People: Headliner

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

People: Personnel

Postdoctoral Researchers

Dr. Ameya Burde

Ameya (he/him/his) was born in Mumbai, India and grew up in the nearby city of Pune. He got his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Pune, during which time he worked under the supervision of Dr. Arun Natu on the isolation of natural product of medicinal importance. Following his Masters’ he travelled across the Pacific to pursue his Ph.D. at the University at Buffalo, where he worked in the lab of Prof. Sherry Chemler. During his time at the Chemler lab, his research mainly focused on the enantioselective construction of oxygen heterocycles using copper catalysis. After graduating from UB in June 2022, Ameya joined the Stepehenson lab in August 2022 where his research currently focused on strain driven homolysis using photoredox catalysis. Outside of lab, Ameya enjoys trekking, playing badminton, watching cricket and solving complicated sudoku puzzles. He is also into Indian classical music and has been learning to play the Tabla (Indian classical drum) for the past few years.

Email: aburde "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

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. 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

People: Lab Members

Graduate Students

Cheng Yang

6th year
Rackham Predoctoral Fellow

Cheng was born and grew up in Tianjin, China. As an undergraduate at Nankai University, he worked in the area of green chemistry. Upon completion of his internship at the University of Michigan, he obtained a B.S. in Chemistry. Cheng joined the Stephenson group for his graduate studies in 2018, working on electrochemistry and lignin depolymerization. Outside of lab, Cheng likes reading and playing the guitar.

Email: yacheng "at" umich.edu

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

Bec Roldan

5th year
CAS Future Leader

Bec Roldan is from the metropolis of Saint Francisville, Louisiana. They obtained a B.S. in Chemistry from Rhodes College, the quaint liberal arts school nestled in the heart of Memphis, Tennessee, where they worked under Dr. Larryn Peterson on the synthesis of potential inhibitors of LpxC with applications in antibacterials. They made the big move up to the Midwest to attend the University of Michigan where they joined the Stephenson group in Spring 2020. They're currently working on the synthesis of resveratrol natural products. In their free time they enjoy vegan baking, being the worst dancer in their salsa dance class, and co-hosting a podcast about chemistry and queerness.

Email: roldanr "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

Neha Deshpande

Rotation student

Neha's bio is coming soon!

Email: nehadesh "at" umich.edu

Andrey Firsov

Rotation student

Andrey's bio is coming soon!

Email: afirsov "at" umich.edu

Elizaveta Karchuganova

Rotation student

Elizaveta is originally from Russia and she has completed both her bachelors and masters studies with a major in Chemistry at the Saint Petersburg State University. She worked under the supervision of Dr. Olga Bakulina in the ex Krasavin group (Now the Laboratory of Small Bioactive molecules synthesis). Her work was aimed at obtaining novel scaffolds of polyfunctionalized lactams via the Castagnoli-Cushman reaction. These substances are especially interesting in terms of their medicinal chemistry application as potential human carbonic anhydrase inhibitors. She has joined team Smiles for her rotation project under the mentorship of Dr. Sergio Gonzalez Granda. In her free time she enjoys hiking, watching movies and documentaries and travelling.

Email: elizavet "at" umich.edu