Emma McInturff wins Aldrich Graduate Student Innovation Award

Sigma Aldrich has announced that Emma McInturff has been selected to receive a 2012 Aldrich Chemistry Graduate Student Innovation Award (GSIA).  The GSIA award consists of a monetary award to support the student’s research efforts and a travel allowance to attend a scientific meeting. Additionally, the awards program culminates with a symposium at the Sigma-Aldrich site in Milwaukee where students have the opportunity to present their research, tour the facilities, and visit with key personnel in the Aldrich Chemistry group.

 

Emma is from Pocatello, Idaho, and received her undergraduate degree from Boise State University.   She is a 4th year student in the lab of Professor Mike Krische.   Her current research project is the development of a method to perform carbonyl crotylation using butadiene as the crotyl donor. In this process, she uses a ruthenium catalyst modified by a chiral phosphate counter ion to control absolute and relative stereochemistry. The goal is to develop a cost-effective, atom-economic method for carbonyl crotylation, in which can be employed butadiene, an inexpensive, abundant product of petroleum cracking in direct, reductive coupling with aldehydes, avoiding the generation of stoichiometric metal waste and the use of moisture or air sensitive reagents that are required for traditional crotylation methods.