Class of 2003
Vince Chan
Vince was born and raised in Hawaii. Although he doesn't surf, he's still better than Ben. He then got ambitious and went as far away as possible to do his undergraduate work at Penn. He is currently a joint student with the Bergman group.
David Gorin
Raised in the beautiful state of New Jersey, whose best attribute is its proximity to New York, Dave can now say that he lives "next to" San Francisco. When he is not doing chemistry, one may find Dave sitting in a lounge chair on a cruise ship reading communist newspapers.
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
Cole is from Hutchinson, Kansas and received his B.S. in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. When not in lab, Cole likes to watch auto racing, Family Guy and Lost, and is still upset that Alias got cancelled. He would like to remind you that all your base are belong to us and Halo 3 r0cks!!!!1
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.
Post-Docs
David J. Buchanan
David was born and raised in Glasgow, UK. He went on to attain the qualification of PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Darren Dixon before working with Varinder Aggarwal at Bristol. David is currently a very content Marie Curie fellow in the Toste group.
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.
Pablo Mauleon
Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, Pablo earned his Ph.D. from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid under the the supervision of Prof. Juan C. Carretero (2006). Pablo is currently a Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia Postdoctoral Fellow
Francesco Santoro
Francesco was born in Italy but was raised in Switzerland. He studied at the ETH in Zurich and graduated in the group of Prof. Togni. When he is not in the lab, he likes to explore the beauty of northern California, hiking, cooking, or skiing.
Iain Watson
Iain received his bachelor's from the University of Toronto, where he worked under the supervision of Prof. Ian W.J. Still in the field of sulfur chemistry. He received his doctorate under the supervision of Prof. Andrei K. Yudin at the University of Toronto where he worked in the field of amination.
Minoru Uemura
Minoru was born and raised in Saitama, Japan. He earned a master's degree at the Tokyo Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. Fumie Sato and a Ph.D. at Kyoto University under the supervision of Prof. Koichiro Oshima. He has been granted a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellowship for Young Scientists.
Visiting Scholars
Eddie Maibach
Eddie is a visiting student researcher from Cologne, Germany, performing his diploma research in sunny Berkeley. He is still trying to figure out why the hell the clubs here close at 2 am, where is the American dream of freedom??? When not pondering this sad situation while working at his fume hood, he is looking for a place to finally learn how to surf...
Stefanie Ritter
Stefanie joined the Toste group as a visiting scholar from Cologne, Germany, to learn about asymmetric gold catalysis. She likes exploring the beautiful city of San Francisco, hiking up and down Californian hills, Donut-Tuesdays and the fact that Latimer Hall is in walking distance to several frozen yogurt places.
Igor Pochorovski
Igor is a visiting student researcher from Germany. He finished his undergraduate studies at the LMU Munich.
Undergraduates
Laura Muehl
Laura is currently a sophomore at Cal and loves rock climbing and collecting vinyl records. |
Kotaro Kelley
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Tracy Liu
Tracy is a sophomore from Laguna Hills, CA. When she isn't doing chem, she's skating for the Cal Figure Skating Team. Go Bears! |
Christoper Sorum
Chris is an exchange student from NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. Chris enjoys soccer, music and of course, chemistry. |
