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.

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.

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 Shanghai, China and grew up near the foothills and hippies of Boulder, Colorado.  He then attended Harvard, where he worked in the Myers group on the synthesis of tetracycline analogs.  Upon graduation, he migrated to yet another bastion of leftism with a significantly larger population of hippies and joined the Toste group to pursue his interests in catalytic methods..

Jeffrey Wu

Jeff was raised in northern California and attended UCSD where he was a member of the Kobayashi Lab doing total synthesis. He then worked at Roche in Palo Alto for a few years before joining the Toste group. His generic interests include sports, music, traveling, and hanging out.

Class of 2009

Miles Johnson

Miles was born and raised in lovely Akron, Ohio. Tired of hearing about Lebron James, he fled to the University of Richmond where he worked on Mukaiyama aldol-type reactions under Prof. Wade Downey. After four years, Miles realized that transition metals and liberalism were the ways of the future, and so came to Berkeley.

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.

Class of 2011

Dimitri Khrakovsky

Dimitri grew up in Columbus, Ohio and attended the University of Chicago where he worked on asymmetric aldol chemistry under Prof. Hisashi Yamamoto. Outside of lab, he enjoys playing tennis, sampling the diversity of Berkeley dining, and attending concerts. He hopes to one day become a tower of chemistry like his colleagues in the Toste group.

Dillon Miles

Dillon obtained his B.S. from Rice University in 2011, exploring new applications of carbon nanotubes under the guidance of Prof. Zachary Ball. After having his fill of Texas barbeque and humidity, he has returned to the west coast to continue his studies in the area of asymmetric gold (I) catalysis. When not in lab, he enjoys the entertaining sciences of meteorology and StarCraft.

Andrew Neel

After growing up in scenic Wichita, Kansas, Andrew reluctantly migrated eastward to UNC- Chapel Hill for college where he did his undergraduate research with Jeff Johnson working on asymmetric annulations involving strained cycloalkanes.  Armed with his newly-learned southern charm, Andrew decided to brave Berkeley for grad school.  When not in lab, he enjoys distance running, basketball and nice cold PBR.

Jigar Patel

Jigar was born and raised in New Jersey, arguably the best state in the country.  He completed his undergrad at Northwestern working on enzyme inhibitors with Professor Richard Silverman.  He then came to Berkeley and joined the Toste group (completing his westward migration).  Outside of chemistry, he likes the Eagles, but only when they are winning. 

Willie Wolf

Willie is originally from St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota where he worked with Professor Andy Harned on the synthesis of chiral organocatalysts and with Professor John Ellis on the synthesis of low-valent polyarene metal complexes. Shrouded in the mystery of the Great North Woods, he came to Berkeley to learn a thing or two about chemistry in the Toste group. He hopes to climb a redwood tree someday.

Post-Docs

Julian Chan

Julian attended college at the University of Illinois, performing research on bisphosphonate drugs under Prof. Eric Oldfield. He then moved to Boston in 2005 to work for Prof. Timothy Swager at MIT. His Ph.D. research involved designing and synthesizing fluorescent conjugated polymers and dye aggregates.

Kristen Clary

Kristen Clary grew up in the small town of Barriere outside Kamloops, BC in Canada. She began her undergraduate studies at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, before moving on to the University of Calgary to complete her BSc and PhD degrees under the supervision of Professor Tom Back. Her PhD research was based on the development of the vinylogous aza-Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction.

Mike Gesinski

Mike was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI. He moved to Houston, TX to escape the bitter cold and attend Rice University where he received his BS in chemistry in 2005. He pursued a PhD at the University of California, Irvine working with Prof. Scott Rychnovsky utitlizing the Prins cyclization reaction to form complex tetrahydropyran-containing natural products. In 2011, he joined the Toste group as a post-doc hoping to gain a greater understanding into the development and application of organometallic chemistry.

Joerg Hehn

After finishing his undergraduate studies with Prof. Ulrich Koert at the University of Marburg, Germany, Joerg moved to TU Munich where he graduated with Prof. Thorsten Bach working on weird organic photochemistry. He crossed the big pond to get some experience in organo- and transition metal catalysis and to enjoy the great outdoors and everything else that beautiful California has to offer.

Kenichi (Ken) Hiramatsu

Ken was raised in central Japan. After studying chemistry with Prof. N. Fujii at Kyoto Univ, he has been working as a medicinal chemist for Asubio Pharma, a group of Daiichisankyo, in Japan. He has an unprecedented chance to study abroad from 2011 to 2013, enjoying leading edge sciences in the group and open-minded California life with his family. He has a strong desire to attain progress in organic synthesis methods here and make use of the experiences for design, synthesis and development of a new drug in the near future.

Takashi Honjo

Takashi was born and raised in Ehime, Japan. He earned his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Yoshimitsu Nagao at The University of Tokushima in 2006, developing asymmetric desymmetrization reactions utilizing sulfonamide catalysts. Then he has been working as a medicinal chemist at Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation. In 2011, he joined the Toste group. Now he enjoys state-of-the-art science and wonderful California.

Christian Kuzniewski

Christian carried out his undergraduate studies in Cologne, Germany where he conducted his diploma work on Pauson-Khand chemistry under the supervision of Hans-Günther Schmalz. Subsequently he moved to ETH Zürich to do his PhD in the group of Karl-Heinz Altmann. His thesis is centered around total syntheses of highly modified epothilone analogs.

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.

Neal Mankad

Neal was an undergraduate at MIT in Cambridge, MA, where he did research with Prof Joseph Sadighi. He then switched coasts and began a PhD at Caltech in Pasadena, CA before unexpectedly moving with his advisor, Prof Jonas Peters, back to MIT during completion of his thesis. In order to continue the oscillating pattern, Neal has now come back west for his postdoc. He is happily learning about organic chemistry in the Toste group while also making interesting Au coordination compounds to keep in touch with his inorganic chemistry roots.

David Nagib

David grew up in the suburbs of Philly and earned a B.S. in Chemistry at Boston College '06, working with Prof. Scott Miller to desymmetrize diols via small peptides. He then earned his Ph.D. with Prof. David MacMillan at Princeton University '11, developing several new trifluoromethylation reactions by employing organocatalysis as well as photoredox catalysis.

Cristina Navarro

Cristina grew up in Madrid, Spain. She carried out her undergraduate studies at Complutense University where she also did her PhD developing new synthetic methods based on conjugate addition reactions using rhodium and palladium catalysts. In 2011 she moved to the University of Sheffield to work on supramolecular chemistry in the group of Prof. Christopher A. Hunter. Now she enjoys working in the Toste group and living in California.

Robert Phipps

Robert studied for his undergraduate degree at Imperial College London and moved to the University of Cambridge in 2006 to start his PhD studies with Matthew Gaunt. His thesis, completed in 2010, concerned the development of novel and selective C-H bond arylation reactions using copper catalysis and hypervalent iodine reagents. He has joined the Toste group to be educated in the ways of asymmetric catalysis.

Thomas Reissner

Thomas was born in the near of Munich where he also grew up. He studied chemistry at the University of Munster and did his diploma thesis on NHC-metal complexes. For his PhD thesis, he moved to Munich and joined the group of Prof. Thomas Carell at the University of Munich. Now he enjoys time in the Toste group and beautiful California.

Sanil Sreekumar

Sanil was born in Mumbai, India. After completing his MSc in Chemistry, he joined for PhD under Prof. P. Andrew Evans at University of Liverpool, UK in 2006. His PhD work was on the total synthesis of a nortriterpenoid (Lancifodilactone G) using transition metal catalyzed carbocyclization reactions. In the Toste group, Sanil plans to develop chemical catalysts for biofuels and lignin breakdown and modification.

Chung-Yeh Wu

Chung-Yeh was born and grew up in Taiwan. He received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from National Taiwan University and M.S. in National Tsing Hua University. After obtaining his Ph.D. from National Taiwan University under Prof. Ying-Chih, Lin in organometallic chemistry, he spent a year at NTU as a Postdoc fellow in the lab of Prof. Pi-Tai, Chou. In 2011, he joined the Toste group to explore the beauty of asymmetric Gold catalysis and attractive California.

Visiting Scholars

Andreas Dumrath

Andreas was born in the small Hanseatic City of Wismar. He studied chemistry at the Baltic Sea at the University of Rostock and joined the group of Prof. Dr. Staffan Sjoborg at the University of Umea, Sweden in 2007. After returning to Rostock he did his diploma thesis on novel Phosphine ligands for palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions. For his PhD thesis, he joined the group of Prof. Matthias Beller at Leibniz Institute of Catalysis (LIKAT), Rostock. He came to California, to extend his experience in the Toste group and to discover great California.

Undergraduates