Organic Chemistry Frontiers editorial board members

Shengming Ma, Editor-in-Chief

Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, China

Shengming Ma was born in 1965 in Zhejiang, China. He received his PhD from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) and became an Assistant Professor there in 1991. After postdoctoral research at the ETH with Professor Venanzi and Purdue University with Professor Negishi, he returned to SIOC in 1997. From February 2003 to September 2007, he was jointly appointed by SIOC and Zhejiang University (ZJU).

In October 2007, he moved to East China Normal University to help build the research program in organic chemistry. Currently, he works as a research professor at SIOC and Qiu Shi Adjunct Professor at ZJU. He received the Mr & Mrs Sun Chan Memorial Award in Organic Chemistry (2004), OMCOS Springer Award (2005), National Award for Research in Natural Science in China (Second-Class, 2006), and Natural Science Awards of Shanghai (First-Class, 2010). He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and TWAS.

Buddhadeb Chattopadhyay, Associate Editor

Centre of Biomedical Research (CBMR), India

Buddhadeb was born and raised in Insura-Hooghly, West Bengal, India. He obtained his B.Sc. (2001) in chemistry from the Burdwan University and M.Sc. (2003) in chemistry from Visva-Bharati University. In 2003, he left Visva-Bharati and enrolled in Kalyani University for his Ph.D. in the laboratories of Professor K. C. Majumdar.

After postdoctoral research work around six years in the USA from 2009 to 2014 (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA and Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA), Buddhadeb started his independent research career at the Centre of Biomedical Research (CBMR), Lucknow, India, where he is currently holding the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Biological & Synthetic Chemistry.

Pei-Qiang Huang, Associate Editor

Xiamen University, China

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3230-0457

Professor Pei-Qiang Huang received his BS in 1982 from Xiamen University (China), and D. E. A. in 1984 from Université de Montpellier II (France) under the direction of the late Professor B. Castro (INSERM-CNRS). After accomplishing the research work at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (ICSN), CNRS under the direction of Professor Dr. H.-P. Husson, his received his Ph D from the Université de Paris-Sud (Orsay) (France) in 1987.

After two years postdoctoral research at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC, CAS) with the late Professor W.-S. Zhou, he returned to Xiamen University in 1990 and appointed as an associate Professor. He was promoted to a full Professor in 1993. He is a Fellow of the RSC since 2006.

Arjan W. Kleij, Associate Editor

Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia, Spain

Arjan W. Kleij received his MSc (1996) and PhD (2000, honors) from Utrecht University working on dendrimer- and polymer-supported homogeneous catalysts. In 2000, he moved to industry and worked for more than 3 years at Avantium in its pharmaceutical branch, and later at Hexion as a research scientist. In 2002-2005, he was a postdoc at UAM in Madrid (Spain) and at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands).

In 2006, he moved to the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) and became Group Leader, and was promoted to ICREA Professor in 2011. His interests span the areas of stereoselective synthesis, polymer science and small molecule valorization. Arjan has (co)authored around 240 papers and 6 patent applications with >17700 citations (h-index 72).

He is the recipient of a NWO Talent Fellowship, was named an ICREA junior fellow (2006) and FRSC (2021), and received the RSEQ Scientific Excellence Award (2020), the SCQ Scientific Excellence Award (2023), and the European Sustainable Chemistry Award (2023).

Chulbom Lee, Associate Editor

Seoul National University, South Korea

Chulbom Lee obtained his BS & MS degrees from Seoul National University (1988 and 1990), where his advisor was Professor Eun Lee. After military service, he came back to SNU as a Research Associate at the Institute of Basic Sciences. In 1992, he was selected as a National Merit Scholar in Chemistry by the Korean Ministry of Education and went to Stanford University for his PhD studies under the guidance of Professor Barry Trost.

In 1998, he moved to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to work with Professor Samuel Danishefsky as a US Army Breast Cancer Research Fellow. In 2001, he joined the faculty of the Chemistry Department of Princeton University as Assistant Professor and in 2008, he moved back to his alma mater, SNU. He is currently Associate Chair of the Department while serving as Vice President of the Korean Chemical Society and the Korean Society of Organic Synthesis.

Bill Morandi, Associate Editor

ETH Zurich, Switzerland

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3968-1424

Professor Bill Morandi studied at ETH Zürich (2003–2008), receiving a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Chemical Biology. From 2008 to 2012, he pursued his PhD in organic synthesis at the same institution in the labs of Professor Erick M. Carreira. Afterwards, he moved to the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA) for a postdoctoral stay with Professor Robert H. Grubbs. From 2014 to 2018, he was an independent Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Mülheim, Germany), before subsequently returning to ETH Zürich as a Professor in 2018.

His research program targets the design and development of new catalytic reactions for the synthesis of small molecules and materials, as well as the valorization of renewable feedstocks and waste material. He has received numerous awards, among them a Novartis Early Career Award in Organic Chemistry, the Carl Duisberg Memorial Prize from the German Chemical Society and a selection as a C&EN's Talented 12.

Jennifer Schomaker, Associate Editor

University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Professor Schomaker began her research career at Dow Chemical in Organic Chemicals and Polymers, later moving to Agricultural Chemicals Process Research, where she participated in route selection and scale-up campaigns for two new herbicides.

After 7 years in industry, she obtained her Ph.D. with Professor Babak Borhan at Michigan State University in 2006 before moving to UC-Berkeley as an NIH postdoctoral fellow under Professors Robert G. Bergman and F. Dean Toste. She joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009, where she is a full professor.

Michito Yoshizawa, Associate Editor

Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0543-3943

Michito Yoshizawa received his B.S. from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in 1997, M.S. from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1999, and then Ph.D. from Nagoya University in 2002 under the supervision of Prof. Makoto Fujita. He moved to The University of Tokyo with Prof. Fujita as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow and became Assistant Professor in 2003. Michito was appointed as Associate Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2008 and then promoted to Full Professor in 2020.

His scientific contributions are recognized with Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists (2003), JST PRESTO project (2006-2009), the CSJ Award for Young Chemists (2007), the Young Scientists’ Prize, MEXT Commendation, Japan (2010), JSPS NEXT Program (2011-2014), Thomson Reuters Research Front Award (2012), Tokyotech Advanced Researchers (2015), Inoue Prize for Science (2021), and Visiting Professor at University of Strasbourg (2006, 2014, & 2022). His research interests focus on the development of functional polyaromatic nanospaces (supramolecular chemistry).

Qian Zhang, Associate Editor

Northeast Normal University, China

Professor Qian Zhang was born in 1971 in Jilin, China. She received her BS and MS degrees from Department of Chemistry, Northeast Normal University (1993 and 1996) . She obtained her PhD degree (2003) from Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Professor Lixiang Wang in the research field of organic light emitting materials. Then, as a visiting scholar, she spent half a year in the University of Sydney, Australia. She worked at Northeast Normal University for 23 years, ranking from Assistant, Lecturer, Associate Professor and Professor. 

Her research interest is focused on the development of novel reactions and strategies for organic synthesis. 

Guy Bertrand

University of California, San Diego, USA

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2623-2363

Guy Bertrand studied chemistry at the University of Montpellier and received his PhD from the University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. After being a CNRS group leader (French National Center for Scientific Research) at the University of Toulouse, and then at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination du CNRS, he worked as the Director of the Laboratoire d'Hétérochimie Fondamentale et Appliquée at the University Paul Sabatier.

From 2001 to 2012 he served as the Director of the UCR/CNRS Joint Research Chemistry Laboratory and, since July 2012, he has worked as a Distinguished Professor and Director of the UCSD/CNRS Joint Research Chemistry Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego.

Nicolai Cramer

Ecole Polytechnique Fédéralde de Lausanne, Switzerland

 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5740-8494

Nicolai Cramer studied chemistry at the University of Stuttgart, Germany and earned his PhD degree in 2005 under the guidance of Professor Sabine Laschat. After a short research stage at Osaka University, Japan, he joined the group of Professor Barry M. Trost at Stanford University as a Feodor-Lynen postdoctoral fellow in 2006. From 2007 to 2010, he worked as Habilitant at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, recieving his venia legendi in 2010. Subsequently, he joint the EPF Lausanne, Switzerland as Assistant Professor. Nicolai was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013 and subsequently to Full Professor in 2015. Among other prizes, he received the Novartis Early Career, BASF Catalysis and Bayer Early Excellence in Science Award as well as the Werner and the Latsis Prize.

Louis Fensterbank

Collège de France, France

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0001-7120

Louis Fensterbank was born in Poitiers in 1967 and raised in Tours. He graduated from Ecole Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon in 1990 and obtained his Ph.D. on silicon-tethered reactions in 1993 at SUNY Stony Brook under the supervision of Scott Sieburth. After a temporary lecturer position at UPMC in 1994, he was appointed in 1995 Chargé de Recherche CNRS in Max Malacria’s team.

In 2004, he obtained a professor position at UPMC, and now in Sorbonne Université, in 2008, he was nominated junior member at the Institut Universitaire de France. His research interests concern the discovery of new molecular transformations relying on radical or organometallic processes and their applications to the synthesis of substrates with relevant properties (e.g., natural products, probes, ligands). 

Lichang Wang

Southern Illinois University, USA

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6131-3532

Lichang Wang received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University, China, in 1985 and 1988, respectively, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1993 from University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Copenhagen, Denmark (1993-1994), University of Cambridge, U.K. (1994-1998), University College London, U. K. (1996-1997), and The Ohio State University (1998-2001) before joining the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2001. She is currently the Department Chair.

The ongoing research of the Wang group focuses on organic small molecules as sensitizers and transition metal catalysts for ethanol oxidation as well as developing new computational methods to accurately study these systems.

Frank Würthner

University of Würzburg, Germany

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7245-0471

Frank Würthner received his education in Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart (doctoral degree 1994) and carried out postdoctoral research at MIT in Cambridge/MA (USA).

After two years at BASF and five years at the University of Ulm (Habilitation in 2001) he became chair professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Würzburg in 2002. Here he has served as head of the Institute of Organic Chemistry, dean of the Chemistry Department and founding director of the Center for Nanosystems Chemistry.

His main research interests include the synthesis of pi-conjugated molecules and functional dyes, their application in organic electronics, photonics and photovoltaics, the construction of complex supramolecular architectures composed of pi-scaffolds, the mechanistic elucidation of self-assembly processes, and the investigation of light-induced processes in dye-based nanosystems.

Dan Yang

Westlake University, China 

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1726-9335

Dan Yang obtained her B.Sc. degree in chemistry from Fudan University in 1985. Through the U.S.-China Chemistry Graduate Program, she obtained an M.A. from Columbia in 1988 under the direction of Professor Ronald Breslow. She then joined Professor Daniel Kahne’s group at Princeton and got her Ph.D. in 1991.

In the same year, she won a postdoctoral fellowship award from the Cancer Research Institute in New York to support her two-year research in Professor Stuart Schreiber’s group at Harvard. She started her independent career on organic chemistry and chemical biology at the University of Hong Kong in 1993 and was later promoted to a chair professor of chemistry and the Morningside Professor in Chemical Biology.