Joseph has received the 2022 Liebig Lectureship from the Organic Division of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker). The award is given each year to an outstanding young scientist in organic chemistry, preferably one working in a European country outside Germany. Joseph will give a series of lectures in Germany in January 2023 and a virtual lecture for EurJOC to be announced in the near future. The list of previous laureates can be found here.
The research field of protometabolism, including work from our lab and quotes from Joseph and Kamila, is the subject of an article in National Geographic. Thanks to Michael Marshall for this accessible piece. Read it here.
A warm welcome to Silvana Pinna, who joins us from the group of Prof. Nick Lane at University College London, where she investigated the prebiotic chemistry of ATP. Welcome, Silvana!
A warm welcome to Weiqiang Chen, who joins us from the group of Prof. Martin Oestreich at the TU Berlin, where he developed surrogates for gaseous or toxic reagents. In our group, Weiqiang will work on both prebiotic and synthetic chemistry. Welcome, Weiqiang!
The eighth incoming class of PhD students joins the group. Valentyn, funded by the CSC Graduate School, will work on HFIP-enabled catalysis. Maciej, partially funded by the Région Grand-Est, will work on Vibrational Strong Coupling. A warm welcome to both!
Congrats to Shaofei Zhang on successfully defending his thesis! He is the ninth PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Abder Amgoune (Lyon), Prof. Tanja Gulder (Leipzig, via Zoom), and Dr. Morgan Donnard (Strasbourg) for being part of the jury, which was done partly in person and partly over Zoom. Best of luck in your return to China and in your next role!
Joseph has been selected as a Junior member of the 2021 class of the Institute Universitaire de France (IUF). Junior members must be university faculty of age 40 or less who are emerging leaders in research. They are awarded a substantial teaching reduction for five years and receive 15 k€/yr to support their research program. Only 70 junior members were selected in 2021 across all disciplines. An induction ceremony will take place at the National Academy of Science in Paris in November.
Congrats to Paul Chatelain on successfully defending his thesis! He is the eighth PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Dr. Laurence Grimaud (ENS Paris), Dr. Manuel van Gemmeren (Münster) and Prof. Patrick Pale (Strasbourg) for being part of the jury, which was done partly in person and partly over Zoom. Best of luck in your next role as senior process engineer at ASM International in Helsinki!
Congratulations to Dr. Robert Mayer, who has obtained a postdoctoral fellowship from the DFG to work on mechanistic challenges in prebiotic chemistry. Well deserved!
The group has seen lots of change in the past months, with all postdocs who joined the group prior to September 2020 departing for jobs. Dr. Robin Isnard, our analytical chemist who was with us for six months, has taken a position at Eurofins in beautiful Aix-en-Provence, France. Dr. Ankita Malik, our sugar specialist, has taken a position at Tacalyx, an exciting startup in Berlin, Germany.
Andrei Golushko, an M2 student from the CSC graduate school, has finished his internship and has moved to the lab of Prof. Nicolas Giuseppone, also in Strasbourg. Corinna Heusel, our visiting Masters student from Münster, finished her internship and has returned to Münster to carry out her Masters project with Prof. Frank Glorius. Best of luck to all and good luck in the future. You will be missed!
On the incoming side, we welcome Edouard Voegtli, who joins us for his M2 internship. He joins our two other M2 students from the CSC Graduate School, Valentyn Pozhydaiev and Maciej Piejko. Finally, we welcome Wahnyalo Kazone, who joins us as a much needed analytical technician. Welcome all!
The Moran Research Group 