The Goldman Group - Members - Alumni

Patrick was a computational chemistry graduate student from 2000-2006. He finished one post-doc at U Minnesota, Duluth, and is currently working on artificial photosynthesis at Brookhaven National Lab. His work deals with the use of organometallic compounds to make fuels from carbon dioxide.

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Ritu Ahuja joined the group as a post doc in June 2005 after obtaining a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. While at Rutgers, she worked in the area of alkane metathesis and alkane aromatization. She left the group in June 2007 and joined Prof. Wolfgang A. Herrmann in Technical University Munich Germany as a post doc where she worked in the area of silsesquioxanes and spherosilicates. After one year, she returned to India and worked with DOW Chemicals, Pune for about three years in the area of high throughput research for olefin polymerization. Then moved to Reliance Industries, an Indian Petrochemical company for a year in the city of Vadodara, Gujarat where her research was mainly focused on value addition of by-product olefinic streams. In July 2012, she moved to Solvay Specialty Polymers in the same city as a program manager for fluoro-polymers. Her current research group is involved in synthesis of F-macromers/additives, their incorporation into polymers, characterization and applicative tests.

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He received his B.S. in chemistry from Hunter College. As an undergraduate, Alex conducted research with Dr. David Mootoo in organic synthesis. His interests include synthetic organometallic chemistry and mechanistic studies. Outside the lab his interests include racing, playing tennis, and watching F1.

Soumik was a graduate student in the Goldman group. His research focused on various mechanistic and kinetic studies of the catalytic transfer dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons and olefin isomerization by pincer-iridium complex. Soumik is currently working on mechanism of metal catalyzed cross coupling reaction to form new C-C bond and method development as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Daniel J. Weix at University of Rochester. He did his bachelors in Chemistry in Presidency College, Calcutta in India and finished his masters from IIT-Bombay in India specializing in Inorganic chemistry. He did his masters thesis with Prof. C.P.Rao.

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Michael was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He did his undergraduate studies at nearby UC Davis, and received his B.S. in 2007. After graduation, he did some catalysis research in the private sector before starting graduate school in the fall of 2010. His research focuses on the selectivity of alkane dehydrogenation.

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 Andrea was brought up in Waterford, NY. She received a dual B.S. in chemistry and music from Ursinus College in 2013. Her research interests include organometallic   chemistry and synthesis. She is currently working as a success coach for Utica College. She works with all-natural science majors in the college ensuring they have the skills they need to succeed in their major. She also helps them make their schedule, discover their academic interests, and help them develop their study habits and     time management skills.

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Jongwook received his B.S. and M.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from Hanyang University in Seoul Korea, under the direction of Professor Sang-Man Koo. He then received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York, NY in Inorganic Chemistry while working for Professor Jack R. Norton. His research interests include transition-metal hydrides and metal-catalyzed activation of unreactive bonds and their applications. He is a current employee of Dow Chemical Company. In his spare time, Jongwook enjoys watching and analyzing sports and playing board games.

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Yuriy's research, conducted jointly with Profs. Karsten Krogh-Jespersen and Goldman, is in computational chemistry.

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Chair, Department of Science and Engineering Assistant Professor,
Chemistry Raritan Valley Community College
PO Box 3300, Somerville, NJ 08876
(908)-526-1200 ext. 8537

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Postdoctoral Associate

Tom is originally from Willow Grove, PA. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Delaware. He decided to pursue his interests in chemistry by attending graduate school at University of Rochester. There he studied inorganic and organometallic chemistry under Patrick L. Holland which culminated with his Ph. D. thesis "Low-Coordinate Iron and Cobalt Complexes: Coordination Chemistry and Reactivity." Tom decided to join the Goldman lab to continue his interests in organometallic chemistry. He was a postdoc in the Goldman group from 2012 until 2015. Tom is currently a research scientist for Novomer at their research labs in Rochester, NY where he is performing organometallic chemistry R&D.

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Sahar received her M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees in Organic Chemistry from Tanta University in Egypt. She then held a visiting scientist position at the University of Maryland, where her research focused on metalloporphyrins in oxidation reactions of organic compounds. During her time in the Goldman group, she worked on the application of heterogeneous catalysts for alkane metathesis. She is a proud mother of two teenagers.

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Kathleen was raised in southern New Jersey near Long Beach Island. She received her undergraduate degree from Monmouth University in 2008, where she did her Honors Research Thesis in the area of transition metal catalysts under the direction of Dr. Carolyn Supplee. Her current research interests include the activation of small molecules via pincer iridium catalysts. She is currently an ARL postdoctoral fellow at Worcester Polytechnic Institute with Dr. Emmett.

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Postdoctoral Associate

Jaime received the BSc degree at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. After completing his masters in Analytical Chemistry he pursued doctoral studies in Inorganic Chemistry at UT Arlington under Prof. H. V. Rasika Dias with the thesis “The Chemistry of Fluorinated Triazapentadienyl Coinage Metal Complexes”. As a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University he gained experience in bond activation processes with titanium, copper and silver and with redox active ligands under Prof. Kenneth Caulton and Prof. Daniel Mindiola. Then, he moved to New Jersey where his work in the Goldman group focused on the synthesis of iridium based catalysts and C-H bond activation of hydrocarbons. Jaime is currently working for Honeywell in Virginia.

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Yang was born in Xuzhou China and lived in Xuzhou, Yangzhou and Nanjing. He received his B.S. from Nanjing University in 2012 and is interested in the field of organometallic chemistry and catalysis.

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Zhuo Gao was a graduate student under the guidance of professor Alan Goldman. His research focused on synthesis of chiral PCP ligand and chiral PCP Iridium Catalyst. After graduation from Rutgers, Zhuo Gao set up a company in China working on building blocks, customer synthesis, process development.

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Raj joined the group as a Post doc in October 2004 and left in June 2007. Currently working at Dow Chemicals International Pvt. Ltd. Pune, India in charge of NMR interpretation and analysis.

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Ben was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Brooklyn College in 2014 and spent the subsequent spring working on medicinal organometallic compounds with Professor Maria Contel. His interests include physical and synthetic organometallic chemistry. Outside the lab his interests include metal sculpting and hiking

Changjian was born in northeastern China. After receiving an undergraduate degree from Jilin University, he came to this new land for his dream. Currently, he begins his research of theoretical calculations of metal complexes.

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Jason was born and raised in Middletown, NJ. He received a B.S. in chemistry from Monmouth University in 2007, followed by a Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry from Columbia University the next year. In Summer 2008, Jason joined the Goldman group to pursue his diverse research interests, which include synthetic organometallic chemistry, catalysis, and next generation energy solutions.

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Mike hails from Pittsburgh, the city of champions (and the Pirates). He got his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Chicago in 2009, where he studied asymmetric catalysis under Prof. Hisashi Yamamoto. He is interested in olefin hydrocarbylation and other economical ways to manipulate unactivated chemical bonds. He currently works for Dr. Grubbs at Caltech

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Hellan was born and raised in Kerala, the southern state of India. She graduated from IISER Kolkata in 2019 with BS-MS in Chemical Sciences. She was working with Prof. Sayam Sengupta for her MS thesis and later after graduation for one year on electrochemical C-H oxidation using the molecular Iron complexes. She joined Rutgers University in Fall 2020 and then joined the Goldman group in 2021 in collaboration with Waldie group in Rutgers. Currently she is exploring the electrochemistry of pincer iridium complexes. In her free time, she prefers to spend time biking, hiking and cooking.

Anne graduated from the Goldman group with a Ph.D. in 1996. She is currently working at Bristol-Myers Squibb in New Brunswick, and has been able to work with Keming Zhu on a few projects - small world! Her current responsibility is managing compounds in early through late stage development in Analytical R&D. She is also an ACS councilor and is active in North Jersey Section ACS activities.

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Sabuj received his M.S. in Organic Chemistry from IIT in Bombay, India in 2004. He recieved his PhD in 2010 for his work in the synthesis of catalysts for C-H activation and mechanistic studies in the area of heterogeneous catalysis. Sabuj was also the recipient for the Damle award for excellence in research for the 2006-2007 calendar year. Sabuj is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina with Maurice Brookhart.

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David A. Laviska received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1989 and his M.S. from the University of Washington in 1991. He received his Ph.D. in 2013 for his work on the utilization of iridium pincer complexes for the activation and functionalization C-H and C-X bonds after working as an environmental chemist for 15 years. He is currently an assistant professor/one year appointment at The College of New Jersey.

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Nicholas was born in Seattle but raised in Queens, New York. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Brooklyn College in 2012 where his research focused on the synthesis of iminophosphorane Au, Ag and Pd complexes for anti-cancer properties. Nicholas joined the group in 2012 and received his Ph.D. in May of 2018. His research in the group focused on catalytic hydroaryloxylation, olefin isomerization and dehydrogenation using pincer catalysts and the synthesis of novel pincer Os, Ru and Re pincer catalysts. Nicholas began a post-doctoral research position at Los Alamos National Lab in 2018 and was converted to a staff scientist in October of 2020. His work there focuses on synthesis of novel energetic materials and formulations for explosive applications, aging and detonator studies on PETN and sensitivity analysis of explosives.

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Bo was born in a small village in the Hubei province, which is located in the middle of China. Bo got his B.S. at Jilin University in 2013 and went to Rutgers as an exchange student in 2012. After that, Bo decided to pursue his Ph. D in Rutgers. Bo worked on alkane arylation and alkane dehydrogenation.

Currently, he is working as a Senior Scientist and Instrument Lab Manager his responsibilities include:• Perform organic synthesis of pharmaceutical and chemical intermediates and products using modern technologies in synthesis, purification and analysis • Manage several analytical instrument labs of NMR/HPLC/UPLC/LCMS instruments with routine maintenance and repair coordination

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Fuchen is a senior research scientist in the Catalyst and Process Development Unit at Bayer AG. His current research focuses on BioDirect manufacturing technology and process development. Fuchen lives in St. Louis with his wife and two daughters. 

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Santanu was born and raised in Durgapur, India. He graduated with a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay). As an undergraduate, Santanu conducted research in the group of Dr. Raghavan Sunoj, where he performed mechanistic studies using DFT. His research interest involves designing experiments based on DFT analysis. Outside the lab, he enjoys watching TV, learning how to play the piano, and exploring

Sathiyamoorthy Murugesan was born in Kadukkathurai, Tiruchirappalli, in Tamilnadu, India in 1988. He started M.Sc. in St. Joseph’s College (affiliated to Bharathidasan University), Tiruchirappalli. In 2009, he did a two-months internship at Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) with an Indian Academy of Sciences fellowship. In 2010 he carried out an additional master’s within the program “Catalysis, Molecules, and Green Chemistry” at the University of Rennes 1 in France, in the group of Profs Christian Bruneau and Pierre H. Dixneuf. In 2012 he was project assistant with Prof. Sambasivarao Kotha at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. In February 2016, he was awarded his PhD degree in synthesis and reactivity of Nickel, Cobalt and Molybdenum PCP pincer complexes at the Vienna University of Technology, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), under the supervision of Prof. Karl Kirchner. In May 2016, he joined as a post-doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Alan Goldman group, funded by CENTC- Center for Enabling New Technologies through Catalysis. His research interests on "Synthesis of Osmium and Iridium hydride based complexes and their unique useful application of alkane dehydrogenation". He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at KAUST Catalysis Centre.

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Agnieszka received her M.Sc. in Organic Chemical Technology from Silesian Technical University in Poland. Then she moved to Germany and received her Ph.D. in Organometallic Chemistry from University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. She was a CENTC post-doctoral fellow in the Goldman Group. Her research involved alkane metathesis reactions utilizing Ir-based pincer catalysts. She enjoys choral singing and classical literature.

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After graduating from Alan's group, Elizabeth completed a year long post-doc at UNC Chapel Hill with Prof. Mike Gagne. Currently, she resides in New Jersey and is the Senior Staff Scientist at Innophos Inc. in Cranbury, NJ. Her research deals with the the synthesis of novel calcium phosphates for use in both the food and pharmaceutical arenas.

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Benudhar Punji received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Sambalpur University, Odisha, India. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2007 from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai, India under the supervision of Prof. M. S. Balakrishna. From 2007 to 2010, he was a NSF-CENTC Postdoctoral fellow worked in the laboratory of Prof. Alan S. Goldman at Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, USA. He then moved to Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral fellow and worked with Prof. Lutz Ackermann till September 2011. Currently, he is a senior scientist and assistant professor (AcSIR) at CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India. His research interest focuses broadly on development of nickel and cobalt-based organometallic complexes for small molecule activation and C–H bond functionalization.

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After finishing his Doctoral study in 2007, Amlan decided to suspend his long-term affair with the lab but not the Chemistry. He chose to pursue a non-traditional career for chemists in the field of Intellectual Property Law. Currently, he is working as a Scientific Advisor in the area of Pharmaceutical Patents at Budd Larner P.C. in Short Hills, NJ.

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Glen is in the Global Business Services group as AkzoNobel's Global REACH Project Manager for Polymer Chemicals, covering three sub-business units: Organometallic Specialties (Metal Alkyls, High Purity Metalorganics and other Metal-Organic Specialties), High Polymer Specialties (High Polymers and Antifouling, Suspending & Antifoaming Agents) and Crosslinking, Thermosets and Polymer Additives (Crosslinking Peroxides, Thermoset Chemicals and Polymer Additives).

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Postdoctoral Fellow

Akshai was born in 1981 and he obtained a Bachelors degree in 2002 and in 2004 his Masters Degree in inorganic Chemistry both from Mangalore University. In July 2009, he was awarded a PhD Degree for his work on “Reductive and Metathetic Coupling Reactions Mediated by Group(IV) Metal Alkoxides” under the supervision of Prof. Ashoka G. Samuelson from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He continued his post doctoral studies in the same lab and worked on “Experimental and Computational Studies to Elucidate Unusual Titanium Mediated Reductive Pathways”. In October 2010, he moved to the group of Prof. Andreas Terfort, Goethe University, Frankfurt where he worked on a project entitled “Synthesis and Nucleophilic Substitution of Polyfluorinated Annelated Arenes as Materials for Optoelectronic and OFET Devices”. In June 2012, Akshai joined the Goldman group. Here his research interests include pincer based iridium catalysts for alkane dehydrogenation and synthesis of fuel chemicals via alkane coupling reactions. He is currently a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology - Guwahati in India.

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Arun was born and raised in Siddipet, India. He received his B.S-M.S dual degree in chemistry at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune and completed his M.S research thesis under Dr. R Boomi Shankar. His research interests include organometallic chemistry and catalysis.

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After finishing his postdoc from Alan's group, Bharat joined GE Plastics India Technology Center. He is currently leading Polymer Science & Formulations group in Dow Chemical, India. His research focuses on Renewable Raw Materials as Alternate Feedstock.

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Jia was born and raised in eastern China. She got her B.S. from Nanjing University in 2012, and then decided to continue her study in chemistry in the United States. Her research interests mainly focus on organometallic and catalysis.

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Andrew was born in Evanston, Il and lived in Long Valley, NJ and Bedford, NY. He received his B.S. in chemistry at Gettysburg College and completed his research thesis under Dr. Timothy Funk. His research interests include organometallic chemistry and catalysis and his current project is dehydroaromatization.

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Postdoctoral Associate

Rob’s work focuses on tandem alkane dehydrogenation systems.

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Nadine visited Prof. Goldman’s lab in 2000 as a grad student and worked on the Mechanism of (PCP)Ir-catalyzed acceptorless dehydrogenation of alkanes. She received her PhD in 2006 from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg on the subject of kinetic and thermodynamic studies on the reactions of medically-relevant mono- and binuclear Pt-complexes with biologically-relevant nucleopiles. Since 2008 she has worked as a project chemist for Printcolor Screen Ltd in the field of inks for brand protection and security printing.

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David was born and raised in the majestic hills of West Virginia. Moving north, he spent his undergrad years at Cornell University where he did a little organometallic chemistry. After spending some time at UC Berkeley with the Toste group doing synthetic organic gold chemistry, he decided to return to the East Coast to do some more organometallic chemistry. David has joined the Knowles group at Princeton University for his postdoctoral work. Currently working as a research scientist at the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, NY.

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Kun received his Ph.D. from Rutgers in 1995 under Alan. After a brief stint as a post-doc with Jim Mayer at the University of Washington in Seattle, he returned to Jersey and joined Exxon (now ExxonMobil) Research and Engineering Company in Clinton, NJ. He is currently working in the areas of materials and catalysis.

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Nancy is an Associate Professor at the Joint Science Department of the Claremont Colleges, where she teaches students from Scripps, Claremont McKenna, and Pitzer colleges. She recieved her B.S. at Harvey Mudd College and her Ph.D. under Karen Goldberg at the University of Washington. In the Goldman Group, she investigated ligand effects on bond forming reactions.

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Xiawei finished his post-doctoral at Cornell University and currently works for Arkema, Inc. in King of Prussia, PA. His research focuses on developing transition metal catalysts for oxidation chemistry.

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Meng Zhou was born in Chengdu, China. He got his BS from Purdue University in 2008. With Robert Crabtree at Yale University (PhD) and later with Alan Goldman at Rutgers University (Postdoc), he studied organometallic C-H functionalization for the direct conversion of alkanes to fuels and feedstock chemicals. He currently works with Richard Finke at Colorado State University (Postdoc) on heterogeneous water oxidation for renewable energy applications.He enjoys music and received a Music Theory Specialist Certificate from Berklee College of Music in 2014.

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Tian was born and raised in Zhe Jiang China. He did his undergraduate studies at Tsinghua University, and received his B.S. in 2011. His research interests include organometallic chemistry and catalysis.

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Xiaoguang was borned in Zhejiang China. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) in 2013. His doctoral thesis focus on design and synthesis new ligands, early transition metal complexes and catalysis. He works on design and synthesis new late transition metal complexes and catalysis.

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Keming recieved his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in May 2003 under the guidance of Dr. Alan Goldman. He currently resides in Highland Park, NJ and works for Bristol-Myers Squibb as a process chemist.

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