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Sarah E. Reisman
Alma mater Connecticut College (BA)
Yale University (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields Chemistry
Organic Chemistry
Natural product
Institutions California Institute of Technology
Harvard University
Thesis Total synthesis of (+/-) Welwitindolinone A isonitrile (2006)
Doctoral advisor John L. Wood
Other academic advisors Eric Jacobsen

Sarah Elizabeth Reisman is a leading chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She is also the head of the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering department there. Professor Reisman has won important awards for her work in chemistry. Her research focuses on making complex natural products in the lab. She also develops new ways to create chemical reactions.

Sarah Reisman's Education

College Studies

Sarah Reisman earned her first degree in chemistry from Connecticut College in 2001. While studying there, she worked in Professor Timo V. Ovaska's lab. She helped make complex natural products called tetracyclic terpenoids. One of these was phorbol.

Graduate School

Reisman continued her studies at Yale University, where she earned her Ph.D. in 2006. She worked with Professor John L. Wood. Her research involved making a molecule called (±)-welwitindolinone A isonitrile. This work helped create new methods for building complex chemical structures.

Postdoctoral Research

After her Ph.D., Reisman became a special research fellow at Harvard University. She worked with Professor Eric N. Jacobsen. There, she helped create a new way to make certain chemical bonds. This involved using a special type of catalyst.

What Sarah Reisman Researches

Professor Reisman started her own research lab at Caltech in 2008. She became a full professor in 2014.

Her lab focuses on two main things. First, they make complex natural products. Second, they invent new chemical reactions. These two areas of research often help each other.

Her team has successfully created several natural products for the first time. These include (–)-acetylaranotin and (–)-maoecrystal Z. They also made (+)-ryanodol in only 15 steps. This was a big improvement over the previous method, which took 35 steps. In 2019, her team published a major discovery in the journal Nature. They were the first to make (+)-perseanol. Other natural products they have made include (+)-naseseazines A and B, and (+)-pleuromutilin.

Her group also works on developing new ways to make chemical reactions happen. They often use nickel in their reactions. They also study reactions that involve joining molecules together (cycloadditions). Another area is opening up molecules with strained rings.

Awards and Honors

Sarah Reisman has received many important awards for her work:

  • 2022 - Inhoffen Medal
  • 2020 - American Chemical Society Elias J. Corey Award
  • 2019 – Margaret Faul Women in Chemistry Award
  • 2018 – Lucy Pickett Lecture
  • 2015–2017 – Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator at the California Institute of Technology
  • 2015 – Science News named her one of "Ten early-career scientists on their way to critical acclaim"
  • 2014 - Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award for Organic Synthesis
  • 2013 – Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society
  • 2012 – Inaugural American Chemical Society WCC's Rising Star Award
  • 2012 – Cottrell Scholar Award
  • 2012 – Novartis Early Career Award
  • 2012 – Amgen Young Investigator Award

She also received grants and fellowships early in her career. These include the Boehringer Ingelheim New Faculty Grant and a Alfred P Sloan Foundation Fellowship. In 2011, she received a 5-year NSF CAREER Award.

See also

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