Dr. Anna Davis recently received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia while completing research with Prof. Michael Hilinski working on using vinylazarenes as dienophiles in Lewis acid-promoted Diels-Alder reactions as well as other projects within organic methodology. Over the years, she has gained a large following within the chemistry twitter sphere; actively promoting and creating a positive atmosphere for organic chemists across the globe. Be sure to follow Anna on X: https://x.com/radscientist_

Professor Sharon Neufeldt grew up in Tucson, AZ and earned her B.S. in Chemistry at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. She began her Ph.D. studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor working with Professor Melanie Sanford on the development of Pd-catalyzed C—H functionalization reactions. In 2013, she became the Cram Teacher-Scholar at UCLA. There, she undertook postdoctoral research with Professor K. N. Houk using DFT to study the mechanism and selectivity of transition metal-catalyzed C—H activation, while also teaching sophomore organic chemistry. In summer 2016 she moved to Bozeman, MT to begin her independent career and promoted to Associate Professor in 2023. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award (2019), a Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2020), a Cottrell Scholars Award (2020), and an NIH NIGMS MIRA award (2020). For more information about Sharon and her research group: https://neufeldt-chemistry.com/ X: https://twitter.com/NeufeldtLab

Professor Abby Knight grew up in Charlottesville, VA and received her B.S. in Chemistry with minors in Mathematics and Biology at University of North Carolina (UNC). She then received her Ph.D. in Chemical Biology at the University of California, Berkeley in the lab of Prof. Matt Francis working on the development of a platform applying combinatorial libraries for metal ligands to address problems in water and environmental remediation. Follow her graduate studies, she completed a postdoc with Prof. Craig Hawker at the University of California, Santa Barbara designing smart nanomaterials with unique architectures.

Abby returned to UNC as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Her group broadly work in designing macromolecular materials with functions inspired by biological systems. Some areas of research include creating biomimetic copolymers and peptide-polymer amphiphiles. Abby has recently received numerous awards such as 2023 Early Career Investigator Award from ACS Division of Organic Chemistry, 2024 PMSE Early Investigator Award from ACS Polymeric Materials, and 2024 Sloan Research Fellow.

For more information about Abby and her group: https://www.knightgroupunc.org/X: https://twitter.com/KnightGroupUNC and https://twitter.com/abigailsknight

Professor Loi Do was born in Vietnam and spent most of his youth in California. He obtained his B.S. in Chemistry/Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) where he conducted undergraduate research with Prof. Seth Cohen at UCSD on supramolecular chemistry and Prof. Stephen Lippard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on conjugated fluorescent probes for reactive nitrogen oxide species. He returned to MIT for his doctoral degree under the tutelage of Prof. Lippard working on synthetic diiron protein modeling chemistry. Then, he completed postdoctoral research with Prof. John Bercaw at the California Institute of Technology investigating the mechanism of selective ethylene trimerization by homogenous chromium catalysts.

He is now an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Houston where his group broadly study organometallic chemistry. Specifically investigating intracellular and polymerization catalysis. He is also a member of the NSF Center for Integrated Catalysis (CIC) which is to design catalysts with spatial and temporal control to make products from simple starting materials.

For more information about Prof. Do and his research group: https://sites.google.com/view/doresearch/home

X: https://twitter.com/DoResearchLab

NSF Center for Integrated Catalysis: https://cicchemistry.com/

Prof. Dan Weix was born and raised in Oak Creek, WI, just south of Milwaukee. After graduating high school he attended Columbia University in New York where he received his B.A. in Chemistry and conducted research under Prof. Thomas Katz. After completing his undergraduate studies, he moved to the west coast to undertake graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he worked with Prof. Jonathan Ellman on synthesis and application of tert-butanesulfinamide. Upon completion of his Ph.D. he began postdoctoral research with Prof. John Hartwig at Yale University, before moving with John to the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. As an NIH postdoctoral fellow, he worked on enantioselective Ir-catalyzed allylation reactions. Currently, Dan is the Wayland E. Noland Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison where his group broadly work on cross-electrophile couplings, understanding mechanisms, and using semiconductor quantum dots for organic catalysis. For more information about Dan and his group: https://weixgroup.chem.wisc.edu/ X: https://twitter.com/weixgroup Check out Julianna's work on semiconductor quantum dots: https://youtu.be/Yn21uh4_odc?si=RlCXL8GsAgZ--sVK

Josiah Newton, Ph.D., known to many as That Chemist, was born and raised in western Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Simon Fraser University while working in Prof. Robert Britton's lab broadly conducting research in sulfur and fluorine chemistry. He is currently a content creator on YouTube (over 200,000 subscribers) centered around science, with a special interest in chemistry content. Make sure you follow Josiah on social media and subscribe to his YouTube channel for great chemistry content! That Chemist: https://youtube.com/@That_Chemist?si=rqEKc1sx2txAF_DE

X: https://x.com/That_Chemist

Prof. Keary Engle graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Michigan, where he carried out research with Prof. Adam J. Matzger. During undergrad, he spent one summer with Prof. A. Stephen K. Hashmi at the University of Stuttgart as a DAAD RISE Fellow, and then spent the year after graduation performing research with Prof. Manfred T. Reetz at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung as a Fulbright Scholar and with Prof. Jan E. Bäckvall at Stockholm University as an IDECAT Exchange Fellow. He completed his graduate work jointly at The Scripps Research Institute with Prof. Jin-Quan Yu and the University of Oxford with Profs. Véronique Gouverneur and John M. Brown, earning a PhD in Chemistry and a DPhil in Biochemistry. During grad school, he also carried out summer research with Prof. Kyoko Nozaki at the University of Tokyo as an NSF/JSPS EASPI Fellow. After completing a two-year appointment as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Robert H. Grubbs at Caltech, Keary joined the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research as an Assistant Professor in the summer of 2015 and was promoted to full Professor in 2020. His research interests lie at the interface of organometallic chemistry, organic synthesis, and catalysis with particular interests in (pre)catayst design and studying mechanisms.

Keary's group has recently received many awards such as Catalysts Young Inverstigator Award - 2020, ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship - 2021, International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI) Advisor Award - 2022, and Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award - 2023. For more information about Keary and his group: https://englelab.com/ X: https://x.com/EngleLab?s=20

Nina Perryman, Ph.D. and Anna Lo, Ph.D. are cohosts of the Basically Doctors Podcast. Nina received her Ph.D. from UC – Davis completing research with Prof. Shaw and working on Castagnoli-Cushman multicomponent reactions. After a post-doc, she is now living in the Netherlands working as a technology scout. Anna also received her Ph.D. from UC Davis and worked in Prof. Jared Shaw’s lab doing research on diastereoselective allylations of chiral N-tosyl imines. She is now a Senior Scientist at AstraZeneca.

Their podcast, Basically Doctors, aims to demystify academia while also reflecting on their experiences during graduate school.

Basically Doctors Podcast

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BasicallyDoctors

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3a6XzNBAZTIuHEqa2r5Imv?si=05429aff5d064339

Follow them on X!

Basically Doctors: https://x.com/Basic_docs?s=20

Nina: https://x.com/NinaHoward92?s=20

Anna: https://x.com/imfromwhoville?s=20