Allegra L. Liberman-martin PhD

Allegra obtained her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Scripps College. She completed her PhD in chemistry at UC Berkeley with Profs. T. Don Tilley and Robert G. Bergman. At UC Berkeley, she developed a strategy to reversibly control the reactivity of platinum complexes by addition of zinc, silicon, or boron Lewis acids. These studies suggested ways to improve catalyst design for hydrocarbon functionalization reactions. At Caltech, Allegra worked with Prof. Robert H. Grubbs to increase the efficiency of Grubbs olefin metathesis catalysts with nitrogen-containing substrates. These approaches require fewer reagents and result in fewer byproducts than conventional industrial processes, which may help create sustainable methods for the construction of polymers.