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)

Curriculum Vitae
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

Omri Abarbanel

Omri was born in Israel and moved to the United States in 2011. He got his BS in Chemistry from CUNY Hunter College in 2017, and did a research internship on second harmonic generation imaging of peptide self-assembly structures with Dr. Rein Ulijn at CUNY Advanced Science Research Center. After that, he moved to Pittsburgh in 2018 to start his graduate program in Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. If Omri had free time, he would enjoy baking and cooking, as well as learning new skills just for fun.
oda6@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

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
Undergraduate
Nicolas D'Annunzio (BS 2019) - Research Associate @Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Ryan W. McLane (BS 2019) - Product Optimization Specialist @Thermo Fisher Scientific
Madison Keating
James Dages
Bridget Glessner
Addison Averill
Derek Lamb
Emily Nicola

Group members