Paul Chirik is among the first chemists in the nation to receive funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s new green chemistry grants. Chirik’s $1M, three-year grant was announced this month for his proposal, Iron Catalysts for a Biorenewable Hydrocarbon Future.

Reported in Nature last month, the first observation ever of an axial Higgs mode during experiments with a rare-earth telluride, gadolinium tritelluride (GdTe3), a two-dimensional quantum material the Schoop Lab has been exploring for years now. 

Erik Sorensen will be the Department's new director of graduate studies as of July 1. Sorensen, the Arthur Allan Patchett Professor in Organic Chemistry, succeeds Robert Knowles, who has held the post since 2019.