Summer ‘23 Updates

It has been an exciting (and busy) summer here at the Muechler lab! This month marks two years since the founding of our lab here at Penn State, and we have really hit our stride with multiple independent research projects, and a strong team. Speaking of which, many of our members have passed significant milestones, and some recognition is in order!

Our two 2nd year graduate students Hyosik Kang and Christopher Daggett have both successfully surmounted their comprehensive exams, and will be moving on from TA to RA assignments in the coming semester. Additionally our 1st year grad student Xiren Xie has completed his first year meeting and will continue pursuing his research while TAing in the coming year. Congratulations to all of our grad students on their recent accomplishments!

We are also happy to say that our resident postdoc Amir Mirzanejad is currently presenting a talk on his research into the role of 2nd order saddle points in determining the fate of electrocyclic reactions at the ACS conference. This fascinating work into a deeper understanding of the structure of potential energy surfaces beyond 1D reaction paths can be previewed at https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/64d4fd6269bfb8925ab5323b.