Deeply honored to have been selected as a 2026 Sloan Research Fellow! The tenacity and talent of my research group members, current and former, make this dream a reality. 😄 Thanks so much to my nominator and letter writers for your steadfast support! #SloanFellow

Yesterday I had the honor to give an invited research seminar at Yale University - thanks to Nilay Hazari for hosting me! A huge highlight was spending time with THE Bob Crabtree after the seminar - a really kind, witty, yet towering figure in the organometallic chemistry community. 🧪☺️🥼

A warm welcome to the two newest PhD students in the Prokopchuk group, Zhenhong and Chiranjit! 👋🏻 Young Padawans ready to learn the ways of the Schlenk and do some cool organometallic chemistry. 🧪

New online! Catalytically competent nickel(I)–isocyanide compounds for cross-coupling reactions

Congrats to Nini for passing her PhD candidacy exam! The lucky sweater pulled her through on some tricky C-H BDFE questions, and she’s now ready to devour some cake 🎂

We have developed a metal-free electrocatalyst for rapidly and selectively generating hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), a multi-ton commodity chemical. It operates through a novel H-atom transfer pathway to reduce O2. Read now on ChemRxiv! doi.org/10.26434/che...

Great work by Sanju and Viani this week in sharing their results at Pacifichem! 🌺 While the weather this week was 💦, the science was 🔥

The Prokopchuk group is representin’ at Pacifichem !! 🌺☀️ Check out Sanju’s talk this afternoon in the main group symposium, and Viani will present a poster on her Mn redox mediator chemistry on Friday evening. (Yours truly has 2 talks on Friday 🙂)

Nucleophilic #Bismuth: diarylbismuth-anions grant access to bismuth-acyl compounds & visible-light-induced reversible insertion/extrusion of CO! Just out @natcomms.nature.com: link.springer.com/article/10.1.... Congrats to the team (including @felixgeist.bsky.social, @jordipoater.bsky.social)!

Nov 12 - 8:30 pm in Saskatchewan 🇨🇦🍁

Had an awesome visit to the @upenn.edu chemistry department earlier this week. Thanks so much for hosting, Dan! (and for forgiving my lack of early TM chemistry in my talk 😆) 🧪🥼

How to catalytically cyclize alkyl species onto alkynes? Just add a pinch of bismuth! Read about our findings in controlled radical reactions catalyzed by well-defined manganese- bismuth heterobimetallic complexes, just published in ACS Catalysis @pubs.acs.org: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

It has been an honour and privilege to co-write this piece in honour of Bob! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac… (Want to know how many papers Bob has in his self-curated digital reference library that he started in 1989? The answer will surprise you! Read the article to find out 😉)

Thanks so much to Eric Piechota and @natsynth.nature.com for highlighting our work!

#chemnobel #chemsky #ozchem

Isn’t it amazing that modern Macs/PCs are back compatible with “ancient” printers and scanners? My all-in-one inkjet printer/scanner/copier is almost 20 years old and still works beautifully. Totally bucks the “planned obsolescence” mantra in tech

Continuing the saga of "radioactive shrimp" from Indonesia, the FDA this week posted a summary of all recalls so far flagged for Cs-137 contamination. It includes not only frozen shrimp but cocktail shrimp and shrimp skewers. 1/2

One of my students needs to make a Ni(II) starting material, and if you aren’t aware, Luigi Venanzi has this awesome paper from 1958: dx.doi.org/10.1039/JR95...

Thanks so much to @bribarbu.bsky.social and @cenmag.bsky.social for highlighting our recent work! 😊 @tkschramm.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social

Why is Pd often "better" at C-H activation than Ni? Just published in JACS, we show that Pd acidifies C(sp3)-H bonds 100,000 times more than Ni. Our DFT collab with @tkschramm.bsky.social and Andreas Hansen @unibonn.bsky.social was crucial to explain acid-base rxns! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Seriously?

Super busy summer for PhD defenses - Lirong Lin (holding the blue bottle of bubbly!) recently defended her thesis titled "Using Diamondoid Pincer Ligands and C(sp3)-H Activation Models at Group 10 Transition Metals." All very the very best in the next stages of your career! #ProudPI 🙂

"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people

Reversible C–H Bond Activation of Unactivated Arenes by a Nickel-Silylene Complex - pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... So proud to congratulate first author Leon Gomm for his first paper in JACS. Thanks to Hui Zhu and Stefan Grimme for the ever helpful DFT calculations. @unibonn.bsky.social

Really fun project with @grimmelab.bsky.social, esp. when DFT data agrees so well with expt (most values < 1 kcal/mol!). David discovered that N-H deprotonation leads to a new dimension in PCET thermochemistry with Cpᴺ³ molecules. Congrats all and thx to collaborators for validating Fe(II)!!

Huge shout out to my brother in law Igor who just completed a monumental achievement: Ironman triathlon! He jumped straight from doing a couple triathlons a few years ago to training for the big kahuna. Was a very emotional race for him, and the fam is incredibly proud. ❤️

The most New Jersey beer I’ve ever purchased. Brewed in Brick, NJ @gabagoolmarx.bsky.social

Really proud of PhD #3, David Tresp . Not only is he a fine researcher, but he’s our de facto handyman. Glove boxes, pumps, crystallography, voltammetry, synthesis, and many more impressive talents under his belt. Congrats!!! 🥳

Does anyone else have clothes from grade school that they still wear around the house? 😄

Was a very special week, as I got to see PhD graduates #1 (Bhumika) and #2 (Ageliki) walk across the stage! #ProudPI

As seen on my lab’s message board 🌹

personally would like to see every store show what part of the price increase is due to tariffs bc if these tariffs ever come down, i need to see that price go right back down

Congratulations, Dr. Karagiannis!!! 🎉 Ageliki is PhD #2 coming out of my lab, opening the doors to some amazing Mn chemistry. We gave her the Greek goddess treatment for the photo op. 👸🏻👑🥼🧪

Looking for a place with stellar inorganic and organometallic chemistry at #ACSSpring2025 ? Come to the symposium in honor of Robert (Bob) Morris TODAY starting at 8:00 in Room 28B!

Can confirm, it’s super easy to take apart without any tools. Plus, CR2032 batteries are probably useful in some other device you have in your home!

A small contingent of my group will be at #ACSSpring2025 in San Diego! Please check out Sanju’s poster (Sun) and Lirong’s talk (Wed). I’ll be in the Bob Morris award symposium giving a talk (Tue).

Had a fun seminar visit to York University, where I was able to catch up with Prof. Chris Caputo who I haven’t seen since grad school. Thanks for the invite, Chris! 🧪🤓

Bluetorial-A dream and a bit of a nightmare Serving as Editor-in-Chief at Science was fascinating. I greatly enjoyed working with talented and committed editorial, news, graphics, and production staff. But the inside look into scientific publishing and AAAS was also deeply disillusioning.

Had a wonderful visit to Columbia university today (@columbiauniversity.bsky.social). Humbled and honored to share my research with folks in the department. Thanks so much for the invite, Ged! 🤓🧪🥼

Excited to be speaking at this year’s PIC at Ursinus college! The day long event is FREE for students, postdocs, and faculty. It’s a great event to network with other inorganic chemists and be immersed in some cool chemistry! 🥼🧪 www.linkedin.com/events/phila...

Mother Nature is joining the chat. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Stand with UKRAINE! #standWithUkraine

x.com/zelenskyyua/... Does anyone need more proof that Russia is committing terrorist acts?

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Stefan Grimme receives the 2025 Chemistry Europe Award! Learn more at https://buff.ly/3BXDVhO. #ChemistryAward #ChemistryEurope

Thanks so much to Hairong (right) for the invitation to U Cincinnati! Had really constructive research discussions with Yujie, Wei, and many others throughout the day 😄🧪

Happy to announce two funded #PhD studentships for aspiring synthetic chemists to do some f-element molecule making. (1) High oxidation states; (2) Tuneable electronic structures for qubits. See: www.capgoodwin.com/pages/positi... for details, and below for both FindAPhD links.

In this edition of #PeriodicGraphics, we take a look at the chemistry and history of ferrocene and other sandwich compounds, and their applications: cen.acs.org/physical-che... #chemsky 🧪

Christmas came early… I am overjoyed to share that I have received the NSF CAREER award!!! This is a reflection of the tireless work from current/former group members in developing super cool molecules and reactions. Onwards and upwards!! 🎄🥳🎉 new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Superbly interesting lecture on the past, present, and future developments in #DFT, #SQM, and #compchem in general by Stefan Grimme @grimmelab.bsky.social. And it's freely available on #Youtube: youtu.be/DYblj4DwFr8?...