The Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry welcomes Professor Abigail Doyle, who joins the department as the Saul Winstein Chair of Organic Chemistry.
Prof. Doyle joined the department as a Full Professor effective July 1, 2021. Her office and laboratory are located in the Molecular Sciences Building.
Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Prof. Doyle received her A.B. and A.M. summa cum laude in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University in 2002. As an undergraduate, she investigated iron-catalyzed epoxidations of alkenes in collaboration with Dr. Christina White. She began her graduate studies at Stanford University working with Professor Justin Du Bois. In 2003, she transferred to Harvard University and joined the laboratory of Professor Eric Jacobsen. Her graduate research included the discovery of a transition metal-catalyzed enantioselective alkylation of tributyltin enolates with alkyl halides and the development of a thiourea catalyst for enantioselective nucleophilic additions to prochiral oxocarbenium ions. Prof. Doyle began as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University in July 2008. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013 and was the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Chemistry prior to coming to UCLA.
Prof. Doyle’s awards and honors include American Chemical Society Fellow (2020), RSC Fluorine Award (2019), 15th Hirata Prize (2019), BMS Unrestricted Grant in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2016), Phi Lambda Upsilon National Fresenius Award (2014), Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2014), Novartis Chemistry Lectureship (2014/2015), Bayer Excellence in Science Award (2013), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2013), Camille-Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award (2013), Amgen Young Investigator Award (2012), Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (2012) and NSF CAREER Award (2012-2017).
We also welcome to UCLA Prof. Doyle’s nine lab members who have joined her from Princeton. They are postdoctoral scholars Dr. Makeda Tekle-Smith and Dr. Garrison Kinney; fifth year graduate students Stavros Kariofillis, Sam Newman-Stonebraker, Will Lau, and Stephen Ting; third year graduate students Wendy Williams and Shivaani Gandhi, and second year graduate student Jason Wang.
Doyle lab members – (top row from left) Postdoctoral fellows Dr. Makeda Tekle-Smith and Dr. Garrison Kinney, graduate students Stavros Kariofillis, Sam Newman-Stonebraker, Will Lau, (bottom row from left) Stephen Ting, Wendy Williams, Shivaani Gandhi, and Jason Wang.
The Doyle lab conducts research at the interface of organic, organometallic, physical organic, and computational chemistry. Their goal is to address unsolved problems in organic synthesis through the development of catalysts, catalytic reactions, and synthetic methods. They apply mechanistic and computer-assisted techniques to the analysis of these reactions in order to uncover general principles that can guide the design of improved catalysts and the discovery of new reactions. Particular areas of interest include Ni-catalyzed cross coupling, nucleophilic fluorination and radiofluorination, photocatalysis, and machine learning for chemical synthesis. To learn more, visit Prof. Doyle’s website.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.