Chemistry Personnel
Rolando Aguilar - was born and raised in Chihuahua city, the capital of Chihuahua state where the Mexican revolution of 1910 began. He attended the Autonomous University of Chihuahua to obtain a B. Sc. in Chemistry with a minor in Microbiology. During that time, joined Dr. Alejandro Camacho's laboratory to work on amino acid synthesis mediated by palladium cross-coupling reactions. Such great experience encouraged him to pursue a Ph. D. in chemistry. In Fall of 2013, he was accepted as a graduate student in the Chemistry program at The University of Texas in El Paso (UTEP). Even though he was looking forward to focusing on an organic synthesis research project, his interests completely changed after a short conversation with Dr. Skye Fortier (webpage) about the astounding chemistry of transition metals. After this intereaction, joining his lab seemed like a no-brainer. Since then, he has been scrutinizing the chemistry of the untamable low valent titanium species with emphassis on small molecule activation. To further expand the reactivity profile of his compounds, in 2018 he started using high-pressure chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Mindiola. Outside the lab Rolando enjoys spending quality time his girlfriend Yulu, synthesizing inorganic sounds with Eurorack modules, and reading books. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree in the summer of 2019 Rolando commenced his postdoctoral studies in the Mindiola group working on the coordination chemistry of Fe and also exploring electron rich precious metals for the catalytic borylation and silylation of hydrocarbons. |
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