News Archive
Welcome to Assistant Professor Alexandra Paton
The Department of Chemistry warmly welcomes Dr. Alexandra Paton as a Assistant Professor of Chemistry.
Dr. Paton joins us from the University of Michigan, and she received her PhD from New Mexico State University in 2021.
During her time at the University of Michigan, Dr. Paton developed a predictive machine learning model to aid in the discovery of biocatalytic reactions through collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University.
At the University, Dr. Paton's group will research enzymes that haven’t been characterized yet, looking for ones that can carry out useful chemical transformations. Their goal is to find better, cleaner ways to make complex scaffolds like those found in medicines or natural products. The selective nature of enzymes enables protecting-group- free transformations, with elite specificity to perform site- and stereoselective C–H functionalization chemistry, under aqueous conditions at or near room temperature. This tool enables streamlined synthesis of complex molecules, making it a highly desirable method in the pharmaceutical and chemical synthesis industries.
Once again, welcome, Dr. Paton! We are thrilled to have you here.