News
Welcome Margaret Meschia to the group
September 16th, 2025
Welcome to Margaret (Maggie) Meschia, who joins the Champagne group as a Ph.D. student. Maggie received her B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry from NJIT in 2025 and with a wealth of research experience in both organic chemistry and biochemistry. She will be tackling our challenging projects related to reactive sulfur species. Welcome Maggie and good luck in your projects!
The Champagne group is awarded an ACS PRF grant to support our carbocation work
July 28th, 2025
We have been awarded a New Directions grant from the American Chemical Society' Petroleum Research Fund, to support our joint computational/experimental studies on carbocations. The project, “Probing the generation, rearrangements, and capture of carbocations through ab initio molecular dynamics simulations", will support our work from 2025-2027. Thank you to the ACS PRF and to the reviewers for their constructive comments!
Congratulations to Yanmei Li for defending her thesis!
July 21st, 2025
Congratulations to Yanmei, who defended her thesis titled "BODIPY-Based Photocages for the Controlled Release of Hydrogen Sulfide and Persulfides" with flying colors today! Yanmei is the 2nd Ph.D. graduate from our group. We wish you the best in your future endeavors!
Welcome to our new undergraduate interns!
June 4th, 2025
Warm welcomes to our two new undergraduate interns, Nancy Natividad Cruz and Percival Ampomah. Nancy was awarded a Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Research Fellowship from NJIT to study the hydrolysis of polysulfides using computational methods, while Percival will be synthesizing polysulfide models to measure their kinetics of hydrolysis. Best of luck in your projects!
The Champagne group receives an NSF CAREER award to support our work on polysulfides!
May 5th, 2025
We have been awarded a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation to explore the chemical reactivity of polysulfides using a combination of photoactivated donors and computational tools. The project, “Advancing the Chemical Understanding of Reactive Sulfur Species Through Photoactivated Donors and Computational Tools", will run from September 2025 through August 2030. The award is funded through NSF’s Chemical Mechanism, Function, and Properties Program of the Chemistry Division. In addition to the scientific objectives, this grant will support the expansion of our Visualize Organic Chemistry platform that aims to enhance organic chemistry literacy through interactive animations. Thank you to the NSF for the support and to the reviewers for their constructive comments! For more details, see this recent article by NJIT News.
Welcome to three new Ph.D. students
September 5th, 2023
Today we welcome three new Ph.D. students to the Champagne group. Kyle W. Concha, who obtained his M. Sc. in Chemistry from NJIT in 2023, has a strong background in computational chemistry and will be taclking some of our mechanistic work on organosulfur compounds. Reyhaneh Hosseinijei, who obtained a M. Sc. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the K. N. Toosi University of Technology (Iran) in 2021, has expertise in organic synthesis and will be working on new organic compounds synthesized from sulfur and polysulfides. Aymen Benchouche, before joining NJIT, obtained an M.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Badji Mokhtar Annaba (Algeria) in 2021. He also has a background in experimental organic chemistry and will be studying the reactivity of carbocations and other reactive intermediates from an experimental standpoint. Welcome and good luck in your projects!
Congratulations to Jyoti for defending her thesis!
July 24th, 2023
Congratulations to Jyoti, who successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation today, titled "Computational and experimental investigation of elemental sulfur and polysulfide". Jyoti is the 1st Ph.D. graduate of the Champagne group. We wish her the best for the future.
Welcoming two new undergraduate researchers to the laboratory
June 2nd, 2023
We are welcoming two new undergraduate researchers, Alexis Palmere and Dhyeyi Kakkad. Alexis received a Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Research Fellowship from NJIT to synthesize new probes of carbocation rearrangements, while Dhyeyi will be working on our isothiocyanation of enones. Welcome and best of luck in your projects!
Congratulations to Dinitha and Sean for their fellowships
June 1st, 2022
Two NJIT undergraduates will be performing research in our group this summer, both of them supported on prestigious fellowships. Dinitha Samaranayake has received a Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Research Fellowship from NJIT to study mechanisms of organosulfur compounds using DFT. Sean Larmore has received the 2022 CME-STEM Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship from Chemical Marketing and Economics, Inc.(CME) to continue his computational work on non-classical carbocations. Congratulations to both of them and wishing you great success in your research this summer.
Welcoming Diana Marlén Castañeda Bagatella to our group
January 21st, 2022
We welcome Diana Marlén Castañeda Bagatella as an incoming Ph.D. student to the group. Before joining NJIT, Diana obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry from the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP), Puebla, México in 2021. She has strong experience in computational chemistry methods and techniques, and she will be using those skills to solve some important mechanistic questions about cationic phase-transfer catalyzed transformations. Welcome Diana!
Welcoming Yanmei Li to our group
September 8th, 2021
We welcome Yanmei Li, a 2nd year Ph.D. student, to the group. Before joining NJIT, Yanmei obtained a M.Sc. in Material Physics and Chemistry from Lanzhou Jiaotong University (LZJTU), China, in 2020 and a B.Sc. in Material Chemistry from Qingdao University of Science and Technology (QUST), China, in 2017. Her research will involve experimental organic synthesis and DFT calculations focused on cationic phase-transfer catalyzed transformations. Welcome Yanmei!
Congratulations to Rebecca Zaki and Sean Larmore for their Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Research Fellowship Awards
June 7th, 2021
Congratulations to Rebecca Zaki and Sean Larmore, NJIT undergraduate students, for their Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Research Fellowship Awards! Rebecca and Sean will spend the summer in our group, working on the synthesis of chiral alkyl boronic esters and on a computational study of non-classical cation, respectively. Congratulations to both of them for this prestigious award!
Launching Visualize Organic Chemistry
March 2nd, 2021
After 8 months of work, our group has launched its educational website, visualizeorgchem.com! This website is designed to help students understand organic reaction mechanisms by providing 3D animations of reactions. In addition, tutorials on how to get started on computational organic chemistry will be posted regularly. Most of the content for the website is generated by the work of high-school and undergraduate students working in the group. Congratulations to everyone involved!
First grant awarded to our research
October 15th, 2020
Our group received its first research grant, a Doctoral New Investigator grant from the American Chemical Society's Petroleum Research Fund. This grant will support our current experimental and computational investigations of organic polysulfides and elemental sulfur. Thank you for the support and for the constructive comments by the reviewers!
Welcoming Dr. Floris Buttard to our group
July 2nd, 2019
We welcome Dr. Floris Buttard to the group as a postdoctoral researcher. Before joining NJIT, Dr. Buttard obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Institut de Chimie Organique et Analytique of the Université d'Orléans, France, in 2018, and a M.Sc. in Molecular Chemistry from the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France, in 2015. His research will focus on the use of organoboron compounds for the synthesis of chiral, highly-functionalized compounds of interest for medicinal chemistry endeavours. Welcome Dr. Buttard!
Congratulations to Rachel Lee for a Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Research Fellowship Award
May 28th, 2019
Congratulations to Rachel Lee, NJIT undergraduate student (Biomedical Engineering, class of 2021) for her Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Research Fellowship Award! Rachel will spend the next ten weeks in our group, where she will explore the idea of kinetic isotope effect measurements via mass spectrometry. Congratulations on this prestigious award Rachel!
Welcoming Jyoti Sharma to our group
March 24th, 2019
We are welcoming our first Ph.D. student, Jyoti Sharma, to the group. Before joining NJIT, Jyoti obtained her Master's of technology (M.Tech) in Polymer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India, in 2013, and a Master's of Science (M.Sc.) in Chemistry with specialization in Organic Chemistry from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), India, in 2010. She will be tackling the synthesis of biologically-important functional groups from organoboron compounds. Welcome Jyoti!