Virgil’s ACS Inaugural Kavli Foundation Innovation in Chemistry Lecture was attended by more than 1500 listeners in 2011. It was among the highlights of the International Year of Chemistry 2011.
The group members were glad to receive T-shirts from Virgil, made for the group, in honour of this lecture.
Thank you!
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At the University of Pennsylvania’s 266th Commencement ceremony, group member Juncheng Lu (Luke) was awarded the Master of Chemical Sciences Capstone Award for his Capstone project titled “Targeted Delivery of mRNA with One-Component Multifunctional Sequence-Defined Ionizable Amphiphilic Janus Dendrimers”. Luke received the award together with his Master of Chemical Sciences diploma during the ceremony.
Former member César Rodriguez-Emmenegger interview is highlighted on Advanced Science News.
César was born in the north of Uruguay. He graduated from the Universidad de la República (Montevideo, Uruguay) as a Chemical Engineer. Later he moved to Prague to pursue his PhD in Biophysics, Chemical and Macromolecular Physics at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and Charles University in Prague. During his PhD, César visited the group of Prof. W. T. S. Huck in Cambridge University (Cambridge, United Kingdom) and Prof. V. Percec in University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA) as part of research stay. With the support of an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship, he worked in the group of Prof. C. Barner-Kowollik in Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Karlsruhe, Germany) and subsequently, he was a visiting scholar at Prof. Percec group, working on living radical polymerization of (meth)acrylamide water soluble monomers and the synthesis of Janus dendrimers. He established his junior group first in IMC Prague and later in DWI Aachen and is now moving to the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia in Spain. In his interview, he says “Be passionate, creative, and bold”.
Please see the interview here.
Professor Virgil Percec was elected to be a Foreign Member of the Academy of Academia Europaea in the Chemistry section, 2020.
The Academia Europaea is the pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as the functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of European interests in national research agencies.
Congratulations to Virgil!
Master Student Devendra (Dev) Maurya was selected for the MCS capstone award.
Devendra Maurya obtained a B.Tech in Surface Coating Technology form the Institute of Chemical Technology, India in 2017. He completed the capstone project entitled “Can Mixed Ligand and Catalytic Solvent Effects Transform Single Electron Transfer Living Radical Polymerization (SET-LRP) into a Commercializable Process?” under Prof. Virgil Percec mentorship at UPenn Chemistry. He expanded the concept of mixed ligand effect to other metal-catalyzed polymerization, identified conditions that are more cost effective, and expanded the library of solvent which can be used with TREN. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Organic or Polymer Chemistry after graduation.
Group Member Mitchell Young (affiliated with Temple University) was awarded The Barry Goldwater Scholarship.
The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is the most prestigious undergraduate scholarship in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering in America.
By providing scholarships to college sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering, the Goldwater Foundation is helping ensure that the U.S. is producing the number of highly-qualified professionals the Nation needs in these critical fields.
Mitchell is one of 496 U.S. college students selected for the scholarship this year from a pool of over 5,000 college sophomores and juniors nominated by 443 academic institutions.
Attached is a picture of the award and a picture of Mitchell (middle) with Professor Michael Klein (right), Dean of College of Science and Technology, Temple University, and Professor Jim Napolitano (left), Chair of Department of Physics, Temple University.
Congratulations, Mitchell!
Group Member William (Billy) Hasley won the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Delaware Valley Section Award for best academic record and demonstrating high promise in Chemical Engineering. Attached is a picture of the award and a picture of Billy with the Dean of Penn Engineering.
Congratulation, Billy!
Professor Virgil Percec was listed in 2018 Highly Cited Researchers List from Clarivate Analytics. This list recognizes world-class researchers for their exceptional research performance based on multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science. Congratulations to Virgil.