Our department gladly welcomes Professor Gopeekrishnan Sreenilayam as a one-year visiting professor to teach our sophomore organic chemistry sequence. He earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Iowa in 2011. While Sreenilayam is no greenhorn at teaching, having served as an adjunct lecturer position at the College at Brockport (State University of New York), he brings to us vast research experience from postdoctoral fellowships at both Temple University and the University of Rochester. Sreenilayam’s most recent work investigates an unusual type of organic synthesis where rather than make use of typical organic reagents, he and his colleagues rely on a biochemical approach in which they use the heme center of hemoglobin essentially as a chiral complex ion to catalyze organic reactions to produce chiral products. We have only one concern regarding Sreenilayam: will he be able to refill that bowl of candy on his desk fast enough to accommodate the horde of organic students that will be visiting him?
