Great 10th ICReDD International Symposium! Thanks to Profs. Hajime Ito & Satoshi Maeda for invitation to speak & visit their impressive institute! Thanks to Prof. Tsuyoshi Mita for his generous hospitality!

Representing the MCWhite group at the 2026 UIUC Chemistry Lab Olympics! Stronger Every Day!

Phenomenal lectures & community at BOS 2026 (Balticum Organicum Syntheticum) in beautiful Tallinn, Estonia. Thanks to Prof. Tonis Kanger and Dr. Jaan Pesti for organizing a truly memorable meeting!

Tremendous to hear historical talks by two of the giants in free radical chemistry Bernd Giese and Chrys Chatgilialoglu @ ISOFR-14!

Thank you to Guilio Goti and Manuel Orlandi for hosting a great visit to University of Padova and to Luca Dell’Amico for the invitation to be part of the #Frontiers in Chemistry series. Padova is vibrant & full of great energy, chemistry, and chemists!

Great to welcome Sven Kaster back to group! Check out his awesome work in the @MacMillan_Lab!

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c21614

Great group outing to Collective Pour to celebrate MCW’s HC Brown Award and a great recruiting season.

Congrats to all the ACS Award winners! With @Caltech friends Jonas Peters (ACS Inorganic Chemistry), Greg Fu (Cope Award), and Brian Stoltz (Ernest Guenther Award)!

Thanks to Shauna Paradine (@UofR), Dean Toste (@UCBerkeley), Shane Krska (@Merck), Corinna Schindler (@UBC), and Dave MacMillan (@PrincetonChem)  for speaking at MCW’s HCBrown symposium. Your inspirational science and friendship made the event truly special.

HC Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods, ACS Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia on Monday March 23, 2026 from 8am-12pm in Georgia World Congress Center, Building B, Rm: B212

Excited to welcome talented crew of new students to MCWhite group: Eunjeong “Sal” Shin (@BrynMawrCollege), MaryGrace McAfee (@UALR) & Paige Drury (@holy_cross). Grateful to their amazing mentors: Zach Firestein, Seth Klaine, Emma Mize!

Great visit in November to NYU chemistry! Thanks to host Martin Tomanik and students for a great visit in a young, vibrant Department!

Interested in sculpting strong C—H bonds in complex natural products? Check out this video (directed by Emma Mize): https://youtu.be/cGD_8zw9mtQ?si=NoYg5BAZQgTyTGSa

Check out @ChemistryUIUC article “Sculpting strong C—H bonds in complex natural products” by Tracy Crane:  https://chemistry.illinois.edu/news/2025-10-29/sculpting-strong-c-h-bonds-complex-natural-products

Hold the vinegar! Previously we showed PDP oxidations (C—H [O] & epoxidation) are “turned on” by adding acetic acid & derivatives. Now we discover that replacing the carboxylic acid with electron deficient alcohol solvent preparative chemoselectivity is possible: C—H [O] is 39 X faster than epoxidation! @Nature (advanced article preview):

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09742-0

Interested in cutting strong bonds in the presence of weak ones? Check out what Mn(PDP) catalysis can do when you change it’s mechanism of action @Nature (Advanced Article Preview): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09742-0

Powerful & inspiring conference in Riga, Latvia celebrating 35 years of Enamine innovation!

Thanks Christoforos Kokotos for hosting great visit to EKPA (National & Kapodistrian Univ. Athens). Inspiring to see the dedication of the faculty to educate the next generation of Greek chemists! 

Great for to connect with so many MCWhite group OG at the heterocycles GRC: Jinpeng Zhao (Corteva), Rachel Chambers (Lilly), Stephen Ammann (Gilead). Congrats to Zach Firestein for a great poster and thanks to Dan Fandrick (Agios Pharma) for organizing an amazing conference!

Great ISOFR-14 conference 2026 in the beautiful Bologne, Italy. Thanks to Paulo Melchiorre for organizing event filled w/frontier lectures in organic free (& caged) radical chemistry! Wonderful to catch up with great scientists & friends! 

Great iCHAT conference 2026 in Fascati, Italy at the beautiful Villa Mondragone. Thanks to Massimo Bietti for organizing a great conference!

Congrats to Emma Mize, MaryGrace McAfee & MCW on completing the Christie Clinic 5K and Chiwon Hwang on the 1/2 marathon! Great way to stay physically and mentally strong!

Special to celebrate the HCBrown Award with the two OG Paul Gormisky (Odyssey Therapeutics, PhD 2013) and Shauna Paradine (@UofR, PhD 2015), pioneers of CF3PDP and Mn[Pc] catalysis. Check out their seminal papers here: 

DOI: 10.1021/ja407388y

DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2366

Special thanks to Paul Gormisky (Odyssey Therapeutics, MCW PhD 2013) for thoughtfully MC’ing & Paul Richardson (@Pfizer) for organizing a fantastic symposium and lunch! Thanks to Prof. P. Ramachandran @Purdue Borane Research Fund for presenting MCW with HCBrown award!

HC Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods Award Lecture, Monday March 23, 2026, 11AM in Georgia World Congress Center, Rm: B212

MCWhite Group Holiday Paper Party 2025 w/Chiyoung Ahn @UCBerkeley, Alex Gomez @swarthmore, Brenna Budaitis @abbvie. In Chiacgo @QuartinoChicago & @TheSecondCity. Wishing You Happy Holidays & Fantastic 2026!

Inspiring series of lectures by Greg Fu @CaltechCCE for the @ChemistryUIUC Marvel lectures redefining C—C and C—N bond formation. 

Emma Mize rocked her prelim exam! @ proud mentors with Hannah Way. 

Happy Halloween from the creative MCWhite group team!

Meet the awesome MCWhite team @OCB_UIUC @ChemistryUIUC led by graduate student Chiyoung Ahn (PhD ’25) & Alex Gomez (PhD ’25)  w/Marc Hartmann (MS ’25). They discovered a way to selectively oxidize strong methylenes in the presence of weaker allylic & pi bonds @Nature (advanced article preview): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09742-0

We said it’s not enough! Now late-stage C—H oxidation on crazy complex a,b-unsaturated NPs (size of small proteins) using simple catalysts! Check out what PDP catalysis can do when you replace the carboxylic acid for an electron deficient alcohol: @Nature (advanced article preview): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09742-0