Professor of Chemistry
The Henry Rapoport Chair in Organic Chemistry
email: jhartwig@berkeley.edu
office: 718 Latimer Hall
phone: 510-642-2038
fax: 510-642-2049
lab: 707, 709, 719, 721 and 9th Floor Latimer Hall
lab phone: 510-642-2069 and 510-642-2072
student/post doc office: 707, 709, 719, 721 and 9th Floor Latimer Hall
Research Interests
Organic, Organometallic, and Inorganic Chemistry: Professor Hartwig's research group focuses on the discovery and understanding of new reactions of organic compounds catalyzed by transition metal complexes. These findings result from a combination of organic synthesis, organometallic synthesis and mechanistic analysis of catalytic systems.
The Hartwig group is currently investigating the selective catalytic functionalization of alkanes and arenes, cross-couplings to form arylamines and aryl ethers from aryl halides or sulfonates, cross-couplings that directly convert carbonyl compounds to α-aryl carbonyl derivatives, new catalysts for the hydroaminations of alkenes, catalysts for the enantioselective and site-selective allylic substitution, and catalysts for transformations of precursors to biofuels and renewable chemical feedstocks. His group has conducted extensive mechanistic investigations of each of these types of reactions. Through these studies, they have revealed several new classes of reductive eliminations, discrete compounds that functionalize alkanes, unusual three-coordinate arylpalladium complexes that are intermediates in cross-coupling, the first compounds that oxidatively add ammonia to form monomeric products, and the first transition-metal amido and alkoxo complexes that insert unactivated alkenes. In addition to these research activities he has authored the textbook titled Organotransition Metal Chemistry: From Bonding to Catalysis published December 2009.
Biography
Born 1964; B.A. Princeton Univ. (1986); Ph.D. Chemistry, Univ. of California, Berkeley (1990); American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1992); Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Yale Univ. (1992-96); Associate Professor of Chemistry (1996-98); Professor of Chemistry (1998-2004); Irénée DuPont Professor of Chemistry, Yale Univ. (2004-06); Kenneth L. Reinhart Jr. Professor of Chemistry, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2006-11); Henry Rapoport Chair in Organic Chemistry, Univ. of California, Berkeley, and Senior Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2011-present); GlaxoSmithKline Scholars Award (2010); National Institutes of Health MERIT Award (2009); Mitsui Chemicals Catalysis Science Award, Japan (2009); Joseph Chatt Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2009); Mukaiyama Award from the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (2008); International Catalysis Award, International Association of Catalysis Societies (2008); Paul N. Rylander Award, Organic Reactions Catalysis Society (2008); Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award in Organic Synthesis (2007); Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences (2007); ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (2006); Thieme-IUPAC Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2004); Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award (2003); A.C. Cope Scholar Award (1998).