novel analogs of a quinone-amino acid conjugate known to possess the ability to disrupt amyloid plaques found in the disease Leber Congenital Amaurosis.

Salvador Bernardino

B.S., Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, Davis 2017
sbernardino@ucla.edu

Salvador worked under Dr. Emanuel Maverakis at the University of Calfornia, Davis using one-bead-one-compound technology to identify integrin-specific muscle stem cells , specifically integrin Alpha 6 Beta 1, to determine its critical binding motifs for wound healing applications. He then performed research under Professor Alexander Dudnik on the synthesis of diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based conjugated polymers through transition metal catalysis for materials applications.

Ishika Saha

MChemistry
University of Durham, England 2017
ishikasaha@g.ucla.edu

Ishika completed her integrated Master's degree at the University of Durham, England under the supervision of Prof. Ian Baxendale. Her thesis focussed on the synthesis and reactivity of 3-benzalphthalide derivatives towards bioactive heterocyclic compounds.

Anton El Khoury

B.S., Chemistry
Univeristy of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2017
elkhouryantona@gmail.com

Anton worked under the guidance of Professor Igor Kaltashov at University of Massachusetts -Amherst. His Bachelor thesis was on the assessment of histidine-tag ruthenium labeling as a novel method for recombinant protein tracing as well as on the elucidation of the structure of the synthesized ruthenium-his-tag complex, using various computation methods including, but not limited to, molecular dynamics.

Angel Mendoza

B.S., Chemistry/Molecular Synthesis
University of California, San Diego, 2018
Fellowships Awarded: Christopher S. Foote Fellowship and Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship
amendoz@chem.ucla.edu

Angel's undergraduate research with Professor Valerie Schmidt involved synthetic methodology development, specifically anti-markovnikov amination of olefins. In addition, Angel also did undergraduate research at Takeda Pharmaceuticals working on medicinal chemistry. Specifically, synthesizing different small-molecules and their analogs.

Morris Dweck

B.A., Chemistry
Rutgers University, 2014
modweck@chem.ucla.edu

Morris’ undergraduate research with Elena Galoppini involved the synthesis of linker and anchor groups for ruthenium star complexes. These ruthenium star complexes were used to functionalize semiconductor nanoparticles which were incorporated into dye-sensitized solar cells.

Ani Mustafa

B.S., Chemistry
Ohio State University, 2018
mustafa@chem.ucla.edu

Ani graduated from the Ohio State University in 2018. There, he worked with Professor David Nagib developing radical-mediated C-H functionalization transformations that enabled both the synthesis, and further diversification of a variety of heteroarenes.

Brennan Clement

B.S., Chemistry
University of California, Berkeley, 2019
brennanclement@chem.ucla.edu

As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, Brennan worked under Felix Fischer involved in the synthesis of monomers for graphene nanoribbons. By utilizing a ground-up synthetic approach, the electronics of these nanoribbons are tuned with more precision than other methods allow. Brennan is now working on a total synthesis project.