Special Organic Chemistry Seminar - Organic Syntheses Lecture
Abigail Doyle received her A.B. and A.M. summa cum laude in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University in 2002. As an undergraduate, she investigated iron-catalyzed epoxidations of alkenes in collaboration with Dr. Christina White. She began her graduate studies at Stanford University working with Professor Justin Du Bois. In 2003, she transferred to Harvard University and joined the laboratory of Professor Eric Jacobsen. Her graduate research included the discovery of a transition metal-catalyzed enantioselective alkylation of tributyltin enolates with alkyl halides and the development of a thiourea catalyst for enantioselective nucleophilic additions to prochiral oxocarbenium ions. Abby began her independent career at Princeton University in 2008 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2013, followed by the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Chemistry in 2015. In 2021, she and her group moved to UCLA where she is currently the Saul Winstein Chair in Organic Chemistry. Her lab pursues research in the areas of catalysis, physical organic chemistry, and organometallic chemistry.
Zoom available upon request. Sponsored by Organic Syntheses
Whereas recent advances in the field of Pd-catalyzed cross coupling have been driven largely by ligand and precatalyst design, coupled to insights into reaction mechanism, related studies for Ni have received less attention. For example, modern ligand frameworks designed for Pd and other precious metal catalysts (Rh, Ir) have been largely unsuccessful when applied to Ni. To address these needs, the Doyle lab has developed novel ligand classes and precatalysts for Ni and demonstrated that they enable new methodologies not previously possible with existing frameworks. Furthermore, our lab has sought to uncover the mechanistic basis for reactivity in a variety of Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions through inorganic synthesis, kinetic analysis, computational studies, statistical modeling, and ultrafast and steady-state spectroscopy. This lecture will describe our recent efforts in these directions.