Dalton Transactions Blog

Bronte J. Charette, Paul J. Griffin, Claire M. Zimmerman and Lisa Olshansky*

Dalton Trans., 2022, 51, 6212-6219

Lisa Olshansky is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at UIUC. She received her PhD from MIT in 2015. Her current research focuses on mimicking the ways that biological systems efficiently interconvert different forms of energy. Specifically, she hypothesizes that there is a critical interplay between macroscopic changes in molecular structure and subatomic changes in electronic structure that can be leveraged for diverse applications ranging from solar energy conversion to biomedical research. Olshansky has been named a Searle, Vallee, and Cottrell Scholar, a Kavli fellow (2022), and has received early career research awards from the NIH and DOE.

Bronte obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Winnipeg where she began her research career in synthetic inorganic chemistry which she continued during her M.Sc. studies under the supervision of Prof. Jamie Ritch at the University of Manitoba. In 2021, Bronte received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine as a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Postgraduate Doctoral Fellow with Prof. Alan Heyduk. Her postdoctoral work with Prof. Lisa Olshansky focused on synthesizing switchable transition metal complexes for renewable energy conversion strategies. Bronte is excited to start her independent career as an assistant professor at UC Davis this summer.

Paul Griffin received his bachelor’s in chemistry and philosophy (2016) and his Master’s in chemistry (2018) from the University of Scranton. His master’s research was conducted under Dr Art Catino in which he developed a general approach to synthesize substituted tetraarylmethanes. Paul recently obtained his PhD in inorganic chemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2023), where he works with Lisa Olshansky to study the relationship between conformational dynamics, photochemistry, and electron transfer in copper coordination complexes. Paul is passionate about mentoring the next generation of scientists and explores his philosophy interests by having riveting discussions with his cat, Mookie.