The People of the
Arduengo Group (aka "THE A-TEAM")
As is always the case, it's the individuals
who make up a research group who determine its "personality", dynamics,
and
success. The Arduengo Research Group is fortunate to have
benefited from wonderful members from the U.S., Germany, Romania,
Japan, India, South Korea, Iran, Taiwan, China, Sri Lanka, and other
corners of the
Globe. It is the hardwork and inventiveness of these many
individuals who have produced the success and comradery that we have
all enjoyed. The following linked photos will load with a
mouse-over function to identify the individuals.
In 2020, the Arduengo Research Group moved back to its point of origin,
the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. Dr.
Jochen Ortmeyer was instrumental in the initial phases of the
laboratory relocation while he continued to meet obligations for the
group's research for the Medicines for All Institute.
Unfortunately, some of the tumultuous events of 2020 necessitated the
return of Dr. Ortmeyer to Germany before the lab relocation was
complete.
In 2018 A. J. Arduengo retired and assumed a position of Saxon
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Alabama. Research continued in
the In the Alabama Group and focused primarily on syntheses of Active
Pharmaceutical Inermediates as part of the Medicines for All Initiative
in collaboration with research groups at VCU, MIT, JGU-Mainz, and the
University of Graz. In the Arduengo group at Alabama, the effort
was led by skilled post-doctoral associates including Dr. Sascha
Wiechmann, Dr. Bashir Hashimi, Dr. Peter Moore, and Dr. Jochen
Ortmeyer. A number of dedicated and talented undergraduate researchers
including Rishab Iyer, Katie Davis, Darcy Hinton, Paul Goss, Casey
Fulkerson, Sydney McPeak, Christopher Fantin, Oni Tunson, Brady
Bennett, Katie Holcomb, Madison Wollenzier, Nicholas Thompson, Alexa
Smitherman, Alexandrea Collins, and Casey Roach supported the M4ALL
effort. A portion of that group is depicted here.
Shortly before the Arduengo Group's departure from Alabama, we were
fortunated to be joined in the M4ALL work by Ph.D. candidate Amar
Chakraborty and Professor Tim Snowden.
In 1999 our research effort at Alabama began with Dr.
Alexander Jockish as the first member to join our Tuscaloosa
group. Soon the group expanded with the first Alabama
undergraduate and graduate students and the addition of a Feodor-Lynen
Fellow, Dr. Thomas Bannenberg ("Banny"). That group is pictured
in this photo during "a
day at the ranch" from
July of 2002 (the model of the carbene is a real 1:1010
scale model built by Banny and AJA).
The group later expanded to included a number of outstanding Adjunct
members of the group, including: Dr. Owen W. Webster (retired DuPont),
Professor Masaaki Yoshifuji (retired Tohoku
University, Sendai),
Professor Rainer Streubel (Bonn), Professor Mathias Tamm
(Braunschweig), and Professor Heinrich Lang (Chemnitz). These
distinguished scientists have contributed mightily to the group over
the years. This
photo from 2006 shows Masaaki Yoshifuji and Owen Webster along with
the changing faces in the
group.
Personnel exchanges also offer diversity to the group. The
research group enjoys personnel exchanges with laboratories in Japan
(Hiroshima) and Germany (Bonn, Braunschweig, Chemnitz and Köln).
This photo from
Spring 2009 shows Sven Arenz and Christiane Knappke
(both from research groups in Cologne) enjoying a relaxing Spring day
in Alabama with Crimson Tide baseball.
In 2010 a portion of the group had an opportunity to travel to Hoover,
Alabama for the SEC Baseball Tournament. In the first game,
Alabama (#7 seed) handily dispatched Auburn (#2 seed) 7-1. On
this occasion we were fortunate to be joined by Professor Rainer
Streubel from Bonn, Germany. This picture shows the group over the Alabama dugout, just as Jimmy Nelson (the winning pitcher for Alabama) walks by in the background. Here the group is visible in their seats behind homeplate among a few frustrated Auburn fans.
During the Summer of 2010 we were joined again by
talented visitors from Germany. Lili Duan (Bonn), Maximilian Ruppert
(Landau), and Frederic Condin (Schwäbisch Gmünd) were present as
visiting scholars funded by DAAD and DFG. Maren Bode (Bonn)
joined the group as a post-doctoral associate funded by Lightwave
Logic, Inc. Over the Summer months it's difficult get get everyone
together at the same time, but these pictures show lunch (a former group member, Daniela Tapu was also present on this occasion) and dinner outings with the group. In early September, the group was able to make an excursion to Barber Motorsports Park and Museum for a day of SCCA regionals. Here's a picture of some of the group checking out the Porsches that are used at the Porsche Sport Driving School at Barber. Joey appears to have lost the key to his Porsche.
A few pictures were taken of the UA work force tackling non-linear
optical materials research in collaboration with Lightwave Logic,
Inc. This photo shows (left to right) Steven Kelley, Jason
Runyon, Maren Bode and Andreea Cojocaru working on an X-ray
structure. Here Joey Nelson and Andreea are working on materials synthesis. Alabama baseball remains a popular group diversion on
weekends. In this Spring 2012 picture, Matthias Mayer is pictured at "The Joe"
with
the new group members Alex Hildebrandt and Andrij Dreger. With
the departure of Matthias Mayer in early Spring, the collaboration with
Lightwave Logic ended and the group's applied research turned
exclusively to UA's solar photovoltaics program. NneAmaka
Enweani and Cameron Miller joined this effort tailoring application specific dyes and designing novel photovoltaic cells.
In the Summer of 2012 two DAAD supported scholars, Armin Auch and
Christoph Schinnen joined the group. By the end of August 2012 it
was time to say "goodbye" to Alex Hildebrandt and Yosuke Uchiyama. The group gathered at Cracker Barrel as these two group members departed. In December, it was time to bid farewell to Andrij Dreger
who had spent a year with the group developing some truly exceptional
nonlinear optical dyes and chromophores for solar photovolatics.
Over the years at Alabama members of the Arduengo Research group have
had an opportunity to meet many distinguished scientist who visited to
present the Chemistry Department's lectureship in Physical Organic Chemistry and Main Group Element Chemistry. Here the group is pictured with Robert Moss in March 2012. This photo depicts the group with Robert Grubbs in April 2013.
For many years before the Arduengo Group took up residence at Alabama,
the group was active in the industrial setting at DuPont's
Experimental Station and Central
Research & Development Department.
From 1984 through 1997 the Arduengo group was active in the areas of
small molecule chemistry (unusual valency) and polymer science.
Throughout this time an excellent cast of scientists and technicians
contributed to the activities of the group. Dick Harlow, Joe
Calabrese, Will Marshall, and Fred Davidson were scientists within the
corporate analytical service whose input, support, and guidance enabled
much of the work published during the 'DuPont period' and much more
work which has yet to be published. Dave Dixon became a regular
collaborator with the Arduengo group beginning in 1984 and those rich
and insightful interactions continue to this day. Beyond the many
excellent staff scientists at CR&D were outstanding technicians and
assistants who not only contributed to the research effort, but in fact
conducted many of the complex experiments and oversaw most aspects of
the laboratory infra-structure. This latter group of coworkers
included Mike Kline, Usha Sharma, and Hugh Craig. Many other
DuPont employees were available for stimulating discussions of science
and technology and these discussions spawned many of the thought
processes that would later evolve into full-fledged research
projects. Howard Simmons, Jr., George
Parshall, Ed Wasserman,
Bruce Smart, Tada Fukunaga, Harris Hartzler, Owen
Webster, Al Anderson,
Mike Ward, Fred Tebbe, Bill Nugent, Chad Tolman, Steve
Ittel, T.V. Rajanbabu, Howard Simmons, III, Andy
Feiring, Carl Krespan, Joel Miller, Tom Baker, Dave Thorn, Bill Farnham, Dave Eaton, and many
other top notch scientists contributed to the group in
this 'sounding board' role. The group was also populated by a string of
exceptional post-doctoral associates, Visiting Research Scientists, and
visiting faculty. These scientists, who are listed in the Visiting
Research Scientists
section of these pages, were responsible for bringing a great
scientific diversity to the group's efforts and their results,
intuition, and skill strongly influence the scientific direction and
productivity of the group. Unfortunately, as is common in an
industrial environment, concerns for security and protection of
proprietary corporate information were the basis for a ban of cameras
on the Experimental Station property. Hence, not many pictures
exist of the marvelous collection of colleagues who were either
directly part of the Arduengo group or influenced the direction of the
group. On returning to DuPont's CR&D after seven years in academics
at The University of Illinois, the Arduengo group (consisting of Dr.
Constanine {Connie} Stewart,
Hugh Craig, Mike Kline, and AJA) took up residence within a collection
of scientists in the Chemical Sciences section led by Tada Fukunaga and
Bruce Smart. One other member of the Arduengo group, Charles (Chip) Palmer remained at Illinois
and later moved to Vanderbilt with J.C. Martin to finish his Ph.D.
dissertation research begun in AJA's Illinois Group. Chip would
later become a DuPonter himself after graduation. The
Fukunaga-Smart group in CR&D had evolved from a highly exploratory
collection of chemists that had once been a part of special basic
research group reporting to Howard (Howie) Simmons, Jr. and led in the
middle seventies by Owen Webster before he moved into the Polymer
Science area. The "exploratory group" was extremely diverse and
dynamic and offered a most demanding and stimulating environment
for a scientist; super colleagues, cutting edge science, and equipment
and experimental support second to none. There were a number of
traditions at DuPont around year's end. One of these was an annual
"Christmas Lunch" that took place at Pala's (home of the World's Worst Pizza) on the
last consulting trip made by Jack
Roberts
to DuPont every year. The Pala's lunch was attended
by an 'old guard' who, in part, were the architects, contributors, and
benefactors of
the 'Halcyon Days' of DuPont's CR&D. Occassionally, a promising
young apprentice would be invited to participate. Unfortunately,
quite a few members of that lunch group have passed away and the
"younger" members (themselves a bit long in tooth now) have scattered
to the winds. Contrary to Pala's World's Worst Pizza sign, the lunches
were actually quite good. Most attendees did have their habitual
choices; Jack's meatball sub and AJA's Philly cheese steak still come
to mind. The research groups at DuPont generally shared a lunch
together off-site during the year-end holidays. The picture here
shows
a Thanksgiving lunch for the Fukunaga-Smart group in 1987. In the early nineties, the Arduengo group
moved from the Chemical Science section of CR&D to Polymer Sciences
and so began the final years for the group at DuPont. It was during this time in Polymer
Sciences that AJA took a year's leave of the Company to take up
research, study, and teaching in Germany (vide infra). Two of the last
members of the Arduengo group at DuPont, Roland Krafczyk and Markus Unverzagt,
are captured in this 1997 photo in front of the Experimental Station's
main gate.
In 1996 the award of a senior
Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize
opened opportunities for new experiences, colleagues, and friendships.
The first big task - LEARN GERMAN! For an individual who had
studied the German language in college only to discover that he had no
knack for foreign languages, this was not an easy task, but thanks to
the skill and persistence of Frau Hannelore Knaak a proficiency was developed
that served as an excellent basis for all the interactions and
experiences in Germany. In Braunschweig
at the Technische
Universität Carolo-Wilhemina zu Braunschweig, Professor Reinhard Schmutzler of the Institute
for Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry
was a most gracious, and helpful host. Additionally,
Professors Wolf-Walther du Mont and Henning Hopf kindly
offered their guidance and advice on all things cultural and chemical
in Germany. This
photo shows Reinhard Schmutzler and AJA
in a newly setup lab that would be the site of much exciting
chemistry. Roland Krafczyk was the graduate student who
joined Reinhard Schmutzler and AJA in this international research
effort. Here Roland is
shown in his laboratory in Braunschweig, but later his work would
continue at DuPont's Experimental Station (vide supra).
Prior to the DuPont residency of the group, the University of Illinois
in Champaign-Urbana served as "home" and "birthplace." The
Illinois years ran from 1977 through 1984. These years began with
a transition from a sojourn in industry (originally intended as an
industrial post-doctoral experience) to the hallowed halls of
academe. The initial group members were Steve Harper at the
graduate level, Greg Ames as the first undergraduate researcher and Dr.
K. Srinvasachar as a post-doctoral associate.
The inception of research programs was coupled with laboratory setup
and the first group members undertook a range of tasks including
construction, outfitting, research, and, of course, study. The
dedication and hard work of the group founders allowed a refocus and
refining of initial research concepts to programs that eventually led
to the identification of very fruitful fields of research that have
continued to evolve through the subsequent years. As time
progressed at Illinois, the group grew in size with the addition of
researchers at the graduate and undergraduate level who, with their own
exceptional skills and self-confidence, were willing to take a
chance on a young faculty member. This was a wonderful set of
first apprentices and co-workers, who quickly developed into fine
scientists and professionals. The members of the Illinois group
are presented in the Theses, Undergraduate
Researchers, and Visiting Research Scientists
sections of these pages. In 1979 Tada Fukunaga took a sabbatical
from DuPont to spend time at the University of Illinois (this visit
coincided with J.C. Martin's sabbatical in Germany as a Humboldt
Preisträger). The Arduengo Group was thus able to benefit from
Tada's advice and counsel. Bashir Hashemi was the second graduate
student to join our Illinois group and a photo from 1979 captures Bashir and Tada outside Roger Adams Lab. The years at Illinois not only enjoyed
the comradery and friendship of the Arduengo group members, but the
Illinois faculty were excellent and enjoyable colleagues.
Interactions with Professor J.C. Martin were particularly dynamic and
productive.
Regrettably, many pictures of the Arduengo Group during the Illinois years
have been lost in the course of frequent relocations. A surviving picture of AJA
teaching an organic chemistry class in 1979 recalls this assistant professor's
early independent academic career, but regrettably does not include the
important depictions of students and co-workers.
Before the beginnings of the Arduengo Group at Illinois there had been
a short internship at DuPont's CR&D Department in Wilmington,
Delaware. Initially, this appointment was to have been an
industrial postdoctoral period for AJA. However, on arrival in
Wilmington the offer of a position had evolved a bit. The
Visiting Research Scientist program had been suspended temporarily
(something that would happen off and on at DuPont through subsequent
years as well). This freshly minted Ph.D. was informed that
he could accept compensation for the trouble of his trip to Wilmington
and return home (whatever 'home' means in such a circumstance - having
closed a chapter on one portion of one's life and moved on to the
next); or, alternatively, the offer of a position with DuPont would
be for that of a regular exempt staff scientist. After some
discussion and clear agreement by both parties that the employment with
DuPont did not necessarily carry a life-long commitment. The
possibility remained that the position could still be temporary pending the
results of applications for faculty positions. This latter
employment offer seemed generous and carried with it a bit of job
security that was actually quite attractive. All-in-all this was
a very fortunate turn of events. The first position as an exempt
scientist with DuPont was in Howie Simmons' Exploratory Group (with
Owen Webster as group leader/supervisor at that time). Only later
would it be fully clear what a great opportunity this was. The
first laboratory environment was in a two-person laboratory with a
labmate named Tadamichi Fukunaga (Tada). The entire experience
with DuPont's CRD was fantastic - mind and experience broadening beyond
belief. These first industrial experiences not only served to open wide
new frontiers in chemistry for AJA, but also served as a terrific
platform to observe and understand the complex fit of chemistry and
society. These experiences would serve one well in an academic
position. Actually, one might argue that such an experience be a
prerequsite for any university teaching position in the sciences.
Tada was an exceptional first labmate and eased the transition from
academe into industry. Tada knew the industry, but was also an
intellectually well-heeled pie-in-the-sky thinker. For the first
several months in the lab together, Tada would occasionally comment to
AJA, "I'm old enough to be your father." However, Tada's young
looks belied his age and the statement never seemed to be one that
should be taken seriously. During one afternoon's discussion, the
question was finally posed "How old are you really?" The answer
to that question drew the comment, "You're actually older than my
father." With that the matter was never discussed again - it was of no
importance anyway. One of Tada's favorite diversions at that time
was his simple Hückel calculations on an allotrope of carbon shaped
like a soccer ball - C60
- who knew! Many other world-class scientists graced the
halls of 328 building. These scientists were not only among
the staff members, but also among the many renowned consultants who
were an integral part of the DuPont scientific community. Many of
these scientists would surface and resurface in later portions of this
chemist's career. Jack Roberts, Carl (Speed) Marvel, Andy
Strietweiser, Doug Applequist, Roald Hoffmann, and others too numerous
to mention served as conduits to the world outside the Experimental
Station. Another memory of those early years in CR&D was the
general open-door policy among scientists and management. Howie
Simmons' office was on the fourth floor of 328 building. The vice
President's office had two doors; one opening directly onto the hallway
and the other into his secretary's office (the latter entrance to be
used by those following the proper corporate etiquette). The fouth
floor was primarily administrative and, for a staff chemist,
"legitimate" reasons to ascend to the fourth floor were rare.
Nonetheless, Howie was a thought-provoking dialog partner and more than
willing (in fact eager) to discuss any new and interesting
result. One had only to walk by Howie's office, catch Howie's
glance and then accept his invitation to stop in for a chat. Most
times this would happen to the shagrin of Howie's secretary who had to
work very hard to keep Howie from being distracted from his
administrative and broader corporate responsibilites. For a
simple 'Southern Boy' the experience at DuPont's CR&D in those days
was definitely a dive into the deep end of the intellectual pool; the
waters were refereshing, the colleagues helpful and friendly, and the
overall experience an enlightenment that is hard to describe.