Organo-transition Metal Chemistry: The application of organo-transition metal reactants and intermediates in organic synthesis, with an emphasis on activation of arene rings, conjugated dienes and alkenes using nickel, chromium, palladium, and iron; and the reactivity carbene-metal complexes involving chromium and iron.
Natural Product Synthesis: Applications of new methods in strategies for synthesis of moderately complex, biologically active natural products.
Electrochemistry: Electrocatalysis with TEMPO in oxidation of alcohols and amines; selective protecting group removal with controlled potential electrolysis.
Chemical Biology: Collaboration in elucidating the structures of bacterial auto-inducers in the phenomenon of quorum sensing; the medicinal chemistry in discovering agonists and antagonists of quorum sensing.
Spiroconjugation: The synthesis, spectroscopy, and reactivity studies of novel organic structures which exhibit spiroconjugation and spiroaromaticity.