/sci/ - Science & Math

University of Calgary. They're big on the organic chemistry because of the oil sands.

Organomettalics are so funky

Florida State University has one of the stronger Organic Chemistry graduate schools in the country plus it houses the High Magnetic Field Laboratory for any organometallic work.

Other than that, there's definitely some other good places, I would suggest not just looking at schools but also research professors; the school might be strong, but if none of the work the professors do interest you, it'd be useless to go. Read some papers and consider going to the colleges of the professors that write the papers on different syntheses.

Some others to consider:

Vanderbilt University
Maryland University
Penn State University
Brown University

>>4794068
Yeah. My current strategy has been to go to university websites (arbitrarily slash ones I know that have stronger programs), read the research description, then read a paper or two. I've got a list of maybe... 14 compiled but I want as many suggestions as I can get. Essentially I'm making a big list before making a shortlist.

I should clarify: I want organometallics with respect to how they work in organic synthesis. A lot of people care about making exquisite coordination complexes, materials, binding constants, et cetera. I'm more interested in how they function in reactions.

Keep it coming

>>4794041
What do you want to do? Total synthesis? Methodology? Materials? Catalysis?

Organic is a big field. You'll need to be more specific for us to give any real advice.

There is a fat ass book, I cant remember the name, it is updated every 2 years but it contains every university in the US, all the faculty with a brief description, recent publications and recent graduates. I used it and it narrowed my list of Universities from 20 to 5. I highly recommend it. I cant remember the name for the life of me, ask one of your close professors or the graduate office if they know of the book I speak of.

>>4794099
DGR?

http://dgr.rints.com/

MIT timothy swagger, hes real big, gets a lot of money from the government making chemosensors, and other materials that the military might be interested in using. obvious choices are harvard, and caltech. my orgo teacher says that university of washington has a great program, but i dont know anything about it past that. Ive looked at the top grad school programs on
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/chemistr
y-rankings
a million times, but I think your grad school experience is really going to be more about yourself then where you pick to go. Harvard has a lab rotation program, so that you work for everyone in your first year, and pick where you like best. gl

>>4794076

Some professors to look into:

Dr. Kenneth Henderson - Notre Dame
Dr. Michael Shatruk - Florida State University
Dr. Donald Berry - University of Pennsylvania

You'd be interested to know too, that some of these professors won't consider themselves organic chemists either, so read, read, read...

You should work for E. J. Corey. I hear that he is really nice to his students and they enjoy their work.

>>4794110
>>4794110
>>4794110
>>4794110
Thats the one!

that shit helped me so much narrowing down my choice universities.

For what universities have that are readily available to you, go to a University whose chem department that has the following as STANDARD facilities ON the campus or in that chem building:

-An X-Ray Crystallography center
-Elemental Analysis
-Mass-Spec Facilities with EI, ESI, High Res, MALDI
-Numerous NMRs you can use with little to no restrictions, One 500MHz NMR you can use.
-House DI water, Nitrogen, and/or Argon pipped into the fucking lab jesus christ.

Im gonna go for a swim Ill be back to give more advice as I am a 4th year grad student at Georgia Tech

>>4794132
Also, program ranking means dick later when you go look for jobs or post-docs etc. Its all about what you do and discover. Rank just means they have better facilities, that about it I have found.

Go to where you have multiple research groups you would like to join, about 3-4.
Meet all the professors and make sure they are taking students the year you join.
Have a big interest in those research groups, that way you know its something you want to work on for ~5% of your life.
Make sure the professor has no visions of moving before you choose a school. You dont want to get nice and comfy then find out the prof is moving and you A. have to leave all your friends or B. Start the fuck over.

>>4794132
X-ray facilities are nice for some types of research, but if you don't work on materials that crystallize then they are useless. Still, they are the sign of a quality department.

High resolution Mass-Spec is elemental analysis.

When evaluating NMR facilities it is important to check the brands. Both Bruker and Varian make good stuff, but you will want to learn to use one or the other, not both. So make sure there will be enough of one brand to satisfy your needs. An active organic division of about 50 students should keep about 2 instruments booked full time and a third at about half.

I'd also recommend a good quality materials analysis lab if you are at all interested in macro/polymer/materials chemistry. TGA, DSC, DMA, SE-HPLC. SEM and TEM facilities are also nice.

>>4794121
OP here. I heard one of his students killed himself, but before he did thanked EJ Corey for his advice and kindness and insisted he wasn't the reason for the suicide. I'll check it out!

>>4794099
I noticed the book got posted later. Great call.

>>4794132
Also absolutely. No bullshit; I don't want to have to deal with doing research with shitty equipment.

>>4794155
Yeah. At the moment three is my cutoff. I may up it to four (with few exceptions) given what I find tonight.

All great advice.

As for what I want to do:
>>4794084
I am, at heart, into methods and catalysis. I think natural products is a bother unless you find a professor with money given the current financial climate. Physical organic is also interesting, but I'm afraid it's a one-way door to academia. I wish I liked materials more because that's where the money is (see: somebody citing Tim Swager as somebody to work for -- his up-until-recently colleague Dan Nocera also had money until his shit got pulled!) but it's just not compelling to me.

I'm sorry to borrow your thread, but I'm soon joining a lab w/ a PI whose research focuses on asymmetric catalysis and natural product synthesis. I'll be a senior w/ no research experience and don't remember much about undergrad ochem. What should I expect? Does it matter I don't remember anything (Should I start brushing up?) Advice?

>>4794208
I work next to a group that does organic semiconductors and dyes. Lots of synthesis, materials characterization (mostly UV/Vis and fluorometry), and physical organic to be had in that area. Plus they have easy columns to run because they can see all their spots as they flow. Most of their compounds crystallize too so columns aren't always necessary.

>>4794221
You'll be assigned to a graduate student who will be training you. Just don't break anything and clean up your messes and you'll be ahead of the curve. I'd suggest you read the last couple papers on the topic that the PI published and understand everything in them. If you can do all that then you'll be golden.

>>4794221
For asymmetric catalysis: read his past papers.
For natural products: know what your natural products are supposed to do (mostly so you can talk to people about them -- this is mostly so you sound interesting when you discuss your career) and brush up on or learn 2D NMR techniques.

>>4794228
Good to know physical organic has some use in industry beyond academic pursuits.

>>4794307
How is 2D NMR going to help with asymmetric catalysis? More importantly, how is it going to help the undergrad that won't be doing touching the instrument?

>>4794315
Note that 2D NMR is under the heading "natural product synthesis" and not under the heading "asymmetric catalysis". Also note that interpretation of the data is still something that an undergraduate should aspire to do. e.g., if an undergrad thinks he's finished a complex natural product he can look at, say, the NOESY to find some throughspace interaction or use INADEQUATE (if needed) to piece together the carbon skeleton.

>>4794325
And why would this skill be necessary in a research lab? If he isn't going to take the spectrum then he won't need to interpret it. The graduate student will be doing all the NMR because it isn't worth it to train an undergrad in the use of NMR. The don't spend enough time in the lab to justify the time spent on teaching it. It takes a lot of practice to properly acquire a spectrum.

>>4794349
...your undergraduates don't take NMR spectra?

>>4794358
nope. They lose a whole day to training and spend the next three months showing me terrible shimming. I can get better specta in a quarter the time and have them set up a reaction while I'm at it.

>>4794358

A broad course in instrumentation and methods? Yes we do.

It's a whole different ballgame in a research environment though. I currently work in a pharmacognosy lab as an undergraduate and can't make heads or tails of some of the spectra the grad students come back with. Much more to worry about and take into account then what us undergrads are exposed to.