Collaborations, Mitacs, & Winter Update

As always, a busy semester with some success coming from a variety of places.

​The collaboration with Nicoleta is in full swing, and work characterizing several piezoelectric devices has been completed and been part of a recent manuscript that was submitted earlier in the semester. Fred presented some of this work at the Research Days held at MRU.

Kieran contributed to the recent manuscript submitted to the Journal of Chemical Education (March 2025), and also an article for Acta Crystallographica Section E (currently awaiting submission). Kieran hopes to continue this work for further complexation to group 11 metals throughout the Spring, Summer and into the Fall for an independent project. Dylan van der Merwe, who joined the group for a semester long project, contributed to this project by exploring its use with adenine as a starting material, something the group will continue to explore. This work was presented at the Research Days held at MRU.

Jarrett, who also contributed to the Journal of Chemical Education manuscript, continued working with cannabinoids and managed to synthesize novel cannabinoids from those isolated from hemp. A great achievement for this project that Declyn will be continuing as Jarrett will be graduating this coming June. A student from the University of Guanajuato, Edgar Gonzalez, will be contributing to this project as part of a Mitacs Globalink Research Internship over the Spring and Summer months. Hoping to see a lot of productivity coming from this project over the coming year!

Adam and Declyn honed their skills in the lab, continuing to diversify the pool of ligands at our disposal. There were a lot of challenges with scheduling time for them both to volunteer in the lab, but we managed. 

A guest lecture by Daisy Cruz-Milette from Nova Chemicals took place as part of the CHEM4411 - Organometallics & Catalysis class, really good to see relevant material being used in industry!

Along with Edgar, Fred and Declyn managed to get a FST student research assistantship each, so the group will be quite busy over the coming warmer months.

Graduation just around the corner for Dylan and Jarrett, and an exciting opportunity for Kieran as his poster was accepted for the CSC2025 in Ottawa this, all coming this June.