Professor Corey Stephenson
Principal Investigator
Corey was born in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo in 1998. He completed graduate studies under the direction of Professor Peter Wipf at the University of Pittsburgh before joining the lab of Professor Erick M. Carreira at ETH Zürich. In September 2007, he joined the Department of Chemistry at Boston University as an Assistant Professor and was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor in February, 2013. In July 2013, he joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Michigan as Associate Professor of Chemistry. In September 2015, Corey was promoted to full Professor.
Email: crjsteph "at" umich.edu
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Olaya Bernardo Gonzalez
Olaya (she/hers/her) was born in Cangas del Narcea, Spain. She earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Oviedo. In 2019, she joined the Selective Organic Synthesis group to pursue her Ph.D., working in the lab of Prof. Luis Ángel López. Her research was focused on the development of new gold-catalyzed transformations involving metal carbene intermediates and unsaturated silanes. After graduating in November 2022, Olaya joined the Montgomery lab in January 2023 as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Michigan where she was working on the development of new nickel-catalyzed processes for derivatizing simple functional groups and/or unactivated C-H bonds. After that, Olaya joined the Stephenson lab in May 2024. Outside of the chemistry lab, Olaya enjoys reading, hiking, skiing and traveling.
Email: olayabg "at" umich.edu
Dr. Subrata Ghosh
Subrata was born and grew up in West Bengal, India. After finishing his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Chemistry in India he travelled to United States to pursue his Ph.D. at the Texas A&M University at College Station, where he worked in the lab of Prof. John A. Gladysz. His work at the Gladysz lab mainly focused on the development of new Classes of enantioselective hydrogen bond donor catalysts for
organic synthesis based on Werner complexes. Beside that, he worked on fluorous chemistry also. After graduating from Texas A&M University, he joined the group of Dr. Robert Comito as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Houston where his work focused on the development of methodologies for the synthesis of amines from simple unactivated precursors. After that, Subrata joined the Stephenson/Szymczak labs as a postdoctoral research fellow in January 2023 and is now working on
development of methodologies for biomass upgrading.
Email: skghosh "at" umich.edu
Dr. Sergio González-Granda
Sergio (he/him/his) was born in Gijón, Spain. He earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Oviedo. In 2018, he joined the Bioorganic research group to pursue his Ph.D., working in the lab of Prof. Vicente Gotor and Prof. Iván Lavandera. His research primarily focused on designing novel enantioselective cascade reactions using enzymes and gold(I) catalysts. After graduating in December 2022, Sergio joined the Stephenson lab in January 2023, where his research currently focuses on photoredox catalysis, and novel radical rearrangements (Team Smiles). Outside of the chemistry lab, Sergio enjoys hiking, traveling, playing football (aka soccer to Americans), basketball, and cooking dishes from around the world.
Email: sggranda "at" umich.edu
Dr. Elene Tatunashvili
Elene was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. She obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Tbilisi State University in physical chemistry. After her Master’s, she decided to pursue her career in organic chemistry; in 2018, she moved to Australia to undertake her Ph.D. at the University of Sydney. During this time, she worked in the McErlean group on reaction development in radical chemistry and applications in the synthesis of heterocycles and unnatural peptides. In 2022 she joined the Stephenson lab as a postdoc to work on synthesis of amino norbornanes via new catalytic methods. Outside the chemistry lab Elene enjoys cooking, hiking, dancing, and boxing.
Email: elenet "at" umich.edu
Graduate Students
Alex Harmata
5th year
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Alex was born and raised in Columbia, Missouri. He stuck around in Columbia for college, earning a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Missouri in May 2019 with minors in mathematics and computer science. As an undergraduate at Mizzou, Alex worked on a hodge podge of projects with Prof. Michael Harmata, including hydrogen bond donor catalysis and electrocyclizations. In the summer of 2018, Alex was a Snyder Scholar at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he worked with Prof. David Sarlah on diterpenoid chemistry. Alex joined the Stephenson group in January 2020 as a “brotator” and currently works in the aniline bioisosterism area as a member of “Team Aminonorbornane”. Outside of lab, Alex enjoys power-walking, being a troll, and competing as a member of the University of Michigan quiz bowl team.
Email: harmataa "at" umich.edu
Alan Wortman
5th year
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Alan was born and raised in College Station, Texas. After graduating high school, he attended his local university, Texas A&M, where he studied oxidase catalysis via hypervalent iodine intermediates under Prof. David C. Powers. During his time at Texas A&M, he also traveled to Germany where he briefly worked in the lab of Prof. Tobias Ritter. After completing a B.S. in chemistry in the spring of 2019, he left Texas to continue pursuing his education in Michigan. In the spring of 2020, he joined the Stephenson lab where he is currently investigating the use of electron donor-acceptor complexes for generating reactive intermediates. Outside of the lab Alan enjoys fly fishing, skiing, and is an avid fan of college football.
Email: wortman "at" umich.edu
Travis Hammerstad
3rd year
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Travis (he/him/his) grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin before attending the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Being naturally indecisive, Travis collected majors in chemistry and chemical engineering along with minors in biology and leadership. His undergraduate research in the Aldrich lab included antibiotic synthesis and silane mediated amide reductions. Working to complete his tour of the Midwest, Travis was eager to pursue his graduate studies at the University of Michigan. Outside of lab Travis enjoys cooking, chess, and essentially any other form of competition.
Email: thammers "at" umich.edu
Mark Glossbrenner
2nd year
Mark was born and raised in Bakersfield, California. He later moved to San Diego to work on photoredox catalysis with Professor Erik Romero at UCSD where he developed various methods of C-H activation. He later earned his B.S. in chemistry from UCSD and pursued the much milder midwestern weather at the University of Michigan. He enjoyed putting color into chemistry so much he decided to further pursue photochemistry in his graduate research and joined the Stephenson lab in Spring 2023. Mark is currently working on exploring the reactivity of various substrates under photocatalytic conditions. In his free time Mark enjoys cooking, swimming, fishing, golfing, playing with his dogs, and most any other outdoor activity.
Email: mglossbr "at" umich.edu
Ryan Snyder
1st year (Joint student with Bob Kennedy)
Ryan grew up in Livonia, Michigan before moving to Detroit to attend Wayne State University. There he worked on N-acyl urea activation strategies for solid-phase peptide synthesis with Prof. Jennifer L. Stockdill. He later earned his B.S. in Chemistry from WSU and moved to Ann Arbor to start his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. He joins #TeamResveratrol as a rotating student in the Stephenson group, where he will focus on the total synthesis of challenging resveratrol oligomers. In his free time, Ryan enjoys exploring Detroit, listening to and playing music, and getting lost in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Email: rysnyder "at" umich.edu
Undergraduate Students
Cole Balintfy
Chemistry '26