The Bandar Group

Innovation in Strong Base Chemistry

August 2024

Congratulations to Leidy Hooker who recently defended her Ph.D. thesis! Leidy will be starting at Los Alamos National Laboratory in September.

The group says goodbye to Kenny Drbohlav from Fort Lewis College - Kenny spent the summer with us as an NSF REU fellow. Good luck in your senior year!


JULY 2024

Congratulations to Kendelyn Bone on her thesis defense and Ph.D.! Kendelyn is starting her Scientist position at R2M Pharma in South San Francisco in August. Congratulations and we wish you the best!

Our paper on benzylic C–H etherification has been published in Angewandte Chemie - congratulations to Kendelyn, Tom, Mike and Yuka! Click here to read it.

Congratulations to Garrett Hoteling on his successful Ph.D. thesis defense! Garrett will start his position as a chemist at Bausch + Lomb in August. Congratulations and good luck!

Jeff has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at CSU - thank you to all the group members and others who have helped along the way!






December 2023

We welcome new first year graduate students Kayla Constantini and Viet Ngo to the Bandar Group!


September 2023

Our review on C–F functionalization reactions has been published in Angewandte Chemie - congratulations Leidy! Click here to read it.


June 2023

Steve successfully defended his PhD thesis and will be joining Merck Boston as a postdoc in discovery chemistry - congratulations and best of luck, Dr. Sujansky!


December 2022

We are excited to welcome new graduate students Nick Coradi, Alex Curtis and Vivian Nguyen to the Bandar Group!


August 2022

Our work using base catalysis to achieve the anti-Markovnikov hydration of styrenes has been published in Chemical Science - congratulations to Spencer, Zisong and Steve! Click here to read the paper.


July 2022

Tom successfully defended his PhD thesis and will be joining Pfizer as a medicinal chemist - congratulations and best of luck, Dr. Puleo!

Our paper on base-promoted reductive coupling reactions of trifluoromethylarenes has been published in JACS! Congratulations to Shawn for his great work and discoveries! Click here to read the paper.


June 2022

Shawn successfully defended his PhD thesis and will be joining Entos as a medicinal chemist - congratulations and good luck, Dr. Wright!


May 2022

Our collaboration with the Paton Group at CSU on improving base-catalyzed anti-Markovnikov alcohol addition reactions has been published in JACS! Congratulations to the whole team! Click here to read it.


April 2022

We recently wrote three articles for Encyclopedia for Reagents in Organic Synthesis highlighting the utility of our newly discovered halogen transfer reagents: 2,5-dibromothiophene, 2-iodothiophene and 2,3-diiodobenzothiophene.


February 2022

We welcome Dr. Michael Delost as a new postdoctoral researcher to the Bandar Group! Mike joins us from Professor Jon Njardarson’s group at the University of Arizona.


January 2022

Goodbye and congratulations to Dr. Tyler Reidl who has accepted a position as a process chemist at Evonik Industries!


December 2021

We welcome first-year graduate students Faith Kidd and Cristian Vásquez Tapia Vera to the Bandar Group!


August 2021

Our work on base-catalyzed halogen transfer for heteroarene C–H functionalization has been published in JACS! Congratulations Tom and Danielle! Click here to read it.


July 2021

Our work on Lewis base-promoted organosilane aryl coupling reactions has been published in JACS! Congratulations Tyler! Click here to read it.


March 2021

Congratulations to Leidy Hooker on winning an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Read about it below:

CSU students selected for NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

MSU alumni win esteemed NSF Graduate Research Fellowships


January 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Tyler Reidl on being awarded a prestigious NIH postdoctoral fellowship (NIH F32 Award)!


December 2020

We welcome graduate students Danielle Klaus, Matt Loalbo and Yuka Shimizu to the group!


September 2020

Tom’s paper on base-catalyzed aryl halide isomerization has been accepted at Chemical Science - congratulations Tom! Click here to read the paper.


August 2020

Our review on recent uses of organic superbases in synthetic methodology has been published! Click here to read it.


December 2019

We welcome first year graduate students Kendelyn Bone, Leidy Hooker and Garrett Hoteling to the group!

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November 2019

We say goodbye to Dr. Zisong Qi who is starting as a Research Associate Professor at Shaanxi Normal University - good luck Zisong!


October 2019

Our trifluoromethylarene allylation paper has been spotlighted in JACS! Click here to read it.


September 2019

We say goodbye to Dr. Chaosheng Luo who is joining Professor Yimon Aye’s lab at EPFL - good luck Chaosheng!


August 2019

Our work on fluoride-initiated allylsilane coupling reactions with trifluoromethylarenes has been accepted in JACS! Click here to read it.


July 2019

We welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Tyler Reidl to the Bandar group! Tyler joins us from Professor Laura Anderson’s research group at University of Illinois at Chicago.


June 2019

We welcome CSU undergraduate Callie Slaughter to the research group!


January 2019

Our work on the catalytic deuteration of styrenes was accepted in JACS - congrats to Tom and Alivia! Click here to read it.


December 2018

We welcome graduate student Steve Sujansky to the Bandar Group!

Spencer defended his Masters thesis and is joining Array BioPharma in January. Good luck, Spencer!

Jeff has been selected as a 2019 Thieme Chemistry Journals Awardee. Click here to read about the award.


June 2018

Our alcohol addition work has been featured in Synform (here) and highlighted in Synfacts (here)!


MAY 2018

Jess Hendsey joins the group as a summer NSF-REU researcher from College of the Holy Cross - welcome!

Chaosheng's Synpacts review in Synlett has been accepted for publication!

We say goodbye to undergraduate students Ryann and Eliana for the summer - see you next year!


February 2018

The group's first paper has been published in JACS! Congratulations to Chaosheng! Click here to read it.


January 2018

Undergraduate students Ryann Daly, Eliana Okeson and Alivia Strong join the group!


December 2017

Graduate students Spencer Pajk, Tom Puleo and Shawn Wright join the group!


September 2017

The Bandar Lab is officially open and we welcome postdoctoral researchers Dr. Chaosheng Luo and Dr. Zisong Qi.