| October 15th, 2024 | |
| We are thrilled to have Björn Pfund, a Postdoctoral Researcher, as a new group member! Björn
received his PhD from the University of Basel, Switzerland under the
guidance of Professor Oliver Wenger. Welcome to the group!
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| September 12th, 2024 | |
| Congratulations to Dr. Hayden Beissel on
successfully defending his PhD! Hayden is now working as a Post Doc
with Professor Lisa Olshansky at UIUC! Good luck on all your endeavors! | |
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| July 4th, 2024 | |
| Check out our most recent publication in Nature Chemistry featuring work on the origin of Co(III) polypyridyl excited-state dynamics operating in the Marcus inverted region! | |
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| July 1st, 2024 | |
| Congratulations to Atanu Ghosh for receiving the College of Natural Science
Oustanding Scholar Fellowship! This award will support his research
activities in the group on exploring Colbat(III) photophysics. Read
more about his research HERE! | |
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| May 1st, 2024 | |
| The McCusker group welcomes another PhD candidate, Abdullah! Congratulations on passing your oral exam! | |
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| March 25th, 2024 | |
| Another CONGRATULATIONS to Jim on earning the 2024 Josef Michl ACS Photochemistry Award.
Yi-Jyun, Micheal, Bekah, and Atanu joined in on the celebration and
presented posters and talks at the 2024 ACS Spring Conference in New
Orleans. Congrats to all of the group on their accomplishments! Group
alumni (Professor Niels Damrauer and Professor Dani Arias-Rotondo) were
also along for the celebration. | |
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| January 10th, 2024 | |
| The
McCusker group would like to welcome four new first year graduate
students: Abigail Gamble, Avit Patel, Saptarshi Biswas, and Shakil
Ahmed! Excited to see what new chemistry you all will bring to the
group. | |
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| November 20th, 2023 | |
| Congratulations to Dr. Jonathan Yarranton
for successfully defending his disseration! He is now going on to
continue his journey in photochemistry at Argonne National Lab as a
Post-Doctoral Researcher! | |
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| Novemer 11th, 2023 | |
| Take a look at our recent publication in Chemical Science
in collaboration with the Schlau-Cohen (MIT) and Jakubikova (NCSU)
groups! This paper takes advantage of both ultrafast 2D electronic
spectroscopy and computational efforts to discuss charge transfer
dynamics in [Fe(bpy)3]2+.
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| October 20th, 2023 | |
| Last night, the MSU Chemistry Department celebrated all of our recent achievements including the 2024 Josef Michl ACS Photochemistry Award awarded to Jim! He was given a plaque designed by the group. | |
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| October 12th, 2023 | |
| Our new Science paper is OUT! Through collaboration with Professor Sir David MacMillan's group, our group
has shown that Co(III) polypyridyls can be utilized as powerful
photocatalysts due to their photophysical behavior in the Marcus inverted
region. By utilizing our fundamental knowledge of Co(III) photophysics,
these chromophores can be used in a number of different chemical
transformations. | |
| Click the image above to navigate to the publication!
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| Check out the Science perspective article
from Professor Oliver Wenger which discusses this work and the
differing excited-state behavior of Fe(II) and Co(III) polypyridyl
chromophores. | |
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| September 13th, 2023 | |
| Check out our most recent publication in JACS
with Micheal Alowakennu and Atanu Ghosh! This work studies the
fundamentals of the Co(III) ligand-field excited state for photoredox
chemistry. | |
| Click above to navigate to the publication!
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| September 7th, 2023 | |
| A huge CONGRATULATIONS to Professor James K. McCusker on receiving the 2024 Josef Michl ACS Award in Photochemistry!
This award recognizes those with revolutionary accomplishments in
fundamental photochemical research. This incredible accomplishment
deserves a celebration! | |
| Click the above image to see the 2024 award winners!
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| September 1st, 2023 | |
| We would like to welcome Robert Ortiz, from the Herbert Group at the University of Manitoba, who is joining us for 6 months to learn transient absorption techniques! Happy Sciencing! | |
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| June 14th, 2023 | |
| Atanu,
Micheal, and Bekah traveled to Princeton University for the annual
BioLEC Researcher's Retreat to discuss exciting chemistry in photoredox
catalysis! They presented posters and discussed collaboration
opportunities with researchers that are part of the BioLEC EFRC. | |
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| May 1st, 2023 | |
| Congratulations to Dr. Karl Nielsen for successfully defending his thesis! Time to add Ph.D. to your resume! | |
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| January 15th, 2023 | |
| We would like to welcome two NEW members to the McCusker Group this year: Abdullah and Courtney! Happy Sciencing!
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| January 9th, 2023 | |
| Professor Jim McCusker, Hayden Beissel, and Atanu Ghosh recently attended the 2023 Inter-American Photochemical Society Meeting!
At this meeting, Prof. McCusker received his 2023 I-APS Award in
Photochemistry (pictured top). Hayden (bottom left) and Atanu
(bottom right) also presented posters, where Atanu won one of the Graduate
Student Best Poster Awards. Congratulations to all of the
accomplishments reconized at this 30th Winter I-APS Conference! | |
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| November 30th, 2022 | |
| Congratulations to Micheal for successfully
passing his 2nd year oral exam! Welcome to the Ph.D. Candidate Club! | |
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| July 7th, 2022 | |
| Congratulation
to Prof. Jim McCusker on receiving the 2023 Inter-American
Photochemical Society Award in Photochemistry! Check out i-aps.org for more information on this award. | |
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| June 25th, 2022 Check out our latest
paper in JACS
on the development of a Co(III) spectrochemical series to study the
ligand field strength of commonly employed ligands to induce
charge-transfer states in low-spin, d6 systems. To read more, click HERE!
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June 6th, 2022
Check out our newest
paper in Faraday Discussions on using
vibronic coherence to identify reaction coordinates
for ultrafast excited-states dynamics of transition
metal chromophores!
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May 6th, 2022
Congratulations to the 2022 chemistry graduates!
Jonathan Yarranton walked at commencement today
graduating with his Ph.D. in chemistry!
Congratulations on all your hard work!
*Jonathan Yarranton, top row in the middle
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April 29th, 2022
Congratulations to Bekah for successfully
passing her 2nd year oral exam! Enjoy
your accomplishment!
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April 18th, 2022
Check out our newest paper in Nature
Chemistry investigating the effect of
ion-pairing on ground- and excited-state charge
distribution in Iridium(III) polypyridyl complexes
using using Time-Resolved dielectric loss
spectroscopy!
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April 12th, 2022
Congratulations to Atanu for successfully
passing his 2nd Year Oral Examination! Time to relax
and enjoy your accomplishment!...Then back to
Science!
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May 20th, 2021
Check out our new paper in the Journal of
the American Chemical Society on using a
modular approach of strong-field carbenes and
phenanthroline to tune excited-state properties of
Iron(II) polypyridyls! You can read the full article
here!
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May 1st, 2021
We'd like to welcome Michael Alowakennu as the
newest member of the McCusker Group! Let's do some
science!
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March 3, 2021
Our new paper using optical and infrared
spectroelectrochemistry to investigate ruthenium(II)
cyano-substituted bipyridine complexes is out now in
Inorganic Chemistry! Click here to read this new
report!
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December 15th, 2020
We'd like to officially welcome Bekah Bowers and
Atanu Ghosh to the McCusker group!
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September 28th, 2020
Our report on using ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy
to address questions in ligand-field theory was
featured in a virtual
issue of Inorganic Chemistry
highlighting the impact of modern spectroscopy in
inorganic chemistry! To read our original report
click here!
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September 11th, 2020
Our new communication in the Journal of the
American Chemical Society showing electron
transfer from the lowest-energy ligand-field state
of [Fe(tren(py)3)]2+, a common
iron(II) chormophore, is now online! In this paper,
the observation of electron transfer from the
ligand-field state shows that these types of
complexes can engage in photoinduced redox reactions
with organic substrates. You can read the new
article here!
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August 25th, 2020
A new News and Views article has been published
in Nature Chemistry highlighting our recent
paper using vibrational coherence and ligand design
to control ultrafast dynamics in iron(II)
polypyridyls to extend charge transfer lifetimes!
You can read the new article here!
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July 8th, 2020
A highlight of our recent paper on using ligand
design to control ultrafast dynamics in iron(II)
polypyridyls was just published in Nature
Reviews Chemistry! To read the original
paper click
here and to read the new highlight article click here.
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July 7th, 2020
A perspective article was published in Nature
Reviews Chemistry today on Exploiting
chemistry and molecular systems for quantum
information science! The link for the article is
below:
Perspective
Article
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June 23rd, 2020
Congratulations to our boss, Prof. James
McCusker, on winning the Royal Society of Chemistry
2020 Chemical Dynamics Award! To read more about the
award and his interview by RSC click
here.
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June 11th, 2020
Our new paper on using strategic ligand design
and excited-state coherence with caged iron(II)
polpyridyls to control ultrafast dynamics is online
now at Nature! Check it out at the link
below:
Nature
Article
Our paper was also a featured article by the College
of Natural Science, MSU
Today, and Research@MSU!
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May 12th, 2020
Our new
paper on the effect of solvent on the high-spin to
low-spin conversion in [Fe(bpy)3]2+
is online now at Chemical
Science! Check it out at the link below:
DOI: 10.1039/D0SC01506G
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1/10/2020
Our new paper on the influence of electrolyte
composition on ultrafast interfacial electron
transfer in iron-sensitized solar cells is online
now! Check it out at the link below:
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b09404
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January 1st, 2020
We
would like to welcome the newest member of our
group, Jyun Lien!
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June 26th, 2019
Our paper on the use of ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy
to address the spin-state of an iron(II)
ligand-field excited-state is out now! Check it out
at the link below:
DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.9b01063
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May 8th, 2019
Hayden Beissel succesfully passed his 2nd
year oral examination!
Now for some well deserved relaxation before getting
back to his science!
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May 3rd, 2019
Shuxian Li walked at commencement today
graduating with her Ph.D in chemistry!
Congratulations on all your hard work!
*Shuxian
is pictured third from the left in the front row
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April 4th, 2019
Bryan, Sara, and Jon attended the ACS Orlando
National Meeting and gave talks in inorganic
spectroscopy and synthesis!! Phenomenal work you
three! Glad to have you back!
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March 19th, 2019
Matt
attended the BioLEC workshop at Princeton University
and presented his current research with iron(II)
polypyridyls.
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February 1st, 2019
Jim's new paper on how the primogenic effect plays
an important role in electron transfer reactions of
transition metal chromophores is out now!
Click the DOI below for a link to the paper or the
URL for a link to a related article in MSU today:
DOI:
10.1126/science.aav9104
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2019/periodic-table-still-influencing-todays-research/
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January 20th, 2019
The McCusker Group is proud to
be part of BioLEC, a DOE Energy Frontier
Research Center established on August 1, 2018
involving researchers from Princeton University,
MIT, North Carolina State University, Arizona State University, the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Brookhaven
National Laboratory (and, of course, Michigan
State University). The Center is focused on the
development of bio-inspired approaches
for using light in synthetic
chemistry. Information about the science being
carried out through BioLEC can be found at
http://chemlabs.princeton.edu/biolec/
or by clicking the picture below. | |
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December 10th, 2018
Monica and Sara's variable temperature ultrafast
spectroscopy paper is out in Chemical Science! Check
it out at the link below:
DOI:
10.1039/C8SC04025G | |
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November 11th, 2018
Katy Humphries and Sam Brineman have officially
joined the McCusker group! Welcome to the group
guys! | |
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October 1st, 2018
Our paper on ultrafast vibrational dynamics in
Ru-bpy-CN is out now! Check it out at the link
below:
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.8b06197 |
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