Group

Meet the Team

Group photo. January 11th, 2019: the renovated labs are ready! Everyone helping with the move from our temporary space.

Raúl Hernández Sánchez (PI)

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

P o s t d o c s

Dr. Thomas H. Allen

Google scholar profile
Tom was raised in Wilmington, OH and earned a B.S. in chemistry from Ohio Northern University in 2012. Recently, Tom completed his PhD in chemistry at University of Pittsburgh under the guidance of Professor Dennis Curran exploring B-H insertion reactions of NHC-boranes. Soon after, he accepted an offer to start in the HS group as a postdoctoral researcher. In his free time, Tom enjoys scrutinizing baseball sabermetrics, listening to dream-pop, and reading Frank Herbert’s ecologically-minded Dune franchise.
tha14@pitt.edu

Dr. Edison Castro

Google scholar profile
Dr. Edison Castro is a postdoctoral researcher in the HS group since September of 2018, where he conducts research on a new class of molecules that the HSG has termed tubularenes. Originally from Nariño-Colombia, he obtained his BSc from Universidad de Nariño, Pasto-Colombia in 2008, his M.Sc. degree from Universidad del Valle, Cali-Colombia in 2011, and his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 2017 under the supervision of Prof. Luis Echegoyen. He spent 7 months as a postdoctoral researcher at UTEP working in Dr. Echegoyen's carbon nanomaterials group. At UTEP he worked on the synthesis of new fullerene derivatives for biological and optoelectronic applications.
eac106@pitt.edu

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

Victor Espinoza Castro (summer student)

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

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

Keren Lee (summer student)

Keren was born and raised in Memphis, TN and received her BSc from Rhodes College. At Rhodes she began her research with Dr. William Eckenhoff on the synthesis of strongly solvatochromic molybdenum dyes for potential application in polarity indicators, dye-sensitized solar cells, etc. In the summer of 2019, she conducted research under Dr. Kensha Clark at the University of Memphis. There, her research focused on the synthesis and design of organometallic frustrated Lewis pair catalysts. She came to the University of Pittsburgh in the summer of 2020 to pursue her PhD in chemistry.
kwl20@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

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

Mohammad Azizur Rahman (Jewel)

Jewel is a graduate student at the Department of Chemistry at University of Pittsburgh. Jewel is currently working to develop novel well-defined nanoclusters. These nanoclusters have potential applications in energy storage and electronic devices. Jewel obtained a BSc in Chemistry from the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet-3114, Bangladesh, and a MSc in Chemistry from Mississippi State University, Starkville, USA.
mar358@pitt.edu

Group Alumni
Former graduate students
Omri Abarbanel - Graduate student in the Hutchison Group (Pitt)

Former undergraduate students
Addison Averill
Derek Lamb
Emily Nicola
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