Prof. Nelson earned a B.S. in Chemistry from University of California at Berkeley in 2005 and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2013. After postdoctoral training at University of California at Berkeley, Prof. Nelson joined the UCLA faculty in 2015. In 2021 he joined Caltech’s Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Prof. Nelson’s research program is focused on the development of enabling technologies for chemical synthesis. His group focuses on this goal through two primary avenues of research. 1) In their structural chemistry subgroup they develop new electron microscopy techniques that enable the characterization of complex molecules, often unattainable using traditional methods. 2) Their synthetic subgroup focuses on the development of new chemical reactions that will enable the efficient and rapid synthesis of bioactive compounds.

Pauline Chiu enrolled in the BSc Honours program in Chemistry at the University of Toronto.  She joined the laboratory of the late Prof. Adrian Brook to do a BSc final year thesis in 1987, and was the last graduate student of Professor Brook when she completed her Master’s thesis which was on the chemistry of silenes in 1990.  She continued pursuing her PhD with NSERC (National Science & Engineering Research Council of Canada) support under the supervision of Prof. Mark Lautens at the University of Toronto in 1990-1994, working on the organometallic transformations of oxabicyclic compounds.  Then under further NSERC support, she went on to do postdoctoral work with Prof. Samuel J. Danishefsky at Columbia University in 1994-1995, New York, working on the total synthesis of gelsemine.  She started her independent career at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hong Kong, and she has been Professor in organic chemistry since 2011.  Her research interests are in cycloaddition and cascade reactions, and development of new methodology as applied to natural product total synthesis.  She is also interested in developing copper-mediated chemical transformations and reactions to synthesize medium-sized rings.

Ms. Noelyn Go-Cruz is a professional librarian. She has been with the Engineering Library since 2014. Currently, she is the head of the Information Services section handling tasks such as the management and promotion of electronic resources, facilitating information literacy instruction programs, and providing information and research services.