By Wendy PlumpDepartment of ChemistryThursday, Apr. 23, 2026 Paul Chirik shifts into high-energy mode when the subject of plastic arises, as it so often does these days. For Chirik, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry and a longtime researcher on methods that could dramatically improve chemical recycling, Earth Day provides an opportunity to introduce another perspective, one…
By Wendy PlumpDepartment of ChemistryThursday, Apr. 16, 2026 Tianyi Zhang, a fourth-year graduate student in the Paul Chirik Group, has been named a 2026-27 Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellow, acknowledging outstanding performance and professional promise through one of Princeton University’s highest honorifics. Zhang was selected for his research in organometallic catalysis. His thesis title is Understanding Spin and…
M.A., March 2026, Princeton University.
By Wendy PlumpDepartment of ChemistryTuesday, Nov. 11, 2025 The functionalization of carbon–hydrogen (C-H) bonds so crucial to catalysis is a complex chemical process with many challenges. Improving its efficiency has huge ramifications for medicines, energy needs, and the sustainability of the nation’s products and technologies. That goal has been at the heart of the Paul Chirik Lab’s…
Princeton Class of 2028.
kt5806@princeton.eduVisiting Ph.D. Student from the University of Oxford
Ph.D., June 2025, Princeton University.Research Scientist, ExxonMobil“Catalytic Weak Chemical Bond Synthesis Using H2 as a Terminal Reductant and Superstoichiometric Ammonia Synthesis Using N2 and H2“
Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, 2022 Advisor: Sarah E. ReismanSenior Chemist at Quadratic 3D, Inc
Princeton Class of 2025.
Princeton Class of 2025.