Latest Group News
The Mindiola Group is always seeking new, talented graduate students interested in synthetic, spectroscopic, mechanistic and catalytic inorganic or organometallic chemistry. Please contact Prof. Mindiola if you have any questions or interests in any of our research projects.
A Warm welcome to our newest member: Sarah Smith from Messiah University. Sarah is an NSF-REU funded student that will be conducting work on cyclic polymers under the guidance of John Russell. Welcome onboard Sarah!
Congratulations to Prof. Daniel Mindiola for being chosen as the recipient of the International Organic Chemistry Foundation (IOCF) Lectureship Award. IOCF is an organization which emeritus professor Zen-ichi Yoshida founded in 2012 (website). Shown below is Prof. Kazu Semba handing the award at the Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University.
Congratulations to Prof. Daniel Mindiola for being a awarded a fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Prof. Mindiola will be hosted by Professor Makoto Yamashita at Nagoya University and will be giving a series of lectures around the islands of Japan.
Congratulations to Orion Staples for succesfully completing his thesis entitled "Investigation of Platinum Group Metals for Methane Functionalization Catalysis: Synthesis, Reactivity, and Catalytic Studies of Pyridylpyrrolyl and Phopshine Supported Iridium and Osmium Complexes."
A Warm welcome to three new and talented Penn undergraduate students joining our research ranks: Annie Lin, Achala Kankanamge, and Brody Altomare! Annie will work with Matthew Mena on Ti dinitrogen chemistry, Achala on nitrene and carbene chemistry with Fe under the tutelage of Ethan Zars, whereas Brody will work on cyclic polymers under the guidance of John Russell!
Congratulations to Afshan Jafari for succesfully completing her thesis, giving an outstanding presentation, and defending it! Afshan has been an essential member of the group and we will miss her dearly! Thanks for all your hard work, cheerful smile, and many contributions to coordination chemistry and catalysis using base metals and metal-ligand multiple bonds.
Congratulations to John Russell for receiving the 2022-2023 Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology (VIEST) fellowship. The goal of the program is to make Penn a world leader in energy research by promoting integrative basic research aimed at meeting the world’s present and future energy needs. Graduate Fellows are a critical element of the institute and we are proud to learnt that John has joined their ranks. Way to go John!
Congratulations to Orion Staples for receiving the 2022-2023 Dissertation Completion Fellowship application from the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania! This appointment is a tribute to Orion's strong outstanding academic record and impressive plan for dissertation research. Way to go Orion!
Congratulations to Shuruthi Senthil for receiving the 2022 Penn Chemistry Excellence in Graduate Research Award!
A Warm welcome to Jacob Feldman, a high-school student from Fox Lane High School in Bedford, NY. Jacob will be joining us for ~10 weeks working on a project involving early-transition metal bis-chalcogenides over the summer of 2022.
A Warm welcome to Sonia Joseph, an undergraduate at Penn who has joined the group to explore the chemistry of dinitrogen fixation and cyclic polymers. A belated welcome to the Mindi's newest graduate student member, Matthew Mena. Matthew hails from the south where he conducted work at New Mexico State and Arizona State University. Matthew will be a joint student with the Tomson group working on redox-active ligands with early transition metals.
Congratulations to Afshan Jafari for being selected as a 2021-2022 Dean's Scholar from the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania! Way to go Afshan!
Congratulations to Dr. Pavel Zatsepin for succesfully completing his thesis and defending it. Just a few revisions and you are on your way to Japan! Pavel will commence his Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellowship in January (presently postponed due to the pandemic) of 2022 under the guidance of Professor Makota Yamashita at Nagoya University. Below is Pavel taking a sip of a delicious 18 year old "The Balvenie Double Wood and Single Malt Scotch".
Congratulations to Jeremy McAndrew for succesfully completing and defending his Masters degree in the Chemical Sciences.
Congratulations to Amy Metlay for receiving the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology (VIEST) fellowship for 2021-22! VIEST Graduate Fellows will receive financial support toward their graduate work in the form of a standard stipend, general fee, tuition, and health insurance for the 2021-2022 academic year and summer 2022. In addition, each fellow may apply for up to $1,000 in funds to present their research at a conference. Amy is a joint student with Prof. Tom Mallouk exploring potential chaneges in bipolar membranes that separates acidic and basic solutions in aqueous redox flow battery.
Congratulation to Pavel Zatsepin for being award a JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) fellowship. Pavel will be conducting research in the laboratories of Prof. Makoto Yamashita at Nagoya University (website).
Congratulations to Dr. Rolando Aguilar, who will commence in 2022 a postdoctoral associate study in China in the laboratories of Prof. Zhenfeng Xi at Peking University (website).
Welcome to our newest graduate student member John Russell. John is a native from Canada, where he obtained his bachelors degree from the University of Toronto and conducted research in the laboratories of Prof. Morris and Prof. Stephan. John will be investigating the chemistry of vanadium alkylidynes and their ability to polymerize terminal alkynes. Welcome to the Mindi group John!
Some Older News...
Welcome to our newest graduate student members: Amy Metlay, Jacob Mohar, and Shuruthi Senthil! Amy will be conducting a joint research project with the research group of Prof. Tom Mallouk, whereas Jacob and Shuruthi will be exploring various synthetic systems with highly electropositive transition metals. Welcome to the Mindi group!
Dr. Mrinal Bhunia, our newest postdoctoral asociate who obtained his Ph.D. from Prof. Swadhin Mandal from IISER Kolkata (Mohanpur Campus), in India. Mrinal will be working on synthesis and reactivity of molecular nitrides of early-transition metals.
Congratulations to former graduate student Keith Searles for accepting a junior faculty position in the Chemistry Department at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Congratulations Prof. Searles (website).
Congratulations to Prof. Mindiola for being the recipient of the 2020 F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry (site). This award recognizes outstanding synthetic accomplishments in the fieldof inorganic chemistry. An award lecture will take place at the ACS National meeting in San Francisco in August of 2020 (ACS meeting and symposium in Philadelphia pwas cancelled due to COVID19 pandemic).
Checkout our new group logo, designed by the group and drawn by Niobe Mindiola! 
The Mindi group welcomes Kevin Medina (REU student, Puerto Rico), as a visiting undergraduate student from the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao. Kevin is working on heterobimetallic dinitrogen complexes of uranium and molybdenum.
We would also like to extend a warm welcome to Jonghoon Choi, who is a visiting graduate student from the research group of Prof. Yunho Lee at KAIST (Rep. of Korea). website Jonghoon is exploring new PNP scaffolds with titanium for catalytic transfer dehydrogenation reactions involving the conversion of linear alkanes to terminal olefins.
The PNP ligand scaffold explored by the Mindiola and Ozerov groups is now commercially available from Strem. Cataloge number 15-0670, Bis[2-(di-i-propylphosphino)-4-methylphenyl]amine, min. 98%. CAS number 666856-94-6. See website for more information.
The Mindi group has adopted a new mascot and its name is Mazinger Z! We thank Prof. Takashi Kurogi for acquiring the group this new mascot (マジンガーZ). For an intro video see Mazinger Z
Follow the Mindi group on Twitter.
Recent research Highlights
Congratulations to Jacob Mohar, in collaboration with Professor Josh Telser (Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL) for their recent paper being accepted to Chem. Commun.The paper's content was alaso chosen for the front art cover of the journal (the design was based on Jacob's original idea)! A mononuclear, terminal titanium(III) imido, Jacob Mohar, Anders Reinholdt, Taylor Keller, Patrick Carroll, Joshua Telser, and Daniel J. Mindiola, Chem. Commun. 2023, 59, 10101-10104.
Congratulations to Ethan Zars, and in collaboration with Meyer group (FAU, Germany) for their recent paper being accepted to Chem. Sci. Isostructural Bridging Diferrous Chalcogenide Cores [FeII(m-E)FeII]
(E = O, S, Se, Te) with Decreasing Antiferromagnetic Coupling Down the
Chalcogenide Series. Ethan Zars, Lisa Gravogl, Michael R. Gau, Patrick
J. Carroll, Karsten Meyer, and Daniel J. Mindiola, Chem. Sci. 2023, Advance Article.PDF
Congratulations to Orion Staples and the Delferro and Kaphan Teams and collaboratores at Argnonne and the Ames National Laboratories for their studies on a highly active and surface supported Ir(I) methane borylation catalyst. This work was accepted to J. Am. Chem. Soc. and is entitled "Silica Supported Organometallic IrI Complexes Enable Efficient Catalytic Methane Borylation." Orion Staples, Magali S. Ferrandon, Guillaume P. Laurent, Uddhav Kanbur, A. Jeremy Kropf, Michael R. Gau, Patrick J. Carroll, Katherine McCullough, Dieter Sorsche, Frédéric A. Perras, Massimiliano Delferro, David M. Kaphan, and Daniel J. Mindiola, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023,145, 14, 7992-8000. PDF
Congratulations to Shuruthi Senthil for her recent study involving a new form of a P6 scafold being accepted to Organometallics entitled. A Contiguous Tricyclic [P6]2– Framework Spanning Across Two Vanadium(III) Centers and as part of the special issue Early Transition Metals in Organometallic Chemistry. Shuruthi Senthil, Michael R. Gau, and Daniel J. Mindiola.Organometallics 2023, 42, 1048–1051. PDF
Congratulations to Shuruthi Senthil for her recent paper being accepted to Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. entitled Metal-Ligand Cooperativity to Assemble a Neutral and Terminal Nb≡P
Bond. Shuruthi Senthil, Seongyeon Kwon, Dominik Fehn, Hoyoung Im,
Michael R. Gau, Patrick J. Carroll, Mu-Hyun Baik, Karsten Meyer, and
Daniel J. Mindiola. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e202212488 (Accepted Articles and Hot paper). PDF
Congratulations to Dr. Mrinal Bhunia and former graduate student Lauren Grant, and in collaboration with the Pinter group (UTEP) for their recent paper being accepted to Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. entitled Terminal and Super-Basic Parent Imides of Hafnium. Mrinal Bhunia, Christian Sandoval-Pauker, Mehrafshan G. Jafari, Lauren N. Grant, Michael R. Gau, Balazs Pinter, Daniel J. Mindiola. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e202209122 (Hot Article!). PDF
Congratulations to Shuruthi Senthil, and in collaboration with Baik group (KAIST) for their recent paper being accepted to Chem. Commun. entitled Ligand Non-Innocence Allows Isolation of a Neutral andTerminal Niobium Nitride. Shuruthi Senthil, Seongyeon Kwon, Hoyoung Lim, Michael R. Gau, Mu-Hyun Baik, and Daniel J. Mindiola. Chem. Commun. 2022, 58, 11795-11798
(as a HOT Article). PDF
Congratulations to Pavel Zatsepin and the Baik Team for their recent report on titanium telluridos. Pavel and co-workers were able to prepare and study a series of titanium bis-tellurido complexes. This work was just accepted to J. Am. Chem. Soc. and is entitled "Ditelluride, Terminal Tellurido, and Bis(tellurido) Motifs of Titanium." Pavel Zatsepin, Jun-Hyeong Kim, Michael R. Gau, Patrick J. Carroll, Bimal Pudasaini, Mu-Hyun Baik and Daniel J. Mindiola. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 13066–13070. PDF
Congratulations to Afshan Jafari and Dr. Ander Reinholdt, and in collaboration with the Delferro, Telser, and Meyer groups for putting together a detailesd study on vanadium nitrides. Afshan and co-workers were able to prepare and study a series of low-valent V precursors as well as their respective nitrides in various oxidation states. This work was just accepted to J. Am. Chem. Soc. and is entitled "A Tale of Three Molecular Nitrides: Mononuclear Vanadium(V) and (IV) Nitrides, as well as a Mixed-Valence Trivanadium Nitride Having a V3N4 Double Diamond-Core". Mehrafshan G. Jafari, Dominik Fehn, Anders Reinholdt, Cristina Hernandez-Prieto, Prajay Patel, Michael R. Gau, Patrick J. Carroll, J. Krzystek, Cong Liu, Andrew Ozarowski, Joshua Telser, Massimiliano Delferro, Karsten Meyer, and Daniel J. Mindiola. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 10201–10219. PDF
Congratulations to Dr. Ander Reinholdt and Afshan Jafari, and in collaboration with the Baik group for their recent mechanistic paper being accepted to J. Am. Chem. Soc. entitled "An Isolable Azide Adduct of Titanium(II) Follows Bifurcated Deazotation Pathways to an Imide". Anders Reinholdt, Seongyeon Kwon, Mehrafshan G. Jafari, Michael R. Gau, Patrick J. Caroll, Chad Lawrence, Jun Gu, Mu-Hyun Baik, Daniel J. Mindiola. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 527-537. PDF