Current Laboratory Members

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Edwards brings environmental science background to the team from industry; thus, he will taking over the hydrothermal geochemistry project of Fe-S clusters, nanoparticles, and minerals toward mitigation of looming environmental challenges in our modern world.

Building on her extensive expertise in synthetic coordination chemistry, Daria will be focusing on S as electron source in various inorganic or organometallic transformations. 

We will be welcoming Noah from York University, UK who is going to complete his M.Sc. thesis in our laboratory. While his interest is wide ranging; he will be working on carbon materials and the design of a new synthetic pathway that combines heat, light, and catalysis.

Maria will be involved in multi-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopic characterization of Cu coordination compounds, as candidates for quantum applications since their spin state can be experimentally controlled by chemical composition as well as their chemical environments.

Pari will be working on developing the blueprint for molecular engineering of phylloaluminosilicates toward catalytic use by mimicking metalloenzyme active sites and reactivity.

As the continuation of his undergraduate scholarship, Kevin is building up the design principles for Cr complexes in hands-on collaboration with Prof. Michael Mock's laboratory at MSU-Bozeman toward bidirectional ammonia oxidation and nitrogen fixation catalysts.

Xin's focus is on open face, porous carbon materials, such as zeolite templated carbons, their structure, gas adsorption, mechanical properties.

Coming from Computer Science program, I am excited to welcome Sufiyya, who is building up large-languge models for chemical compounds and reactivity with the aim to saw artificial general intelligence seeds in chemistry,

We are thinking together of the identify the extra-cellular electron-transfer mechanism that allows for methanogenic archaea to utilize pyrite to meet their physiological needs of iron and sulfide ions.

Tas is taking over the computational work from Nadifa on simulating the collision of two amino acids as they form dipeptides and longer oligomers.

Investigating the nitrogen reduction chemistry of Cr(0) complexes with P4N4 chelate ligands. Her specific interest turned to the SmI2 + EG redox chemistry as she is building up the lab's expertise in lanthanide chemistry and the applied electronic structure theory of 4f orbitals.

After being part of the Plant Alkaloid Drug team and focused on camptothecin; she is working on comparing and contrasting the performance of AlphaFold3 and classical force field methods in structure/function relationships of short (~16 mer) peptides.

Defense: August 24, 2023 (M.Sc.)

Thesis: Peptide Bond Formation Mechanism for Understanding Plausibility of in aquo Emergence of Metabolism Hypothesis

Teddy joined me after an ELSI conference in Tokyo and was interested in astrobiology and computational chemistry.  He was funded by UBC's Aspire Funds. Recipient of the 2023 Judith Moldovan Award for TA-s.

Alexis carried out bioinformatics analysis of iron-sulfur metalloproteins and metalloenzymes, identified peptide sequences and synthesized [4Fe-4S] maquetters. She was co-advised with Prof. Eric Boyd, MSU; funded by NSF CLP and DOE EPSCoR. 

Garrett was involved in chemical synthesis of [4Fe-4S]-maquettes and their spectroscopic characterization. He was co-advised with Research Professor Eric Shepard, Ph.D.; funded by NSF CLP.

Defense: October 25, 2017 (Ph.D.)

Thesis: Development and Application of Nano-Kaolinite Molecular Cluster Models

After postdoctoral research at Ibaraki University in Prof. Kohzuma's followed by  Mori's laboratory, he is an Assistant Professor at Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan

Defense: February 5, 2016 (Ph.D.)

Thesis: Electronic Structure Regulation of Blue Copper Protein through Non-covalent Weak Interaction 

Co-advised with Prof. Takamitsu Kohzuma. Yamaguchi san is Assistant Professor at Ibaraki University, Quantum Beam Science program.

Defense: April 28, 2016 (M.Sc.)

Thesis:  Computational Investigating C-H/C-O/C-C Bond Activation by Ni(0)-Phosphine-Olefin Complexes 

Jeffrey is an organic chemistry graduate student UTEP.

Defense: July 7, 2014 (Ph.D.)

Thesis:  Development of the Molecular Level Description for Nickel(II)-Based Ligand-Exchange Thermochromism 

Matt is Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Montana State University - Billings. In addition to considerable teaching load, he continues inorganic/materials science research with undergraduates.

Defense: November 2013 (M.Sc.)

Environmental Engineer, City of Fort Collins, CO

(left the lab without graduating)

QPS Holdings, LLC, Moorhead, MN

(left the lab without graduating)

US Ski Mountaineering Association, Salt Lake City, UT

Defense: April 17, 2012 (Ph.D.)

Thesis: Biomimetic chemistry of FeFe-hydrogenase's catalytic cofactor, the H-cluster

Logan is a Principal Scientist at Point One USA, LLC, in Virginia Beach, VA.

Defense: April 10, 2012 (Ph.D.)

Thesis: X-ray absorption characterization of Fe-S clusters, metalloenzymes, nanoparticles, and minerals

David is an Associate Professor/Department Head at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC

Defense: November 21, 2011 (Ph.D.)

Thesis: Composition and molecular structure of nitrogenase FeMo-cofactor

Travis is an Assistant Professor at Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle, WA

(left the lab without graduation)

(left the lab without graduation)

Macy's, Colombus, OH

(left the lab without graduation)

Kroff Lab Services, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA

Defense: November 21, 2005 (M.Sc.)

Thesis: Development of Palladium L-edge X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy

MeasureMeNow, Minneapolis/St.Paul, MN

Defense: July 1, 2003 (Ph.D.)

Thesis: Atomic-scale Description of a Molecular Clockwork Mechanism

Staff Scientist, Richter Gedeon, LLC, Hungary

As a 4th year Ph.D. student, Pimjai worked with us from Ubon Ratchathani University (Prof. Siriporn Jungsuttiwong's laboratory) for 4 month on a Canada ASEAN and 8 month Royal Golden Jubilee fellowships by the National Research Council of Thailand, Thailand (NRCT): N41A650123. Her focus is condensation and hydrolysis reactions from proton transfer perspective; exploring nuclear quantum effects.

Density Functional Tight Binding modeling of periodic zeolite templated carbon materials. 

(York University, U.K.)

University of Pécs, Hungary

(supported by Campus Hungary)

University of Pannonia, Hungary

(supported by Campus Hungary)

University of Pannonia, Hungary

(supported by Campus Hungary)

Ibaraki University

co-advised by Prof. Takamitsu Kohzuma

(supported by Ibaraki University)

Ibaraki University

co-advised by Prof. Yuichi Shimazaki

(supported by Ibaraki University)

Ibaraki University

co-advised by Prof. Kiyoshi Fujisawa

(supported by Ibaraki University)

Jessica found computational evidence for the inferior performance of AlphaFold3 artificial general intelligent model for peptide structure prediction in comparison to classical molecular mechanical force field calculations.

Investigating the ammonia oxidation chemistry of Cr(0) complexes with P4N4 chelate ligands.

Part of the Plant Alkaloid Drug team: focus is on artonine.

Part of the Plant Alkaloid Drug team: focus is on tabersonine.

Part of the Plant Alkaloid Drug team: focus is on evodiamine.

Description of proton transfer using multi-component DFT calculations with protonic wave functions.

Computational modeling of the reaction mechanism of nitrogen fixation reactivity with borylenes in collaboration with Dr. Conor Pranckevicius' group.

Designer of flexible fluorescent dyes for visualizing mechanical forces in biology in collaboration with Dr. Isaac Li's group.

Designer of rigid fluorescent dyes for visualizing mechanical forces in biology in collaboration with Dr. Isaac Li's group.Recognized for her work at the Western Canadian Undergraduate Chemistry Conference at University of Saskatoon, May 2024

Cu-C bond covalency, ionic bonding and spin delocalization as measures of electronic structure features in chlorocupric complexes and crystals. 

Visiting International Research Student; funded by UBC Aspire.

Modelling of mechanical properties and physisorption of templated carbon materials using density functional tight binding and ab initio methods. 

sophomore, chemistry professional major
computational modeling of amorphous carbon material maquettes
co-advised with Prof. Nicholas Stadie; funded by MSU USP

senior, chemistry professional major
computational modeling of amorphous carbon material maquettes
co-advised with Prof. Nicholas Stadie; funded by MSU USP

redox chemistry of [4Fe-4S]-maquettes

supported by NSF CLP

chemistry professional major
computational modeling of Fe-S clusters, nanoparticles, and minerals
funded by NSF CLP

chemistry professional major
redox chemistry of [4Fe-4S]-maquettes
co-advised with Research Professor Eric Shepard, Ph.D.; funded by NSF CLP.

MALDI and ESI-MS characterization of [4Fe-4S]-maquettes; supported by  MSU USP/NSF

supported by NSF

 supported by NSF

supported by  MSU USP and INBRE

supported by MSU USP

supported by MSU USP

co-advised by Prof. Seiji Mori

supported by MSU USP

supported by MSU USP

supported by MSU USP

supported by NASA NAI

supported by MSU AIRO

supported by MSU INBRE

supported by MSU AIRO

supported by Pleotint LLC

supported by NASA NAI

supported by MSU USP

supported by MSU CBIN

supported by MSU TBI

GHC fellow, MSU

supported by NSF REU

supported by NSF REU

supported by MSU IBRE

Computational modeling of reduced sulfur species as biosignatures from astrophysical remote measurements. She has also been involved in investigating the collision of two amino acids in bulk aqueous solution and isolated, molecular water droplet models.

She is an amazing scholar with the drive and motivation that is rare to find in a Ph.D. student!

Please visit her LinkedIn page to learn more about her stellar career path.

American Indian Research Opportunity program

Bozeman High School

Montana Apprenticeship Program

(visiting student from Puerto Rico)