David Vicic Fall 2015

has given invited lectures at U. of Oxford, U. of St. Andrews, U. of Edinburgh, Free U. of Berlin, Humboldt U. of Berlin, and the Chinese National Organic Synthesis Conference. An invited talk at UNC Chapel Hill was cancelled, as all flights into Chapel Hill that day were cancelled due to snow! He also presented a patent talk at the 2015 TechConnect World meeting in Washington, DC as a National Innovation Award winner. The Vicic lab published eight papers during the academic year. One of the papers entitled “Stepwise Conversion of a Platinum Dimethyl Complex to a Perfluorometallacyclobutane Derivative” received the cover graphic for Organometallics. Another paper co-authored with Yi Yang titled “ManganeseCatalyzed Aerobic Oxytrifluoromethylation of Styrene Derivatives Using CF3SO2Na as the Trifluoromethyl Source” made the list for “Most Read” (most downloaded) for the Journal of Organic Chemistry during the month of June. One book chapter was also written for Topics in Organometallic Chemistry on the subject of “Transition Metal Catalyzed Difluoromethylation, Difluoromethylenation, and Polydifluoromethylenation.” In 2015, David was elected as Vice Chair of the ACS Division of Fluorine Chemistry. In 2018, he will assume the role of Chair of the Division. Douglas Solowey, a former undergraduate in the Vicic lab, has begun his graduate studies in chemistry at UPenn.