Choose your own Adventure in Metal-Hydride Catalysis

Prof. Vy Dong was born in Big Spring, Texas and spent early childhood in west Texas before moving with family to Anaheim, California. She graduated magna cum laude from UC Irvine where she majored in chemistry and completed an honor's project with Larry Overman on the tethered Bignelli condensation. After graduation, she joined David MacMillan's group at UC Berkeley as one of his first students. She then moved with his group to Caltech to complete her doctoral studies. Her Ph.D. thesis featured variants of the zwitterionic-Claisen rearrangement and a total synthesis of erythronolide B. As an NIH postdoctoral fellow, Vy pursued training in organometallic and supramolecular chemistry with Robert Bergman and Kenneth Raymond at Berkeley. She began her independent academic career at the University of Toronto, where she was promoted with tenure and named the Adrian Brook Professor. After six years in Canada, Vy returned to the United States to assume a professorship at her alma mater, UC Irvine. Professor Dong's research team is interested in new reaction methods, enantioselective catalysis, and natural product synthesis. Her team has been recognized by the ACS EJ Corey Award, ACS Cope Scholar Award, and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. Professor Dong teaches introductory organic chemistry and advanced synthesis courses. She also serves as the associate editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry's flagship journal, Chemical Science.

Vy Dong group website