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June 2025
Graduate student Kevin Blanco-Herrero attended the 49th National Organic Chemistry Symposium in Troy, NY. He presented a poster “Silanols – From Ligand Design in Enantioselective Catalysis to Blue Light Reactions“. Great job Kevin on the poster presentation and for representing Franz Lab research!
Graduate student Hannah McFadden attended the 2025 Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry Conference in Chicago, IL. She presented a poster “Progress Towards Using Organosilanol Ligands for Catalysis with Earth Abundant and Transition Metals“, and had a great time making new connections, networking and learning!
Our amazing undergraduate student Wendy Tran graduated this month with a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Davis. Wendy is headed to graduate school this Fall at UC Irvine. Congrats on this accomplishment Wendy!
This month graduate student Adilene Bernal-Sánchez obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Davis. Huge congrats to Ady for this accomplishment, and we wish you all the best in your new role as Visiting Assistant Professor.
Undergraduate student Afnaan Waqas was selected as a summer fellow at the Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics at UC Davis. Afnaan will spend half his time this summer working in the Franz Lab and half his time working with the IPN. Congrats Afnaan, what an amazing opportunity!
May 2025
Graduate student James Vesto attended the 54th North American Silicon Symposium in Ontario, Canada. He presented an awesome poster and gave a talk, “Design of Silanol-Containing Transition Metal-Chelating Ligands for Asymmetric Catalysis”. James had a great time at the symposium, and was glad to connect with awesome silicon chemists, like Michael A. Brook.
Congrats to undergraduate student Wendy Tran for her exceptional talk at the 2025 Richard Larock Conference.
April 2025
This month Franz group members Leah Patterson, Kevin Blanco-Herrero, Afnaan Waqas, and Wendy Tran attended the Chemical Biology in the Bay Area Day hosted by UC Berkeley. Graduate student Leah Patterson gave an amazing talk “Structurally Diverse Silyl Lipids to Modulate Lipid Nanoparticle Properties”.
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Amazing news alert! Graduate student Adilene Bernal Sánchez has accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Pomona College. Ady is finishing up her Ph.D. dissertation and will starting a new chapter as a Professor this Fall. We are all so excited and proud of Ady for this amazing accomplishment and wish her the best!
March 2025
Congratulations to Tigré Pressley for his awesome departmental seminar, “Synthesis & Development of Silyl-lipid CBD Analogues”. Tigré’s family was also able to attend and it was lovely to see them!
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February 2025
Congratulations to James Vesto for giving a wonderful departmental seminar on “Design and Convergent Synthesis of Amino Amide Silanol Ligands for Asymmetric N-H Insertion Catalysis”.
The highlight of this month was the 25th Anniversary of the R. Bryan Miller Symposium at the University of California Davis, in which many notable speakers, including two Nobel Laureates, Dr. Jennifer Doudna and Dr. Frances Arnold gave amazing and inspirational talks. Many Franz group members attended and presented posters and gave one-minute “flash talks”. Pictured left to right: undergraduate Wendy Tran, Leah Patterson, Ady Bernal Sánchez, Kevin Blanco-Herrero, and undergraduate Afnaan Waqas.
Several Franz group members won awards for their posters. Congratulations to Ady Bernal Sánchez for winning the ACS Sacramento Poster Award for graduate students, and Wendy Tran for winning the ACS Sacramento Poster Award for undergraduate students. Congratulations to Leah Patterson for winning the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Biology Poster Award.
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January 2025
Happy New Year! This month we officially said goodbye to Dr. Jacob Dalton, who is starting his postdoc at UTSA soon, and we had our annual meeting to discuss visions, goal setting and dreams for 2025.
Kevin Blanco-Herrero and Afnaan Waqas spent some time running deuterium experiments on the 800 MHz instrument (left).
December 2024
Huge congratulations to Dr. Jacob Dalton for securing a post-doctoral position at The University of Texas at San Antonio working with Dr. Chris Sanford. We are all so excited for this next chapter for Jacob!
August 2024
Congrats to Dr. Yun-Pu Chang for completing her Ph.D. dissertation! We are so proud of you and excited for what is next for you! Dr. Chang will be starting her post-doc this fall at Moffitt Cancer Center with Dr. Justin Lopchuck in Tampa, Florida.
Dr. Yun-Pu Chang strikes the gong to signal the completion of her Ph.D.!
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The Franz group is immensely proud of Yun-Pu! We wish her all the best in her future scientific undertakings!
June 2024
This month, Leah got married! Congratulations to Leah and Max Patterson, we are so happy for you! Several Franz lab students were able to attend on this special day and support Leah.
We celebrated the accomplishments of several Franz lab members over the past academic year and welcomed in summer 2024 undergraduate scholars Remy and Olivia, with a group outing to Mamma, a tasty restaurant in Davis!
Congrats to Cole Dickson (left) for graduating from UC Davis with a B.S. in Chemistry! We are so proud of you!
We are excited for undergraduate researcher Cole Dickson (2nd from left) for receiving the Roche Medicinal Chemistry Research Award and Undergraduate Department Honors at this year’s UC Davis Department of Chemistry Awards Ceremony!
Congratulations are due for Linnea Dolph (center) who walked the stage this year at the UC Davis 2024 commencement ceremony! Yay Linnea!
We celebrated a host of accomplishments of our graduate and undergraduate lab members (advancement to candidacy, department and awards, etc) with a stop to Cultive frozen yogurt! It was nice to beat the California heat with some delicious frozen treats.
Congrats to graduate student Hannah McFadden for passing her qualifying exam and advancing to Ph.D. Candidacy!
May 2024
Congratulations to graduate student Tigre Pressley for passing his qualifying exam and advancing to Ph.D. Candidacy!
Franz lab undergraduates Wendy Tran (left) and Cole Dickson (right) did an amazing job giving research talks at the 2024 Richard LaRock Conference!
April 2024
Congrats to Franz lab undergraduate Wendy Tran for her awesome presentation at the UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference!
Thank you to Franz lab alum, Dr. Taewoo Min, for stopping by the lab to visit and meet the current Franz lab graduate students!
Welcomed to the lab Noah Brodsky! We are so excited to have you join the lab!
February 2024
Congrats Leah on an awesome 3rd year seminar! It is always exciting to share our chemistry with the rest of the department!
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