Education

B.S., 1997, Arizona State University
Ph.D., 2003, University of Texas – Austin
Postdoc, 2003-2005, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Honors and Awards

USC Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award, 2022
USC AI Faculty Partner of the Year, 2014
Division of Organic Chemistry Young Academic Award, 2014
Breakthrough Rising Star UofSC, 2013
SC EPSCoR Diversity Award, 2012
NSF CAREER Award, 2011-2016

Research

Synthetic methodology, organocatalysis, physical organic.

The Wiskur research group is interested in the fundamentals of how reactions work, from what forces drive intermolecular interactions between substrates and catalysts to how microenvironments around reaction sites affect reaction outcomes.  We are physical organic chemists applying our knowledge to the world of asymmetric chemistry. We work in the area of organocatalysis, and the intermolecular interactions that drive selectivity within these systems.  Techniques such as kinetics and linear free energy relationships help us to tease out the important interactions that affect these reactions so that these interactions can be purposefully introduced in future systems.  Ultimately, understanding the details of what drives reaction rates and selectivity will aid chemists in future reaction and catalyst development.

Selected Publications

Gong, Z.; Smith, A.; Farah, A. O.; Dickerson, S. D.;  González-Montiel, G. A.; Laddusaw, J. M.; Cheong, P. H.-Y.; Wiskur, S. L.  J. Org. Chem. 2023, 88, 16898-16905.  DOI: 10.1021/acs.joc.3c01721

Dickerson, S. D.; Ayare, P. J.; Vannucci, A. K.; Wiskur, S. L. “Exploration of Silicon Phthalocyanines as Viable Photocatalysts for Organic Transformations” J. Photochem. Photobiol A., 2022, 422, 113547. DOI: 10.1016/j.jphotochem.2021.113547

Redden, B. K.; Clark, R. W.; Gong, Z.; Rahman, M. M.; Peryshkov, D. V.; Wiskur, S. L. “Mechanistic Investigations of Alcohol Silylation with Isothiourea Catalysts” Org. Biomol. Chem. 2021, DOI: 10.1039/d1ob01732b.

Zhang, T.; Dickerson, S. D.; Zhu, T.; Tang, C.; Wiskur, S. L. “Polymer compositions on kinetic resolution of secondary alcohols using polymer-supported silyl chlorides” Polym. Chem., 2020, 11, 5011. DOI: 10.1039/d0py00747a

Zhang, T.; Reddon, B.; Wiskur, S. L. “Investigation of electrostatic interactions towards controlling silylation-based kinetic resolutions” Eur. J. Org. Chem., 2019, 4827-4831. DOI: 10.1002/ejoc.201900754

Wang, L.; Akhani, R. K.; Wiskur, S. L. “Diastereoselective and Enantioselective Silylation of 2-Aryl Cyclohexanols” Org. Lett. 2015, 17, 2408−2411. DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.5b00919