Visible-Light-Driven Artificial Photosynthesis in Organic Synthesis

Posted on November 14, 2017 by Clara Tran

Date: 11/14/2017

Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Description

The STEM Speaker Series Presents

Visible-Light-Driven Artificial Photosynthesis in Organic Synthesis

by Dr. Ming-Yu Ngai, Department of Chemistry

Visible light, one of the most abundant renewable energies, has been used to enable a broad range of transformations in nature. Photosynthesis, a visible-light-driven conversion of carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrate and oxygen under ambient conditions, is undoubtedly one of the most critical processes on earth. Drawing inspiration from this elegant process, Dr. Ngai’s lab focuses on the discovery and development of artificial photo-synthetic reactions for the synthesis of complex and value-added functional molecules from simple chemical building blocks using visible light. In this seminar, Dr. Ngai will describe their progress and future directions in the design and development of novel visible-light-driven chemical transformations.

Biosketch

Dr. Ming-Yu Ngai is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and worked as a Croucher post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University and as a post-doctoral associate at Harvard University. His research focuses on the development of chemical transformations that harvest visible light for the synthesis of novel functional molecules.