Silas began his academic career at Reed College (Portland, OR) in 1995. After earning his B.A. in 1999, he took a position at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) in San Diego, CA. There he worked to unravel various signal transduction pathways related to kinase and GTPase cell signaling.

In 2001, Silas began his graduate studies in total synthesis at Columbia University (New York, NY) under the auspices of Professor Samuel J. Danishefsky. Upon the completion of his Ph.D. in 2006, he took a post- doctoral position in the laboratory of Professor Eric Jacobsen at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA). In 2009, Silas began his independent appointment in the Chemistry Department at Indiana University.

Education: B.S. Henan University

Advisor: Prof. Qiuxia Han

Year: 4^th

Originally from Nanchang, China, Jiachen received her Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Henan University in 2018. There she worked under the direction of Prof. Qiuxia Han on applications of metal-organic frameworks in photocatalysis. Jiachen joined the Cook group in 2019 and is currently working on fluorination and borylation of C–H bonds.

Education: B.S. Knox (2021)
Advisor: Prof. Diana Cermak
Year: 2^nd

Originally from Hanoi, Vietnam, Hieu received his bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Knox College in 2021. At Knox, he worked under the direction of Prof. Diana Cermak on biofuel chemistry. Hieu joined the Cook group in 2021 and is currently working on difunctionalization of alkene.

Education: B.S. University of Science and Technology of China (2019)

Advisor: Prof. Xisheng Wang

Year: 2^nd

Originally from Ezhou, China, Yining received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from University of Science and Technology of China in 2019, where he worked on fluorine chemistry and radical chemistry under the supervision of Xisheng Wang. He joined the Cook group in 2021 and is currently working on C-N bond formation.

Education: B.S. Southern University of Science and Technology (2019)
Advisor: Prof. Jing Xu
Year: 4th

Born on Shaanxi, China, Tongyun received his bachelor's degree in Chemistry from SUSTech in 2019. There he worked under the direction of Prof. Jing Xu on natural product total synthesis. Tongyun joined the Cook group in 2019 and is currently working on radical-mediated difunctionalization reactions.