People

The PI – Frank McDonald

Frank McDonald is a native of southeast Texas. After watching the first manned moon landing on a black-and-white television as a six-year-old child, he wanted to be an astronaut. More broadly, he was always interested in science and technology, became a chemistry major in college at Texas A&M University, then bounced between the coasts, first to Stanford University for his doctoral degree working with Paul Wender and then to Yale University for a two-year postdoctoral appointment with Samuel Danishefsky. His first faculty position was at Northwestern University, where he was awarded tenure and the rank of Associate Professor, but after six winters he migrated to Emory University, where he is Professor of Chemistry. In addition to his research activities in synthetic organic chemistry, he teaches undergraduate and graduate chemistry courses each year. In his 50s, he became hooked on running upon crossing his first 5K finish line. He enjoys training for a range of distances, and has completed several marathons. 

Fifth Year

Third Year

Second Year

Undergraduate Students

Alumni

Graduate students (degree and year granted)

Victor Arredondo (Ph.D., 1999)

Brad Balthaser (Ph.D., 2009)

Matthew Boone (Ph.D., 2010)

Jason Bowman (Ph.D., 1998)

Svetlana Burova (Ph.D., 2003)

YiHung Chen (Ph.D., 2007)

Will Cutchins (M.S., 2004)

Mary Davidson (M.S., 2004)

Ann Dougherty (Ph.D., 2007)

ZhongBo Fei (Ph.D., 2007)

Mark Gleason (Ph.D., 1997)

Jessica Hurtak (Ph.D., 2018)

Bonsuk Koo (Ph.D., 2007)

Zakiria Mays (M.S., 2021)

Nellie Ochs (M.S. concurrent with B.S., 2014)

Claney Pereira (Ph.D., 2010)

Joseph Pletcher (Ph.D., 2005)

Chandra “Cat” Potter (M.S., 2011)

Omar Robles (Ph.D., 2010)

Colleen Connolly Schultz (Ph.D., 1996)

Noah Setterholm (Ph.D., 2018)

Mary Smart (M.S., 2008)

Kristen Stoltz (Ph.D., 2014)

RongBiao Tong (Ph.D., 2008)

Timothy Towne (Ph.D., 1996)

Jason Valentine (Ph.D., 2005)

Xia Wang (M.S., 2000)

John Wiseman (M.S., 2006)

Hugh Yi Hui Zhu (Ph.D., 1998)

Postdoctoral associates (year started – completed)

Eva Alcázar (2001 – 2003)

Fernando Bravo (2001 – 2003)

Yolanda Díaz (1999)

Chris Holmquist (1992 – 1994)

Kento Ishida (2011 – 2012)

K. Subba Reddy (1998 – 2001)

Prahlad Vadapally (1997 – 1998)

Christopher Walker (2022)

Xudong Wei (2000 – 2002)

Minglang Wu (2000 – 2002)

Undergraduate students (year of degree):

Arnab Chatterjee (1997)

Dian Ding (2019)

Taylor Dover (2020)

Tiffany Hung (2021)

Victoria Jiang (2015)

Alice Long (2020)

Eric Meindl (2020)

Nellie Ochs (2014)

Timothy Olson (1997)

Aatur Singhi (1997)

Alex Wein (2010)

Brian White (2000)

Katie Woolard (2017)

Short-term visiting researchers (year):

Samuel Murphy (2013)

Andrea-Nekane Roig Alba (2012)

Ramon Rodríguez (2000)

Vladimir Smolentsev (2001)

Motoki Toganoh (2000)