A new semester has started accompanied by a “seasonal” change of our team. Our Honours students have successfully graduated and our UROPS students have moved on after completing their projects. I wish them all the best for their endeavors. I am happy, that Haresh has decided to pursue a master degree in NHC chemistry. In addition, Christine Koh has joined the team for her Final Year Project, and Stefan M. J. Mitzinger visits our lab supported by funds from DAAD. Two other Honours students Quek Cai Zhen Sophie and See Xin Yi have followed Sharon Lim’s footsteps and started their Final Year Projects at ICES with my collaborators Drs Ludger Stubbs and Martin Van Meurs. Similarly, Tay Boon Ying from ICES has started her part-time M.Sc. project under co-supervision of Ludger and me.
Finally, I have been promoted to Associate Professor and need to thank particularly all my previous students for their hard work

The beginning of 2011 has seen some changes of our group again. Daniel has left the group after finishing his “Diplomarbeit” in November. Dr Han Yuan has also left the group after almost 6 years and accepted a job in the chemical industry. We wish both of them all the best and great success for their future.
In January, Jan C. Bernhammer from Germany joined the team as a new Ph.D. student with a SINGA scholarship. Hopefully, Jan can quickly adapt to the weather, life and working style in Singapore and produce great results for the group.

During the last few months, I have attended a few conferences and visited a few universities to give some talks. These trips offered me the possibility to meet many old friends and also to make new friends. Particularly enjoyable was the attendance of the 24th ICOMC 2010 in Taipei (Tawain), which was followed by a visit to the National Dong-Hwa University, Shoufeng, Hualien. In August/September, I also spent some time at the Hong Kong University hosted by Prof Patrick Toy as part the ACP lectureship program. Finally, I attended my first alumni meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation in Hanoi, Vietnam early this November.

Since August 2010, the Huynh Research Group has luckily grown back to a healthier size, and so Carbene Chemistry “Made in Singapore” will continue to thrive for the next few years. The new team members are Teng Qiaoqiao (Ph.D.), Guo Shuai (Ph.D.), Tang Haoyun (Ph.D.), Haresh S/O Sivaram (Hons), Ng Ping Siang (Hons), Yeo Chee Keong (Hons), Cliffton Ong Xiong Zheng (Hons), Wu Wenqin (UROPS) and Chong Chiew Mei (UROPS). In addition, the two new “senior” members Uma Maheswari and Xiao Linfei just joined the group this October. On the other hand, Hong Lee has submitted his M.Sc. thesis in August and is awaiting his graduation.

After a short stint of 2 months, Andrew Yeung left for the US early July to pursue his Ph.D. studies at Texas A&M with Donald J. Darensbourg. Now, there’s no one to treat me dinner at the Guild House. Anyway, we wish Andrew and Mel all the best in their new “home” for the next few years in College Station, TX.

On 30th of June 2010, the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY has been conferred to Basu as a 2nd member of this group. Dr Ramasamy Jothibasu has published 7 good papers so far and will start his postdoctoral position at KAUST towards the end of 2010, for which I wish him all the best.

During the last weekend of June (25-27) in 2010, we had our 2nd group retreat on the beautiful island of Tioman, Malaysia. The objective this time was to update our group manual with new additions and improvements and of course to have fun together. Although our group has shrunken compared to last year (Dr Han Yuan, Yuan Dan, Hong Lee and me), we had additional participants/visitors who joined in for the fun. Thus we enjoyed the company of my long-term study friends Drs Peter Maier and Phu Qui Nguyen, whom I have not seen for ~8 years. Our exchange student Daniel Upmann and his wife also came along. During those three days, we really enjoyed our time relaxing on the beach, snorkeling, feeding fishes and finishing numerous bottles of Tsingtao beer.

Congratulations to Han Yuan for being a finalist for the Reaxys PhD Prize, which awards original and innovative research in organic, organometallic and inorganic chemistry in a worlwide competition. As a finalist she is invited to participate in a special poster session and reception at the 3rd EuCheMS Chemistry Congress in Germany.

The semester has finally ended, and since the last post many things have changed in our group. The five honours students have completed their projects and have left the group. Of course we wish them all the best for their future endeavours. After a short stint, Dr Jana also went back to India to take care of his parents. Basu just had his memorable PhD defense on 12th May and will be soon working as a postdoctoral fellow in the team of Prof. Pastorin at the Department of Pharmacy. Andrew Yeung has returned as a Research Assistant for a short period of two months prior to starting his graduate studies at Texas A&M. Another new member is Daniel Upmann from WWU, Münster (Germany) who will conduct his Diploma research in the group. Currently, we are also recruiting a new batch of Honours students. So those who have a passion for synthetic chemistry are welcomed to apply.
Finally, I am particularly happy to see that our paper “¹³C NMR Spectroscopic Determination of Ligand Donor Strengths Using N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes of Palladium(II)” has made it into the top 20 of the most read papers in Organometallics during the last 12 months.

2010 is already 1 month old, I realized that the last entry was months ago. I was probably too busy, too comfortable or simply too lazy to update the webpage. Anyway, many things have happened since the last entry and therefore this update will be rather “concentrated”.
Let’s start with some old “news” on group members:
Sometimes in August 2009, five new Honours students (Ivan, Geck Woon, Chee Fei, Tiffany and Sharon) started their FYPs and are soon already finishing their work. Dr. Han Yuan has returned from China and has re-joined the group now as my first research fellow! Dr. Surajit Jana from the Mitzel group in Germany is our second new research fellow. In the meantime, we also had three visiting students from different countries (Saikat Manna from IIT Karagpur, India; Van Manh Pham from ENSCM Montepellier, France; and Emily Lai from UBC Vancouver, Canada) for a short period in our lab. Earlier this month Jothibasu has submitted his thesis and is curently enjoying his life in India while waiting for his defence.
The pictures of these guys and girls can be found at the “Group Members” or “Former Group Members” pages.