The Newman Group

Dec 22, 2023: Congratulations to Eric for a successful PhD defense! Eric's work on regioselective Mizoroki-Heck chemistry using P2N2 ligands is posted on ChemRxiv. Congrats to Steve, who wins the departmental Detellier award for excellence in teaching/mentorship, and Adam who wins the departmental Alper award for research excellence.

 

Nov 13, 2023: The lab attends QOMSBOC in Montreal with Piers taking home an award for his talk and Adam for his poster. Congrats to both! Adam's review on transition metal-catalyzed reactions of alcohols is now available on ChemRxiv.

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Sept 5, 2023: Yanlong and colleague's work on Ni-catalyzed transesterification is published in a special issue of Synlett dedicated to the late Keith Fagnou. Steve is the Editor of a new book on Enabling Tools and Techniques for Organic Synthesis. Adam is awarded a MSFSS to study abroad with the Lin lab at Cornell. We say goodbye to Yeva and greet our new undergraduate students Baha, Robynne, and Janice as well as new graduate student Kostya. Welcome all!

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June 2, 2023: We welcome Kian Mansour as a new MSc student and Yeva Shevchenko as a new MITACS intern. Adam and Piers both win prizes for their talks at this year's OCCI day. Adam and Zichuan head to CSC2023  -  you can see Adam's talk at 2:40pm on Mon, June 5 in West Meeting Room 115, and Zichuan at 9:40am on Thur, June 8 in West Meeting Room 201

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May 8, 2023: Adam and Piers' discovery of a catalytic deoxygenative cross-coupling of tertiary alcohols is published in Nature Synthesis. We say goodbye to BSc students Laura, Carlos, and Rhiannon, while we welcome Nav Matharu into the group for an NSERC USRA internship, alongside high school students and Samantha Gillis and Jacey Matthews as Kirkness scholars.

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Feb 20, 2023: Our group publishes back-to-back papers on the unique reactivity of tetramethyldisiloxane (TMDSO) and KOtBu. Piers' work on metal-free C–C bond cleavage to remove a trifluoromethyl group from pyridines is reported in Organic Letters. Adam's work on Ni-catalyzed reductive olefination of hydroxysulfones is reported in Organic Chemistry Frontiers as part of their emerging investigators series.

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Nov 4, 2022: Congratulations to Omid for a successful thesis defense. Perfectly timed with the publication of his comprehensive review on ester cross-coupling. We also say farewell to Gilian who starts her industrial career at SGS. Good luck to you both!

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Sept 8, 2022: As we say farewell to Victoria, her work on the direct arylation of enones is published in ACS Catalysis. Congratulations and best wishes for your career at Eurofins Alphora!

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Sept 5, 2022: The lab welcomes new graduate students Shajia, Zichuan, and Piyas, new postdoctoral fellow Aisha, and new undergraduate students Hana, Rhiannon, Laura, and Filiz.

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​May 1, 2022: We say goodbye to Amrah who successfully defends her MSc thesis (good luck at Alphora!), and we say hello to Carlos, Kathleen, and Kostiantyn who begin their summer projects. Welcome to the group!

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Dec 3, 2021: The group attends the 2021 QOMSBOC meeting. Congratulations to Eric for receiving a prize for his oral presentation!

​Oct 29, 2021: Garrett successfully defends his MSc thesis! Good luck at Acanthus Research.

​Sept 21, 2021: Eric's work on C-arylation of alcohols an aldehydes is published in JACS. Garrett's work on C-H bond arylation using superbases is published in ACS Catalysis as an Editor's Choice article. Congrats to both!

​Aug 15, 2021: The group attends IUPAC/CCCE 2021 virtual meeting. Those registered can tune in to see Eric talk about P2N2 ligands, Adam present about deoxygenation, Amrah present about alcohol alpha-arylation, Piers present about organohalide reduction, August present about automation in flow, Karen talk about ketone synthesis, Omid present about cross-coupling with methyl esters, and Steve present about flow kinetics.

​June 25, 2021: Congratulations to Eric Skrotzki - a new paper in JOC and a smooth MSc thesis defense to be proud of.  Thomas highlights his work on dehydrogenative cross-coupling in the Synthesis Workshop Youtube Series.

​May 11, 2021: We're hiring! Our group is looking for postdoctoral fellows with experience in organic synthesis to start new collaborative projects in method development and API synthesis. For further details, see: newmanlab.ca/recruiting

​Mar 2, 2021 Eric and Jaya's work on solvent-free ozone oxidation chemistry is available on ChemRxiv. Yanlong's short review on how alcohols, aldehydes, and esters can particpiate in cross-coupling chemistry is published in Chem Comm.

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Jan 11, 2021 Adam and our HTE facility manager Roxanne Clement outline an affordable way to run multi-well plates with readily available equipment in Nature Protocols. The group says goodbye to Yanlong as he starts his independent career at Tianjin University of Technology. Our lab's research is highlighted in the latest Perspectives magazine.

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Sept 8, 2020 Piers St-Onge and August Sibthorpe join the group as graduate students. Casey Lenart, Jonathan Buiel, Maxwell Bezaire join the group as honours thesis students. Good luck in your studies!

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July 6, 2020 With the University partially re-opening, we finally get to welcome new undergraduate students Karen and Jean-Danick to the lab. Welcome to the team!

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Apr 22, 2020 Adam, Parkash, and Yanlong's work on exhaustive reduction of  methyl esters is published in JACS. We virtually say goodbye to our excellent undergraduates Haydn, Katie, Rama, and Jonathan who finished their term projects.

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Apr 1, 2020 Congratulations to Ryan, who defended his PhD thesis over Zoom. His most recent work on streamlining kinetic analysis in flow is published in JOC.

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Feb 21, 2020 Our group mourns the loss of PhD student Saeed Kashani, who was killed on Ukraine Airline Flight 752 in Iran. Saeed's most recent paper on uncovering homogeneous conditions for C-N coupling is published in OPRD.

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Dec 9, 2019 Eric S. wins a QOMSBOC poster prize. Adam wins a Tito Scaiano Scholarship. Saeed, Adam, and Ryan all have new pre-prints available on ChemRxiv. Congrats to all!

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Oct 1, 2019 Yanlong continues to expand upon the use of methyl esters as cross-coupling electrophiles in our latest publication in Angewandte. The Newman lab joins Twitter.

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Aug 20, 2019 We say goodbye to Taoufik (good luck in MIT!), Prakash (good luck in Birmingham!), and Louis (good luck in Lyon!). The Newman group is co-hosting the 2019 QOMSBOC meeting, which will be held on uOttawa campus from Nov 8-10.

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May 20, 2019 Welcome to our new B.Sc. student Rama and visiting M.Sc. candidate Louis who join the group for the summer. Ryan and Garrett's work on taming reactive diazo species is published in ACS Catal.

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Apr 19, 2019 Thomas' article in oxidative coupling of alcohols is published in JACS and Yanlong's article on catalytic amide bond formation is published in ACS Catal. We say goodbye to our excellent Honours thesis students.

 

Jan 7, 2019​​ Congratulations to Eric and Ryan on their recent minireview in Angewandte on high throughput strategies for catalysis. Welcome to our new students Adam Cook and Eric Skrotzki who are beginning their master's studies.

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Nov 6, 2018​​ We say goodbye to Thomas who returns to finish his PhD at KU Leuven. Congratulations to Jeanne for her successful thesis defense (good luck in Toronto!). Jaya's work on Ni-catalyzed coupling of aldehydes is highlighted in OPRD.

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Aug 26, 2018 Congratulations to Taoufik and Jeanne on their newly developed Ni-catalyzed amide bond forming reaction, published in Angewandte. Welcome to our newest postdoctoral fellow Prakash Sekar who comes to us from National Tsing Hua University.

 

June 25, 2018 Best wishes to Lars and Jaya as they move on to their next career stages in Uppsala, Sweden and Toronto Research Chemicals, respectively. Welcome to our new visiting PhD candidate Thomas Verheyen who comes to us from the De Borggraeve lab in KU Leuven. Congratulations to Jeanne and Jaya who publish their work on ligand-controlled chemoselective coupling in Org Lett.

 

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May 24, 2018 Welcome to our new undergraduates Omid, Garrett, Jacob, and Eric. Steve receives an Ontario Early Researcher Award.

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Apr 4, 2018 Saeed and co-authors publish in Green Chemistry on some simple guidelines for translating batch reactions into flow, and Taoufik is chosen as TA of the Year by uOttawa's Science Student's Association. Congratulations!

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Mar 9, 2018 Welcome to our new postdoctoral fellow Yanlong Zheng who comes to us from Nankai University. Ryan's work on auxiliary recycling is highlighted in OPRD.

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Feb 5, 2018 Welcome to our new honours student Lars van Turnhout visiting us from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Congratulations to Ryan for his recent publication in Chem Sci on how chiral auxiliary chemistry can become pseudocatalytic through the design of continuous flow recycling reactors.

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Sept 11, 2017 Congratulations to Eric and co-authors for the latest group publication, demonstrating a remarkably simple way to prepare deuterated aldehydes. No more multi-step sequences with lithium aluminum deuteride necessary!

 

June 5, 2017 The lab returns from CSC in Toronto, taking home the 1st place poster prize in the organic division for the second year in a row. Congratulations Jeanne!

 

May 1, 2017 Congratulations to Eric and Sam for their successful poster presentations and completion of their Honours projects. Welcome to our new summer researchers, Émile, Kendra, Ian, and Niraj.

 

Feb 21, 2017 Congratulations to Taoufik, Jaya, and Mohanad for their recent publication in ACS Catalysis, which demonstrates how amide bonds can be made with a Buchwald-Hartwig amination-type reactions.

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Jan 11, 2017 Congratulations to Taoufik, Wanying, and Imane for their recent publication in JACS. We demonstrate that esters can be used as cross-coupling partners, just like aryl halides or triflates. Mechanistic studies, together with the Houk lab, show that the unique properties of the Pd-NHC catalyst gives selectivity never seen before in this reaction class

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Jan 2, 2017 Welcome to our new PhD students Hamdi (M.Sc. Lyon, France) and Saeed (M.Sc. Tehran, Iran).

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Nov 21, 2016 Congratulations Wanying for her successful thesis defense!

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Nov 17, 2016 Steve is awarded the 2016 Polanyi Prize in Chemistry!

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Nov 11, 2016 Jeanne, Taoufik, Ryan Eric, and Steve head to Waterloo for QOMSBOC 2016.

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Nov 2, 2016 Congrats to Kaylie for her successful thesis defense!

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Oct 4, 2016 Congratulations to Kaylie, Jeanne, and Ryan for their recent publication in Org. Lett. Very counterintuitive results that show Grignards have high chemoselectivity in the Kumada-Corriu coupling if the catalyst resting state is artificially manipulated.

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Sept 6, 2016 We say goodbye to our summer interns and welcome our new postdoc Jaya Kishore, visiting MSc candidate Mads Anderson, and Honours student Samantha Brixi.

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June 30, 2016 Congratulations to Wanying for winning a poster prize at uOttawa’s Synthesis Day. Welcome to Dr. Mohanad Shkoor, who is joining the group this summer as a visiting professor from Qatar University.

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June 20, 2016 Congratulations to Kaylie for winning the 1st place poster prize in the CSC in the Organic Chemistry division!

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June 2, 2016 The lab heads to CSC in Halifax. Check out Steve‘s talk Monday morning or Kaylie and Wanying‘s posters on Monday evening.

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May 5, 2016 Taoufik prepares for a presentation at the upcoming Canadian Symposium on Catalysis, May 8 – May 11 in Ottawa.

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May 2, 2016 Welcome to new summer undergraduate researchers Claudia Meloche (NSERC USRA) and Sara Omaiche (NSERC USRA). Welcome back to Eric Isbrandt (CREATE CFS awardee).

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Dec 8, 2015 Steve presents at the Faculty of Science lecture series.

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Nov 6, 2015 The group takes a trip to Montreal to present at QOMSBOC2015.

Sept 8, 2015 The group says goodbye to summer students and interns, and welcomes DAAD RISE intern Annika Steinmetz (University of Freiburg) and Ph.D. candidate Ryan Sullivan (M.Sc. ’15, Guelph).

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June 15, 2015 The group enjoys a week attending the annual CSC meeting is in Ottawa.

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May 18, 2015 Welcome to MITACS Globalink scholar R Bharath Venkatesh who joins us for the summer from NIT Trichy.

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Apr 7, 2015 Imane Yalaoui, an MSc student at Université Pierre et Marie Curie, joins the group for a summer internship. Welcome!

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Apr 2, 2015 Steve and Taoufik present their ideas at the Ontario & Canada Research Chairs Symposium in Toronto, and the Fall and Winter undergraduate researchers present posters at the UROP symposium.

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Apr 1, 2015 The group is awarded their first NSERC Discovery and Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) grants. Check back in the near future to see the cool discoveries made using this funding.

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Jan 6, 2015 Taoufik Ben Halima (MSc ’11, UQAM) joins the group as as Graduate student, and undergraduates Jeanne Masson-Makdissi and John Huynh are awarded UROPs for the Winter term. Welcome to the newest members!

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Oct 16, 2014 Welcome to Rifat Al-Chadirji and Dimitri Cojocaru who received UROP awards to study in the group this Fall!

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Oct 1, 2014 Steve is named the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Catalysis. Congrats!

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Sept 2, 2014 Kaylie Hua (BSc ’14, McGill) and Wanying Zhang (BSc ’14, McGill) join the group as graduate students. Welcome!

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July 4, 2014 Lab set-up begins! Drop by DRO 408 to say hello.

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Jan 8, 2014 The website goes live!