Thursday, May 29, 2014

Who Would YOU Invite to the NOS?

Plans for the 2015 ACS National Organic Symposium (U. Maryland) have ramped up recently. The Division of Organic Chemistry sent out some feelers last week, requesting nominees for speaking invitations.

Source: University of Maryland, 2015 NOS website
Judging by early suggestions, I think they'd especially like to hear about up-and-coming* chemists, both in the U.S. and abroad. So, readers, I'll put two questions to you:

1. Which early-career (<10 years' experience) U.S. organic chemist would you recommend?

From the comments: Jeff Johnson (UNC), Guangbin Dong (UT-Austin), Chris Vanderwal (Irvine), Rob Knowles (Princeton)

2. Which international** early-career organic chemist's work most excites you?

From the comments: Masayuki Inoue (Tokyo), Weisheng Tian (SIOC), Nicolai Cramer, Michael Willis, Shu-Li You (SIOC), Jerome Waser (EPFL), Nuno Maulide, N. Yoshikai (Nanyang), M. Niggeman (EWTH Aachen), Ang Li (SIOC)

Please leave your thoughts in the comments. Thanks!

*Presumably, this serves to generate a more inclusive environment, and also (hopefully) helps NOS to reverse the steep declines in attendance. 
In 2003, 1081 chemists traveled to Bloomington, IN; only 636 made it to Seattle, WA in 2013.

**Bonus points if they're from outside the U.K. or Europe.

12 comments:

  1. My two cents:
    1. Masayuki Inoue (The University of Tokyo) for his work on ryanodol and sarmentogenin
    2. Weisheng Tian (Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry) for cephalostatin 1, etc.
    ...and I'm sure that everyone would love to hear Jeff Johnson (UNC) talk about pactamycin too...
    Best, Brian

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  2. Guangbin Dong at UT Austin, putting out some pretty cool methods.

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    1. Very much agree with this.

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  3. Vanderwal at UC Irvine does some neat synthesis, even if a lot of it is racemic.

    Embarrassingly enough, I can't think of many early-career nonUSians I wanted to see. I think Cramer was cited, and Michael Willis, but I don't know others. I should know people from SIOC or Nanyang, but I don't.

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  4. Ang Li at SIOC has some nice total syntheses including one in JACS Just Accepted

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  5. Good to see folks talking about this list. I know a lot of folks I talked to at prior NOS's wanted to see more talks from chemists in industry. Marisa Kozlowski told me at Seattle NOS that it's hard to get folks like that in for legal reasons. And they may not be "popular" choices because they don't publish as much.

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  6. Shu-Li You (SIOC) has been knocking out some cool papers recently, although he's borderline for the early-career criterion.

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  7. Waser from EPFL also came up with some nice chemistry

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  8. Just for the non-US:
    N. Yoshikai from Nanyang University. S. Chiba as well, but he might be a borderline for the early-career (first appointment in 2005)
    M. Niggemann from EWTH Aachen.
    And I second Anonymous from yesterday for J. Waser.

    P.S: I know that both Yoshikai and Niggemann have been highlighted on this very blog. But I worked on cobalt and a former PhD from my group is working with Niggemann, so I am not mentionning them just because you highlighted their work...just because I happen to be familiar with it and to like it...

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  9. Nuno Maulide! One of the most enigmatic young chemists I've seen talk here in Europe.

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  10. might be too early career but rob Knowles at Princeton would be pretty awesome to hear speak. definitely would help get more people thinking about proton coupled electron transfer.

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  11. I second the above vote for Nuno Maulide. Always comes up with unusual reactions and clever chemistry besides giving great talks. Not sure if he's still at Max Planck.

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