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Carsch, Kurtis
No

Kurtis M Carsch

Other University Affiliate
Department of Chemistry


kcarsch@utexas.edu


Office Location
WEL

Postal Address
105 E 24TH ST
AUSTIN, TX 78712

• Postdoc, University of California, Berkeley (2021–2024)

• Ph.D., Harvard (2016–2021)

• B.S./M.S., Caltech (2012–2016)

• Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, University of North Texas (2010–2012)

Kurtis grew up near Dallas, TX, and he began his interest in chemistry by researching controlled methane oxidation with Tom Cundari at the University of North Texas. Kurtis then attended Caltech and received a joint B.S./M.S. in chemistry, where he conducted computational and experimental research on bio-inspired clusters of the oxygen-evolving complex in Photosystem II with Bill Goddard and Theo Agapie. As a Hertz Fellow and a NSF Graduate Research Fellow, Kurtis conducted his Ph.D. research with Ted Betley at Harvard, where he focused on understanding amination catalysis by copper nitrene intermediates through the lens of inverted ligand fields, receiving the Hertz Thesis Prize for his research. Kurtis was subsequently an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Decarbonization Materials at the University of California, Berkeley, with Jeff Long, where he established organometallic transformations and high-temperature adsorbents in the context of chemical separations. 

In 2025, Kurtis will join the Department of Chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin. The Carsch group is actively recuiting new students (undergraduate and graduate), visiting scholars, and postdoctoral fellows.

The Carsch Group will merge fundamental design principles from synthetic inorganic and organic chemistry, organometallic catalysis, chemical engineering, and materials science to manipulate the electronic structures of reactive transition metal intermediates and coordinatively unsaturated metal ions in both molecular complexes and extended porous materials to advance catalysis, separations, and material processability. Our work bridges disparate concepts and employs an interdisciplinary approach to accomplish unsolved challenges across different fields.

For instance, our research program aims to establish new frontiers across synthesis, organometallic catalysis, and gas separations relevant to alkane homologation, C–H functionalization, ambient air separations, chemisorption in liquid media, microporous metallopolymers, ultramicroporous polycrystalline membranes, ligand field inversion, hyper-low-coordinate metal ions, frustrated metalloradical pair catalysis, multi-gas single-site binding, MOF gels, and liquid porous materials. 

Please visit our lab website for further details and recent news. 

For a full list of publications, see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CNI-XjIAAAAJ&hl=en

Representative Publications:

  • Rohde, R. C.†; Carsch, K. M.†; Dods, M. N.; Jiang, H. Z. H.; McIsaac, A. R.; Klein, R. A.; Kwon, H.; Karstens, S. L.; Wang, Y.; Huang, A. J.; Taylor, J. W.; Yabuuchi, Y.; Tkachenko, N. V.; Meihaus, K. R.; Furukawa, H.; Yanhe, D. R.; Bustillo, K. C.; Minor, A. M.; Reimer, J. A.; Head-Gordon, M.; Brown, C. M.; Long. J. R. High-Temperature Carbon Dioxide Capture in a Porous Material with Terminal Zinc–Hydride Sites. In revision, († equal contribution).
  • Carsch, K. M.; Huang, A. J.; Dods, M. N.; Parker, S. T.; Rohde, R. C.; Jiang, H. Z. H.; Yabuuchi, Y.; Kwon, H.; Karstens, S. L.; Chakraborty, R.; Bustillo, K. C. Meihaus, K. R.; Furukawa, H.; Minor, A. M.; Head-Gordon, M.; Long. J. R. Oxygen-Selective Adsorption from Air with a Metal–Organic Framework Featuring Open Copper Sites. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, 146, 3160.
  • Carsch, K. M.; Iliescu, A.; McGillicuddy, A. D.; Mason, J. A.; Betley, T. A. Reversible Scavenging of Dioxygen from Air by a Copper Complex. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 18346.
  • Carsch, K. M.; DiMucci, I. M.; Lukens, J. T.; Iovan, D.A.; Zheng, S.-L.; Lancaster, K. M.; Betley, T. A. Electronic Structures and Reactivity Profiles of Aryl Nitrenoid−Bridged Dicopper Complexes. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 2264.
  • Carsch, K. M.; DiMucci, I. M.; Iovan, D. A.; Li, A.; Zheng, S.-L.; Titus, C. J.; Lee, S. J.; Irwin, K. D.; Nordlund, D.; Lancaster, K. M.; Betley, T. A. Synthesis of a Copper-Supported Triplet Nitrene Complex Pertinent to Copper-Catalyzed Amination. Science 2019, 365, 1138.

Selected Awards:

  • 2022 CAS Future Leader (2022) 
  • Fannie and John Hertz Thesis Prize (2022) 
  • Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021) 
  • Peter Strauss Fellowship (2021) 
  • Ludo Frevel Crystallography Scholarship (2020) 
  • Harvard Distinction in Teaching Award (2019) 
  • 2016 ACS Undergraduate Award in Inorganic Chemistry (2016) 
  • Richard P. Schuster Memorial Prize (2016) 
  • George W. Green Memorial Prize (2016) 
  • Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship (2016)                                                                  
  • National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2016) 
  • Arie J. Haagen-Smit Memorial Award (2015) 
  • Copenhagen Scholars Study Abroad Scholarship (2014) 
  • ACS & Society for Chemical Industry Scholarship (2014) 
  • Renuka D. Sharma Award (2014) 
  • Intel Science Talent Search Finalist (2012) 
  • University of North Texas Dean’s Research Award (2011)                                                            
  • Texas Academy of Math and Science Summer Research Scholarship (2011) 

Texas Materials Institute