Congratulations to Dr. Yu Zhang on Successfully Defending his Ph.D.!

We are thrilled to announce that Yu Zhang has successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, titled "Computational Investigations of Transition Metal-Catalyzed Amination and Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization."

A Multidisciplinary Background

Yu joined the Liu Group in 2019 with a strong foundation in theoretical chemistry, having earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Nankai University and an M.S. in Computational Chemistry from the University of Houston, where he worked with Prof. Judy Wu. During his doctoral studies at Pitt, Yu further expanded his technical toolkit by earning an M.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, allowing him to integrate advanced software development and machine learning skills into his chemical research.

Research Achievements and Impact

During his time in the Liu Group, Yu proved himself to be a versatile researcher capable of tackling diverse chemical problems. His dissertation work focused on elucidating complex catalytic reaction mechanisms and developing data-driven models for polymer chemistry. Key highlights of his research include:

• Copper Catalysis: He provided critical mechanistic insights into copper-catalyzed dearomative 1,2-hydroamination and carboamination reactions, contributing to publications in Angewandte Chemie and ACS Catalysis.

  
  

• Polymerization Methodology: Yu performed extensive DFT calculations to study the ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of cyclopropenes. He developed a data-driven decision-making strategy using machine learning to accurately predict polymerization reactivity and experimental outcomes.

  
  

• Mechanism Elucidation: His computational work was central to understanding iron-catalyzed nitrene transfer and low-valent tungsten redox catalysis, leading to high-impact publications in ACS Catalysis and Nature Chemistry.

  
  

Professional Excellence

Beyond his academic research, Yu gained valuable industrial and national laboratory experience. He served as a Scientific Software Developer Intern at OpenEye (Cadence Molecular Sciences), where he designed automated workflows for transition state searching. He also worked as a Graduate Research Intern at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, utilizing first-principles methods to study vanadium redox flow batteries.

Yu’s excellence has been recognized with several awards, including the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute (PQI) Graduate Quantum Leader Award (2022) and the Strem Family Travel Award (2023).

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Zhang on this tremendous achievement and wishing him the very best in his future career!