Guest Speaker – Organic (CHEM 761) – February 16, 2023

Bio
Valerie Schmidt, originally from Maryland, earned her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Towson University. She then pursued graduate studies under the supervision of Prof. Erik Alexanian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a Burroughs-Wellcome and Venable Fellow she synthesized a series of oxygen-centered radical precursors to achieve olefin difunctionalizations as well as developed an N-haloamide reagent for selective aliphatic C-H bond halogenation. She subsequently moved to the laboratory of Prof. Paul Chirik at Princeton University where she studied as a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow. While at Princeton, Valerie synthesized reduced iron and cobalt complexes supported by redox active ligands that catalyze [2+2] cycloadditions of unactivated alkenes. She then made the journey across the country to join the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego in 2016.

Abstract
Nature and synthetic chemists have long recognized the power of the thermodynamic driving force associated with oxidized phosphorous centers to provide stability to biopolymers and drive chemical transformations. Pursuing oxidation pathways that pass through phosphoranyl radicals allows for versatile, controllable and flexible fragmentations to provide access to an array of synthetically useful C- and heteroatom-centered radicals. Our recent efforts in harnessing and controlling the fragmentation of in situ generated phosphoranyl radicals in new reaction development will be presented alongside our combined experimental and computational mechanistic studies leading to next generation reagent design and further advances in synthesis.