Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry - Organometallic Chemistry

SUNY Stony Brook University

The Department of Chemistry, within the College of Arts and Sciences, offers courses of study leading to the degrees of Master of Arts in Teaching Chemistry, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy. Students in the M.A.T. program must register through the School of Professional Development. A student in the Ph.D. program may choose dissertation research in any one of the diverse areas of chemistry represented by the interests of the program faculty, or may choose an interdisciplinary topic under the guidance of a faculty member in another program. Coordinated activities exist with several programs, and include optional concentrations in chemical physics and chemical biology. Organometallic chemistry is an interdisciplinary field bringing together many aspects of inorganic and organic chemistry. A wide range of organometallic systems are under study using a variety of synthetic, structural, mechanistic, and theoretical techniques. Synthetic and structural research is focused on such problems as the chemistry of unsaturated metal-carbon bonds in metal carbene and carbyne complexes, the stabilization of highly reactive organic moieties through metal complexation, the chemistry of transition metal carbonyl cluster compounds, and the development of useful synthetic reagents. Homogeneous catalysis studies include investigations of the carbonylations of fluoroolefins, small-ring heterocycles, alkenylamides, and similar molecules, and catalytic applications of compounds with unsaturated metal-carbon bonds. Theoretical work includes ab initio and qualitative molecular orbital studies of organometallic compounds and of the chemisorption of organic molecules onto metal surfaces and molecular mechanics minimizations of ligand geometries.