Fillion Lab Group Members

Siawash Ahmar

Siawash (B.Sc., M.Sc., University of Western Ontario) joined the group in Sept 2009. At Western, he worked with Prof. John Corrigan on Ferrocenylmethylchalcogenolate reagents for the preparation of novel group 11/16 polynuclear clusters. His Ph.D. studies in the Fillion group are on new domino reactions of Meldrum’s acid derivatives.

Ganna Bondarenko

Anna (B.Sc., York University) joined the group in January 2011. At York she did her undergraduate research project with Prof. A. Orellana on amino carbonylation reactions.

Stuart Mahoney

Stuart (B.Sc. Chemistry, University of Windsor, on right) joined the group in Sept 2007. At Windsor he worked with Prof. Eichhorn on electron-deficient triphenylenes. His graduate work is on asymmetric reactions of alkylidene Meldrum’s acids.

Jiaqi Xu

Jiaqi (B.Sc., University of Hebei; Baoding, China) joined the group in Sept 2011. At Hebei he did his undergraduate research project with Prof. Xiaoliu Li on the synthesis of polyamine conjugated naphthalimide derivatives. His graduate studies in the Fillion group are on new palladium-catalyzed reactions of Meldrum’s acid derivatives.

Current Undergraduate Students

Eric Beaton:

Eric is a 4^th year chemical physics student at UW who initially joined the lab on a summer NSERC and has stayed with us to conduct his 494 research. His project will focus on developing new chemistry with Meldrum’s acid derivatives.

Magda Karski: Magda is conducting her 494 research project in the lab which will focus on asymmetric conjugate additions to alkylidene Meldrum’s acids.

Matt Wawrykow:

Matt is conducting his 494 research project in the lab which will focus on developing new chemistry with Meldrum’s acid derivatives.

Former Graduate Students

Yen Nguyen

She conducted research on the hydrogenolysis of unstrained C-C bonds (2008-2011) and is currently working at Toronto Research Chemicals.

Aaron Dumas

Ph.D., 2009. “Development of New Domino Reactions of Alkylidene Meldrum’s Acids Involving Freidel-Crafts Chemistry and Catalytic Conjugate Addition of Alkylidene Meldrum’s Acids”. Aaron will join Prof. Jeffrey Bode’s research group at ETH, Zürich in January 2010 as a post-doctoral fellow.

Ashraf Wilsily

Ph.D., 2009. “Enantioselective Conjugate Additions to Meldrum’s Acid Acceptors for the Synthesis of Quaternary Centres and Studies on Persistent Intramolecular C-H•••X (X= O, S, Br, Cl, and F) Hydrogen Bonds Involving Benzyl Meldrum’s Acids”. Ash will join Prof. Gregory Fu’s research group at MIT in January 2010 as a post-doctoral fellow.

Alex Zorzitto

M.Sc., 2009. “Enantioselective Rh(I)-Catalyzed Conjugate Alkynylation of 5-Benzylidene Meldrum’s Acid with TMS-acetylene”.

Jarkko Heikkinen

Jarkko was a visiting student from Finland (University of Oulu) who worked with us on Pd/Al dimetallics. He has returned home to defend his Licensiat, and we hope he will come to his senses and rejoin the group in Waterloo soon.

Dave Moon

M.Sc., 2008. “The Conjugate Addition of Novel Nucleophiles and Catalytic Intramolecular Tandem [1,5]-Hydride Shift/Cyclization and Friedel-Crafts Acylation with Alkylidene Meldrum’s Acid Derivatives”. Dave has joined Dalton Chemical Laboratories in Toronto, ON.

Julie Goll

M.Sc., 2007. “Preparing and Tuning the Reactivity of Palladium Carbenes and an Unusual Catalytic Isomerization of Diphenylcyclopropanes”. Julie is currently undergraduate lab coordinator at the University of Waterloo.

Vincent Trepanier:

Ph.D., 2006. “Development of New Carbon-Carbon Bond-Forming Strategies: Formation and Reactivity of sp³-gem-Organodimetallic Palladium(II)/MR_n Alkane Intermediates (MR_n=Dialkylalumino, Trialkylstannyl)”. Vince joined the group of Prof. K.C. Nicolaou at the Scripps Research Institute in January 2007 as a post-doctoral fellow.

Anna Remorova

M.Sc., 2005. “Preparation and Reactivity of Palladium/Aluminum sp³-gem-Organodimetallic Alkanes“. She is currently working at Toronto Research Chemicals.

Dan Fishlock

Ph.D., 2005. “The Catalytic Intramolecular Friedel-Crafts Acylation of Meldrum's Acid Derivatives and The Total Synthesis of Taiwaniaquinol B”. Dan completed his Ph.D in the summer of 2005 and then conducted research with Prof. Robert M. Williams at Colorado State University. In August 2007 he will join Roche Palo Alto LLC in California as a scientist in process research and development.

Rachel Beingessner

M.Sc., 2003.  “Enantioselective Entry into Bicyclo[6.1.0]Nonane-9-Carboxylic Acids via Me₂AlOTf-Promoted Intramolecular Friedel-Crafts Alkylation of Arenes with 3-Oxa-Bicyclo[3.1.0]Hexan-2-Ones.”  Rachel is now pursuing Ph.D. studies at the University of Ottawa.

Rebekah Carson

M.Sc., 2003.  “Investigation into the Preparation and Reactivity of sp³ Geminal Palladium/Aluminum Organodimetallics.”  Rebekah is now at Boehringer Ingelheim, Montreal.

Christopher Ohberg

M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at Lund Institute of Technology (LTH).  Chris worked on the fluorescent labelling of naturally occurring oligosaccharides in order to determine the affinity of the galectins to these sugars.  Chris has completed this project and has returned to Sweden to pursue graduate studies.

Former Post-Doctoral Fellows

Jérôme Jacq

Jérôme worked in the group from Jan. 2010 to Dec. 2010. His studies were focused on the hydrogenolysis of carbon-carbon bonds.

Sébastien Carret

Seb worked in the group from Feb. 2006 to Aug. 2007, and studied the Rh-catalyzed conjugate addition of functionalized organnostannanes to alkylidene Meldrum’s acid. He is currently working at the Université Joseph-Fourier in Grenoble, France.

Former Undergraduate Students

Hope Fan

Richard Tran

Tyler Stevanus

Tim Lou

Chan Lau

Miles Anderson

Greg Cole

Jennifer Liu

Jon Hollinger

Tamsyn Sitler

James Nattress

Adam Seed

Lauren Mercier

Tim Rasmusson

Sylvia Hogg

Neil Malhotra

Bryan Kuropatwa

Dale Adebayo

Andrew Martins

Dwayne Dias

Cristina Quinn

Kristin Kirkland

Kim Worsley

Navjot Chahal

Alena Rudolph