Group

Meet the Team

May 26th, 2022. Let the summer begins!
Left to right: Raúl, Saber, Manasseh, Gabriella, Brett, Swati, and Victor.

Raúl Hernández Sánchez (PI)

2015 Ph.D Chemistry, Harvard University
2012 A.M. Chemistry, Harvard University
2010 B.Sc. Chemistry ITESM Campus Monterrey

G r a d u a t e S t u d e n t s

Swati Arora

Swati was born in New Delhi, India, and received her BSc in Chemistry from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. She moved to the United States in 2012 to pursue her Masters from Purdue University. During her Masters, Swati worked on Organoborane and Fluororganic Chemistry and investigated the light-toggled gene expression in mammalian cells under Dr. Chengde Mao. She came to the University of Pittsburgh in 2017 to pursue her Ph.D. in Chemistry. Outside of the lab she enjoys dancing and loves cooking Indian food.
swa10@pitt.edu

Victor Espinoza Castro

Victor was born in Sinaloa, Mexico but grew up in Los Angeles, CA. He earned his B.S. degree in Chemistry at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). As a McNair Scholar at CSUF, he worked in the lab of Dr. Peter de Lijser and studied the reactive intermediates that form from the photooxidation of oxime and oxime ethers. These intermediates can potentially provide a novel synthetic route for the formation of isoindole heterocycles. Over the Summer of 2019, he worked in the lab of Dr. Alina Schimpf at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego). At UC San Diego, he synthesized polyoxovanadate clusters and frameworks in order to form thin films using polyethylene glycol. He came to the University of Pittsburgh in the Summer of 2020 to pursue his PhD in Chemistry.
vme7@pitt.edu

Brett Lucht

Brett grew up in Montgomery, NJ and earned his B.S. in chemistry from Marist College. There he performed research under the guidance of Prof. Jocelyn Nadeau on thiophene-quinoxaline donor acceptor complexes and their photophysical and electrochemical properties. In the summer of 2018, he participated in the REU program at UMBC where he worked to combine thermal-responsive polymers and solvatochromic dyes as microscale “thermometers”. Currently he is pursuing his PhD in chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. Outside of the lab he enjoys breaking speed limits on his bike and playing strategy games.
brl86@pitt.edu

Saber Mirzaei

Google scholar profile
Saber was born in Iran and received his BSc in chemistry from Razi University under the supervision of Prof. Taherpour. Then he moved to the United States to continue his graduate career. Saber earned his MSc degree from Marquette University in the spring of 2019 while he was working on the synthesis and computational analysis of macrocyclic arenes under the supervision of Prof. Rathore and Prof. Timerghazin. He came to the University of Pittsburgh in the summer of 2019 to pursue his PhD degree in Chemistry.
sam444@pitt.edu

Manasseh Osei

Manasseh is originally from Ghana and received his bachelors from KNUST in Ghana. He worked in the lab of Prof. Evans Adei and Dr. Richard Tia, where he did quantum chemical calculations on trimethylenemethane and the effects of the installation of heteroatoms on reactivity patterns in the singlet and triplet spin states.
mko12@pitt.edu

U n d e r g r a d u a t e S t u d e n t s

Gabriella Prieto

Gabriella was born in Florida but grew up in Puerto Rico. She came to Pittsburgh in 2019 and is currently working on her Chemistry degree at the University of Pittsburgh. Under the supervision of Dr. Hernández Sánchez, she is assisting graduate students in the lab as an undergraduate researcher. Outside of the lab she enjoys to play video games and watch ballet performances.
gip27@pitt.edu

Group Alumni
Former postdoctoral associates
Dr. Edison Castro
Dr. Thomas H. Allen - Senior Development Chemist @Boron Specialties, LLC

Former graduate students
Keren Lee
Mohammad Azizur Rahman - Graduate student @WVU
Omri Abarbanel - Graduate student in the Hutchison Group (Pitt)

Former undergraduate students
Gabriella Belsito
Addison Averill
Emily Nicola
Derek Lamb (BS 2021) - Lab Assistant @Center for Blood Oxygen Transport & Hemostasis, University of Maryland
Bridget Glessner (BS 2020) - Raw Materials Chemist @Eurofins
James Dages (BS 2020) - Quality Control Analyst @Polysciences, Inc.
Madison Keating (BS 2020) - Forensic Scientist @Atlantic Diagnostic Laboratories
Nicolas D'Annunzio (BS 2019) - Research Associate @Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Ryan W. McLane (BS 2019) - Product Optimization Specialist @Thermo Fisher Scientific

Group members