Class of 2004
Melanie Chiu
Melanie grew up in sunny San Diego and did not learn what autumn foliage looks like until she went to Dartmouth College, where she did undergraduate research in organic synthesis under Prof. Peter Jacobi. She is now a joint student with the Bergman group, where she regularly makes nitrogen-containing messes employing a wide range of transition metals. When not in lab, Melanie enjoys training for racing triathlons and making noise in the Music Dept. practice rooms. Her favorite d-orbital is the d(z^2) orbital.
Class of 2005
Rebecca LaLonde
Rebecca is the only member of the group who has ever willingly jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet. When not performing death-defying stunts in lab, she likes to knit.
Nathan Shapiro
Nate is the cool dude in the group.
Cole Witham
"A stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder."
Class of 2006
Greg Hamilton
Greg grew up in Evanston, the north side of Chicago. Being stuck between the big city and the upper class suburbs must have given him strange musical tastes, as he now spends as much time as he can annoying labmates with white people rap. Although he went down south to Emory for undergrad and is now on the west coast, he assures us he's still "reppin Chi."
Pete LaPierre
Henry, also known as Pete, graduated from Harvard University in 2006. As an undergraduate researcher he worked under the tutelage of Prof. Jared Shaw at the Broad Institute (now of UC-Davis) and Prof. Masahiro Murakami (Kyoto University). In the fall of 2006, he joined the Toste and Arnold groups as a joint member. He is currently pursuing applications of vanadium imido catalysts in organic synthesis.
Asa Melhado
Asa likes labwork more than writing blurbs.
Steve Sethofer
It seemed to be a sort of monster of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.
Class of 2007
Chris Boyd
Chris grew up dealing with bitter winters in Ithaca, New York, and continued to brave the cold at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. Now free of the chill in sunny California, he is a joint student with the Bergman group, studying cobalt-mediated reactions. When not in the lab, Chris enjoys science fiction and the pretentious use of dead languages.
Dan Gray
Dan grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and received his B.S. in Chemistry from Emory University. He is seen here standing in front of our group's dearly beloved glove box.
Steve Heller
Steve iz 0n ur substrate makin ur reakshun 3nantios3lektiv w00t!!!11!oneeleventeen!
Jane Wang
Jane grew up in Honolulu before she decided to brave the cold Californian winters to do her undergrad at Caltech. While she does enjoy standing in front of archaic rotovaps, she also likes reading cooking blogs and is always on the lookout for a good ale for her chili.
Rachel Zeldin
Rachel wears brightly colored clothing.
Class of 2008
Mika Shiramizu
Mika was born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan. She received her B.S. from the University of Tokyo (Japan), where she worked with Prof. Shu Kobayashi. Inspired by 1-year study abroad experience at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in her junior year, she flew back to the States for graduate study and joined the group in 2008. When not in the lab, she loves watching theatrical performances (musical, dance, etc.)
Aaron Lackner
Aaron grew up in Minnesota, and attended Carleton College, doing undergraduate research with Prof. Steven Drew, synthesizing and characterizing chiral Pt "double salt" chains. He then worked at Merck for two years with Dr. Hyun Ok in drug development. When not in lab, He enjoys posing awkwardly in front of empty hoods.
Yiming Wang
Yiming was born in a communist country, grew up and attended college in two of America's centers of liberalism, and has come to Berkeley to do gold chemistry in the Toste group.
Jeffrey Wu
This is also what Jeff looks like when he is snowboarding.
Class of 2009
Miles Johnson
...
Hunter Shunatona
Hunter grew up in Texas, moved to UNC-Chapel Hill for college, and then came out west for grad school. He can be described via his ideal Jeopardy categories: What to do in case of zombie outbreak; The Mars Volta; Futurama; Project Mayhem; Films by Coen Brothers, Danny Boyle, and Wes Anderson; Esoteric References and Quotes; Shark Week; and Science-ing 101.
Chen Zhao
Chen grew up in Tianjin China before moving to the middle of nowhere in upstate New York. He finished his last year of high school in Cupertino, California before moving down to La Jolla to attend UCSD. While there, he performed research with Professor Charles Perrin, working on isotope effects and the Bergman cyclization. Now he is a joint student with the Bergman group NOT working on the Bergman cyclization (go figure). Ouside of lab, the New York Giants are his religion and Arrogant Bastard is his favorite beer.
Post-Docs
Giovanni Wilson Amarante
Giovanni was born and raised in Campo Belo, Brazil. In 2005, he received his Master degree in Chemistry at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora. Soon, he moved to Campinas-SP and carried out his Ph.D. work in Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Fernando Coelho. Now, he has joined the group of Prof. Dean Toste working on asymmetric Gold catalysis.
Heather Burks
Heather was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. She obtained her B.S. in chemistry from Indiana University where she worked under the direction of Prof. Jeffrey N. Johnston. Her doctoral work with Prof. James P. Morken, beginning at the University of North Carolina and continuing at Boston College, centered on the development of the asymmetric transition-metal-catalyzed diboration of allenes and dienes.
Skip Brenzovich
Skip was born in raised in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and carried out his undergraduate studies at the College of William and Mary. He completed his doctoral work under the direction of K. C. Nicolaou at The Scripps Research Institute in the area of natural products chemistry.
Matthew Campbell
Matthew grew up in the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, where he received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh while working under Prof. Dennis Curran. He then moved to Chapel Hill and performed his Ph.D. work in the lab of Prof. Jeffrey Johnson, where he worked on a variety of projects involving electrophilic amination, 3-exo-dig cyclizations, and the total synthesis of polyanthellin A.
Ana Gonzalez
Ana, a boron chemist with a gold fever, was born and raised in Puerto Rico. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, under the supervision of Prof. John A. Soderquist were she worked developing new organoborane-mediated processes.
Jack Liu
Jack obtained his B. Sc. at University of Toronto, where he conducted undergraduate research under Profs. R. A. Batey and M. Lautens. He then moved to University of Illinois for his Ph. D. studies on silicon-based cross-coupling, under the direction of Prof. S. E. Denmark. Now at Berkeley, Jack is helping to establish the group's foothold in heterogenous catalysis. Expect big things from nanometer scale materials. That's how we roll.
Osamu Kanno
...
Toshio Kanai
Toshio was born and raised in Shizouka, Japan. He earned his Ph.D. at Kyushu University under the supervision of Prof. Shuji Kanemasa and has been working at Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals (Dainippon Sumotimo Pharma.) since 2000 where he won a Platinum Ticket (perhaps it should have been Golden) from the company to join the Toste Group to learn new technologies and methodologies. When he is not in the lab, he enjoys practicing the tea ceremony.
Florian Kleinbeck
Florian was born and raised in southern Germany. He carried out undergraduate studies at TU Munich and ETH Zurich. After a research stay with Prof. David A. Evans at Harvard University, he obtained his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Erick M. Carreira at ETH Zurich, working on natural product total synthesis.
Wataru Kuriyama
Wataru is from Kyoto, Japan and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo with Professor Takeshi Kitahara, working on natural product synthesis. He has been working on asymmetric catalysis at Takasago since 2001. In 2009, he received two golden gifts: the opportunity to join the Toste group and the birth of his son. When not working on gold chemistry in the laboratory, he is on duty caring for his golden boy. Quite golden days.
Vivek Rauniyar
Vivek comes to us from the University of Alberta, where he worked for Dr. Dennis G. Hall. His Ph.D. research was focused on catalytic asymmetric addition reactions of allylic boronates and their application to natural product synthesis. When not chilling by the solvent stills or developing new chiral counterions, he enjoys drinking and sports, Go Oilers!
Sunghee Son
Sunghee earned her B.S. and M.S. at Seoul National University in South Korea under Prof. Eun Lee. She completed her Ph.D. with Prof. Greg Fu at MIT.
Hyun-Ji Song
Hyun-Ji grew up in Daejeon, South Korea. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), where she studied tin-free radical reactions under the guidance of prof. Sunggak Kim. She earned her Ph.D. under the direction of David A. Evans at Harvard University in the area of asymmetric catalysis.
Visiting Scholars
Timo Mayer
Timo is a Ph.D. student in the group of Prof. M. E. Maier at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Tuebingen, Germany. His research focuses primarily on the total synthesis of natural products. Timo intends to form new bonds with gold in the lab, and explore the golden state of California outside of the lab.
Vincent Medran
Vincent was born in Annecy, France. in March 1986. He began studies in organic chemistry at the Grenoble Institute of Technology. Since 2006 has been working hard in a 3-year Chemical Engineering program provided by the Ecole Supérieure de Chimie Physique Electronique de Lyon. From 2008 to 2009, He did an internship at Boerhinger Ingelheim Pharma in Germany working on prostaglandin inhibitors. After working in the Toste group, he plans on pursuing his Ph.D. in Med. Chem. His interests include swimming, scuba-iving, hiking, House & Electro music, Japanese food and photography.
Yun Shi
Yun is a Pd.D. student from China. Now he enjoys the free California sunshine everyday and gold chemistry, one world, one gold.
Undergraduates
Kotaro Kelley
My friends call me George, and I maintain an uneasy truce with the static gun. |
