Physical Chemistry Seminar: Professor Paul Zimmerman, University of Michigan

Physical Chemistry Seminar: Professor Paul Zimmerman, University of Michigan
Date
Tue November 15th 2016, 4:30pm
Event Sponsor
Chemistry Department
Location
Braun Lecture Hall
S.G. Mudd Building
Stanford University

"New Representations of Fundamental Chemical Interactions and Reactions"

About the Seminar:

Powerful new reactions can be enabled by fundamental studies of catalysts and their operating mechanisms. To name just a few such discoveries of interest to our research group, olefin-carbonyl metathesis has recently been shown to be catalyzed by Lewis acidic iron complexes, distal C-H functionalization was demonstrated at Pd with new directing group strategies, and switching polymerization catalysis for olefin-block-thiophene synthesis was enacted by clever ligand design. While locating specific catalysts and conditions to allow such transformations is the key first step in reaction development, uncovering the elementary mechanisms for these transformations is vital for reaction optimization and generalization. Towards the goal of systematic and efficient catalytic mechanism discovery, the Zimmerman group has developed new simulation tools for reaction hypothesis generation and reaction path optimization. These tools are being applied in close collaboration with experimental groups to push forward new reaction types, such as those mentioned above. This talk will discuss how our new methods have been used alongside ongoing laboratory efforts to provide rapid insight into catalytic mechanisms and enable catalyst design and optimization.

About the Speaker:

Paul Zimmerman specializes in the creation and application of computational methods for catalysis development, electronic structure, and reaction dynamics. After graduating from the chemical engineering program at the University of California Berkeley, he received his PhD in chemical engineering from Stanford University in 2010 under the direction of Charles Musgrave, studying hydrogen storage catalysis and charge multiplication in organic solar cells. Afterwards, Paul did postdoctoral work at Berkeley with Alex Bell and Martin Head-Gordon, where he developed and applied new computational methods to simulate zeolite-catalyzed reactions, including alkene oligomerization and alkane cracking. Since August 2012, Paul has been an assistant professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Paul is the recipient of the ACS Emerging Technologies in Computational Chemistry award (2013), NSF CAREER award (2016), Sloan Research Fellowship (2016) and The OpenEye ACS COMP Outstanding Junior Faculty award (2016). Since arriving in Michigan, he has authored more than 25 papers and currently has a group composed of 12 graduate students, 4 postdocs, and 4 undergraduates.