August 2024

Our article on the covnersion of methane to methanol using a novel type of catalysts in PCCP has just been accepted. This is part of the "PCCP Emerging Investigator" issue. Congratulations to Shahriar and Brody!

July 2024

Congratulations to Eslam for a successful master's defense! Good job Eslam!

June 2024

One more invited article, this time a Feature article in JPCA has been published! Check it out to see how anionic metal centers can be used for the next-generation molecular catalysts!

February 2024

One more busy month! Andrei presented a poster in the Sanibel meeting! EM participated in the GRC conference on "Molecular and Ionic Clusters" and he was selected to organize it in 2028. Our collaborative article published with Dr. Goldsmith shows how protons dance to facilitate redox chemistry! Our collaborative article with Dr. Vogiatzis on N₂ fixation with Mo catalysts is now online!

September 2023

Our second article in JPCL just got accepted! We show how hydrogen bonding can slow down the overoxidation of methane and increse the selectivity towards methanol. Big thanks to our collaborators (Richardson's group from ETH-Zurich)!

August 2023

Our feature article in Chem. Comm. is now online. The very positive reviews and the designing skills of Ben gave us the front cover! Read how diffuse electrons open a new road map in chemistry!

June 2023

The first paper of the undergraduate student Zhongyuan Lu in collaboration with the graduate student Benjamin Jackson is now published. This is our first paper on f-block metal ammonia complexes. Congratulations guys for this challenging work!

May 2023

My sabattical visit at ETH was very fruitful and yielded our first Science paper! Never thought that this will happen! Thanks to Prof. Dr. Ruth Signorell and her team!

April 2023

Ben defended successfully his Ph.D. thesis and will join PNNL as post-doctoral researcher soon! Congratulations Ben! Thank you for your hard work and good luck to the new place!

March 2023

Safaa defended successfully his Ph.D. thesis and he joined the University of Notre Dame as post-doctoral researcher. Congratulations Safaa, thank you for joining our group, and all the best to your future endeavors!

February 2023

I had a great time during my visits to Akron (OH) and Pittsburgh (PA) visiting the chemistry and chemical engineering departments, respectively! Thank you Ivan Popov and Giannis Mpourmpakis!

January 2023

Happy new year! Thanks to the hospitality of Prof. Signorell (ETH, Zurich) my sabbatical leave was very successful and enjoyable! I am pretty sure that our fantastic collaboration will lead to great articles. Ben had also the opportunity to visit ETH!

Andrei Evdokimov just joined our group. Welcome Andrei!

What a strong beginning for 2023. Our invited PCCP perpective article on methane to methanol activation has just been accepted for publication and was offered the back cover of the journal!

July 2022

Eslam Fathy Mohamed Abdelazim just joined our group. Welcome Eslam!

Getting ready for a sabbatical leave to ETH (Zurich). Thanks to Professors Ruth Signorell! Exciting times!

Our abstract got accepted for a hot topic talk at DEAMN 2022 (Dynamics of Electrons in Atomic and Molecular Nanoclusters). First time there, excited to share our results with a different community.

Congratulations to Emily who won the COSAM travel award and will give a talk at the next ACS meeting!

June 2022

Congratulations to Emily, Yeseul, and Professor Andrew Adamczyk for our first collaborative article on silicon hydrides. To the many more to come on formation of silicon nanoclusters!

Congrtulations to Ben for his new article on SEP linked dimers! It was an invited articel in JCP.

First time to GRC Catalysis! Very impressive meeting.

Ben is off to PNNL for a summer internship thanks to his SGSCR fellowship.

May 2022

One more productive and enjoyable semester finished. I especially enjoyed teaching physical chemistry to a small group of talented students. Their nice words and comments made me feel embarrassed.

April 2022

I am delighted to share that Ben and I were given the Dean's Research Award! Emily was given the Dow Fellowship from our Department! So proud of my students!

January 2022

Our article on SEP dimers linked with a carbon chain has been accepted for publication to Electronic Structure. Congrats to Zach, Shahriar, and Ben. It is the first publication for Zach and the first publication of an undergrdaute student (Zach) in our group!

Our artilce on TcO⁺ and RhO⁺ has just been accepted to JQSRT! Congrats Isuru!

It is our great honor that one of our covers was selected to be part of the festive journal cover for the 125 years anniversary of JPCA.

December 2021

Our fist ChemComm article has just been accepted! We show how SEPs can act as catalysts for capture and untilization of carbon dioxide.

November 2021

Shahriar defended successfully his PhD thesis. Great job Shahriar! New exciting avenues are ahead of you now at Georgia Tech!

October 2021

Shahriar just published his work on rhodium oxide dicationic ammonia complexes and their ability of activate methane. He showed that the [2+2] activation path can be sometimes as efficient as the radical (HAT) path. Check it out at Inorg.Chem. Congrats Shahriar!

The Department just informed me that they want me to stay! Tenure goal check. War Eagle!

September 2021

Emily just published her work on transition metal oxide dicationic species. Check it out at PCCP. Congrats Emily!

August 2021

After a break, we got two more publications. One in PCCP with Isuru studying the electronic structure of metal crown ether complexes, and one in Dalton Transactions in collaboration with Prof. Anne Gorden. Shahriar has also accepted a post-doc position in Georgia Tech starting in January. Congratulations Shahriar!

March 2021

Congratulations to Safaa for his first publication in our group! He showed that metal anions may be the key to selective methane to methanol activation.

February 2021

Congratulations to Isuru who defended successully his thesis. Now he is getting ready for his next step at MIT!

The hard work of our group the past five years is materialized not only with articles, but with awards! The PI was blessed to receive the OpenEye Junior Faculty Award in Computational Chemistry given by the American Chemical Society! This is our first National award. Thank y'all!

December 2020

After the "quiet" month of November, three articles have been accepted for publication in December: JPCA, JACS, PCCP. The JACS article is a collaborative work with Prof. Kit Bowen (JHU). Thanks everyone for your hard work!

October 2020

Three more Isuru's articles have been accepted in three different jounrals (JQSRT, PCCP, JPCA). The last one is in honor of Professor Alexander Boldyrev (Utah State University). We have the honor to be given the front cover for this article! Congrats Isuru!

August 2020

Two collaborative articles were accepted this month in our group. Congrats to my colleague Ming Chen for our organic chemistry article in Angewandte Chemie, and to my student Ben and my colleague Jordan Harshman for our Chemical Education article on hypervalency!

One more article on the electronic structure is just published in JQSRT! Congrats Isuru!

The PI was selected as James E. Land Assistant Professor of Chemistry! See here

June 2020

One more insightful article on the reaction of transtion metal oxides (RuO) with water has just been accepted by PCCP. We show that anionic systems can activate OH bonds easier than the commonly used cationic ones. Congrats Isuru and Nuno!

It is now official! Our proposal on plasma driven nanostructure synthesis led by Professsor Andrew Adamczyk (Chemical Engineering Department, AU) has been funded by the IGP program of AU!

May 2020

Shahriar's first paper on metal ammonia complexes just came out at JPCA. It was a really challenging work. Congrats Shahriar!

March 2020

Ben's first paper has just been accepted for publication in PCCP. It shows how weak field ligands enable early transition metal oxides to activate methane. Check it out!

January 2020

Thanks to the hard of my group, our work on metal ammonia complexes has been selected for support by the National Science Foundation (NSF CAREER)!

December 2019

Emily's paper on NbO was selected as a 2019 HOT paper by PCCP!

November 2019

Emily's FIRST paper on NbO and its reaction with methane has been accepted in PCCP! Congratulations Emily! To the many more to come!

Our first article on f-block metal chemistry has just been published in PCCP! Check it out! Congrats Isuru!

Another paper has just been published; product of a wonderful collaboration of our group with Professors Ortiz and Pawłowski. It actually won the front cover of JPCA! Congrats to us all!

October 2019

Our twelfth article this year has just been accepted in JPCA. Congrats Isuru and Nuno!

September 2019

Holden Paz, undergraduate student, just loined our group. Welcome Holden!

August 2019

Nuno is moving soon to Michigan State University to join the research group of Professor Angela Wilson. I would like to thank him for his hard work and significant contribution to my group. He has been a valuable member. All the best Nuno!

Shariar's work on the activation of molecular nitrogen using carbene pairs just got accepted! Congrats Shahriar!

July 2019

July started and ended with two publications; Check out our PCCP and JPCA articles on metal-water and calcium-ammonia clusters.

June 2019

Nice kick off for June. Accepted article + cover at JPCA and another cover at JCC. Good job Shahriar and Isuru!

May 2019

We all went to SETCA in Knoxville. Five posters and a lot of fun!

A new member just joined us. Welcome Safaa!

April 2019

Our joint work on Pt anion + methane with Professor Kit Bowen and his group has been accepted in Angew. Chem.

This month is great for Isuru: Three awards at the departmental, college, and graduate school level! Well deserved Isuru!

March 2019

Nuno's work has finally been accepted in a joint PCCP article with Vince Ortiz and Filip Pawlowski. Congrats Nuno!
Isuru's article at JCC got one more Journal cover! Good job Isuru!

February 2019

Two more articles have been accepted this month in JCC and CTC. Congrats Isuru and Shahriar! We also all came back from two very constructive conferences (Sanibel and GRC). Many collaborations may be under way.

January 2019

Happy New Year! A good ending... makes a good beginning! Our 2018 work gave us a nice jump-start for 2019. Two articles just got accepted in PCCP and JCC! Congrats Isuru and Nuno!

December 2018

Our tenth paper for 2018 got published on the electric properties of molecular hydrogen. Check this out over the break. Happy Holidays!

November 2018

A couple of theoretical chemistry seminars will take place in our department this month.
Professor Angela Wilson (Michigan State University) will give our November 15 colloquium. The second seminar will be given by myself on November 14th, and will be an introductory "course" to non-theoretical chemists on how to use quantum chemical software.

I would like to welcome Emily Claveau and Benjamin Jackson in our group. Enjoy your time with us Emily and Ben!

Our participation at SERMACS was quite vigorous: two talks (Nuno and me) and four posters (Isuru x 2, Shahriar, and Jacob).

October 2018

Our work on the ligand effects in the C-H activation efficiency of iron-oxo complexes just got accepted for publication in PCCP! This work was a collaborative effort of Professor Vogiatzis' (UTK) and our groups.
Thanks a lot for involving us Konstantinos!

Our collaborative work with Professor Kit Bowen and Sotiris Xantheas in the activation of water employing platinum anions has also been accepted in JCP!
Thanks Kit for involving us too!

We are going to SERMACS in two weeks. See you there!

September 2018

Our work on Li,Na-SEPs and their dimers just got accepted in PCCP!
Thank you very much for the wonderful collaboration Isuru, Filip, and Vince!

Our second work with Professor Ming Chen has just been accepted for publication in Adv. Synth. Catal. Congratulations again guys!

June 2018

Our work in IJQC was selected for the front cover of the issue!

Our collaborative study with Professor Ming Chen has just been accepted for publication in Org. Lett. Congratulations Mengzhou, Shahriar and Ming!

May 2018

Isuru receives an Outstanding Poster Award at SETCA 2018. Congratulations Isuru!

Two of our manuscripts just got accepted in PCCP and IJQC. Congrats Nuno and Isuru!

April 2018

Our website just launched!

Group will go to SETCA 2018: Two oral presentations and two posters! Come to see and hear us!

EM will go to ISMS 2018. See you there!

EM will go to MWTCC 2018. See you there!

EM will go to ICCB 2018. See you there!

Isuru's work on MoO got accepted at PCCP. Congratulations Isuru!

Isuru won the COSAM award for his poster at "This is research" symposium.

March 2018

Group participated at the ACS in New Orleans with three posters and one invited talk.

December 2017

Our work on Be(NH₃)₄ got accepted at JPCL. Great job!

October 2017

EM participated at NWTCC (Richland,WA) to give an invited talk.

Our collaborative work with Anne Gorden and her group got the front cover at ChemComm. Nice!

September 2017

Dr Nuno Almeida joined our group as a post-doc. Welcome!

EM visited ERDC (Vicksburg,MS) to give an invited talk.

June 2017

EM participated at MWTCC (East Lansing, MI) to give an invited talk.

May 2017

EM visited UTK to give an invited talk. Thanks Professor Vogiatzis!

Group participated at SETCA (Oxford,MS) with two posters and one invited talk.

August 2017

Isuru's work on Be oxides and carbonyls got accepted at JPCA. Congratulations Isuru!

July 2017

Shahriar's work on oxidation of alkenes got accepted at PCCP as communication. Congratulations Shahriar!

August 2016

Group just started with two new arrivals. Welcome Isuru and Shahriar!