Congratulations to Corrinne Stahl, Grace Scofield, and Luke Jesikiewicz on Winning the David Pratt Award!

We are absolutely thrilled to announce that former undergraduate researcher Corrinne Stahl (now a graduate student in our group), graduate student Grace Scofield, and former graduate student Luke Jesikiewicz have been recognized as winners of the prestigious David Pratt Award by the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh!

David Pratt Awardee Corrinne Stahl

The David Pratt Award is a particularly meaningful honor within our department. It was established to recognize what happens when scientific ambition meets exceptional mentorship. The award specifically honors undergraduate-graduate teams whose collaboration has led to significant published work, celebrating both undergraduate research contributions and the critical role graduate students play in training the next generation of scientists. This year, the selection committee recognized the outstanding collaborative work done by Corrinne Stahl with two different graduate mentors, resulting in an impressive year of publications.

Corrinne’s collaboration with former graduate student Luke Jesikiewicz and the Kay Brummond group resulted in a publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) at the start of 2025. Corrinne and Luke's joint effort on the computational modeling of complex stereochemistry-determining factors was vital to the paper, titled:

• “Stereo-Differentiating Asymmetric Rh(I)-Catalyzed Pauson–Khand Reaction: A DFT-Informed Approach to Thapsigargin Stereoisomers” (Fatemeh Haghighi, Luke T. Jesikiewicz, Corrinne E. Stahl, Jordan Nafie, Amanda Ortega-Vega, Peng Liu, Kay M. Brummond, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2025, 147, 498–509)

Furthermore, Corrinne’s partnership with current graduate student Grace Scofield led to another significant publication later in the year in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. This work focused on medicinal chemistry and predictive modeling:

• “A Predictive Model for Thiol Reactivity of N-Heteroaryl α-Methylene−γ-Lactams─A Medicinally Relevant Covalent Reactive Group” (Mariah C. Meehan, Grace E. Scofield, Corrinne E. Stahl, Jacob A. Wolfe, W. Seth Horne, Peng Liu, and Kay M. Brummond, J. Med. Chem. 2025, 68, 11948–11961)

Please join us in congratulating Grace, Luke, and Corrinne on this well-deserved honor! They perfectly embody the spirit of collaboration that the David Pratt Award seeks to highlight. After obtaining her BS degree at Pitt in 2024, Corrinne stayed in our department. She is currently a second-year graduate student ointly advised by the Liu and Brummond groups.