Former postdoc Derik Frantz and visiting student Federico Bertani have moved on from the Swager group. Derik will start his independent academic career at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and Federico will return to Italy to wrap up his Ph. D. studies. Best of luck in your endeavors!
News
Eilaf Ahmed and Carlos Zuniga have finished their postdoctoral appointments in the Swager group. Coincidentally, they are both heading to Atlanta. Eilaf will be an assistant professor at Emory University, and Carlos will enter the chemistry consulting industry. We wish them good luck!
The Swager group's latest communication has appeared online in Angewandte Chemie. It describes the use of dithiolodithiole (C4S4) units in conjugated polymers. Resulting materials properties are complementary to widely used thiophene analogues.
FT-IR analysis of ancient papyrus samples of the Gospel of John and the contested Gospel of Jesus's Wife, performed by group members John Goods and Joe Azzarelli, was published today in the Harvard Theological Review. This work was also highlighted in a New York Times article that quotes Tim.
Silvia Rocha and Sébastien Rochat have finished their postdoctoral stays in the Swager group. Silvia is returning to Switzerland, and Sébastien is heading to Bristol (UK). We thank them for being great friends and labmates, and we wish them all the best in their endeavors across the pond.
The research effort led by Jens was just published online in ACS Macro Letters. The article describes a fast, simple and solvent-free, mechanochemical methodology to synthesize conjugated poly(phenylene vinylene)s in a ball-mill.
Perpetuating a well-established Swager group tradition, Eilaf won the prize for the best poster (and an iPad Air) at the 2014 MIT Polymer Day! Congratulations!!
Sibo Lin joins the group as a postdoctoral fellow after having completed his PhD studies at Caltech in the group of Theodor Agapie. Welcome!!
After a two-year postdoctoral stay Jens leaves the lab to return to Denmark. It was the chance for another goodbye lunch and night out...thanks for having been a great lab member and for having popularized the use of the Ball Mill!
The article by Markrete and Shuang (PhD 2012) reports the liquid crystalline behavior of platinum complexes, and is entitled "Columnar Liquid Crystallinity and Mechanochromism in Cationic Platinum(II) Complexes". There is a cool video associated demonstrating reversible mechanochromism and featuring the voices of two esteemed former lab members, Shuang Liu and Balta Bonillo!