About

Shabnam Akhtari is a professor at the Department of Mathematics in the Eberly College of Science at Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include Number Theory, Geometry of Numbers, and Diophantine Analysis. Her work focuses on these areas, contributing to the understanding of their fundamental properties and interrelations.

Research topics

• Medicinal chemistry
• Organic chemistry
• Chemistry
• Photochemistry
• Physical chemistry
• Stereochemistry

Selected publications

• Shapeshifting Ligand Masks Lewis Acidity of Dicationic Palladium(II)

  2023 · 1 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Chemistry
  • Photochemistry
  • Medicinal chemistry

  Supporting ligands reduce the Lewis acidity of transition metal ions, limiting the degree of electrophilic activation for any substrate. Here, we demonstrate that L1 and L2 mask the Lewis acidity of dicationic Pd(II) via a reversible C–N bond formation. These shapeshifting complexes catalyze electrophilic olefin isomerization, even in the presence of a polar functional group. The equilibrium between two coor-dination modes allows the system to access an electrophilic state that is comparable to a “naked” Pd(II) Lewis acid. However, because these shapeshifting systems are not sub-ject to the same rate determining step (via interconversion with a second less electrophilic state), they are also faster catalysts than the benchmark Pd(II) Lewis acid. Overall, we demonstrate that catalytic systems featuring reversible dy-namics can be advantaged relative to structurally static counterparts.

  DOI

• Metal/Ligand Proton Tautomerism Facilitates Dinuclear H₂Reductive Elimination

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2020 · 27 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Chemistry
  • Medicinal chemistry
  • Stereochemistry

  . The tautomerization between the metal-hydride and the ligand protonated species provides a low energy pathway for ligand dissociation, opening the needed coordination site. The ability to control the interconversion between a metal-hydride and a ligand-protonated congener using an exogeneous ligand introduces a new strategy for catalyst design with proton responsive ligands.

  DOI

• Catalytic Cycloisomerization onto a Carbonyl Oxygen

  Organic Letters · 2020 · 17 citations

  • Chemistry
  • Photochemistry
  • Medicinal chemistry

  or Co(III)Cl precatalysts with silane reductants). These radicals can be converted to internal vinylindoles but eventually add to the oxygen of the cycloalkanone substituents. These cyclizations eventually furnish a densely functionalized dihydrofuran (a net cycloisomerization). The internal vinylindoles are slowly converted to the dihydrofurans, but the final cycloisomerization/isomerization ratio is affected by the size of the cycloalkanone ring (seven- and eight-membered rings give the highest ratio). These results demonstrate how HAT can isomerize substrates in nonintuitive ways, here leading to the first HAT-promoted formation of a C-O bond.

  DOI

Recent grants

• The Rates of Reaction Relevant to Aerobic Oxidation Catalysis by Palladium

  NIH · $202k · 2018–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Jack R. Norton

  Columbia University

  9 shared

• Karen I. Goldberg

  University of Pennsylvania

  8 shared

• Arthur Han

  5 shared

• Karli Sipps

  Pennsylvania State University

  5 shared

• Janine M. Abuyuan

  Barnard College

  4 shared

• Wyatt Gibbs

  Pennsylvania State University

  3 shared

• Joshua H. Palmer

  3 shared

• Elvira R. Sayfutyarova

  Pennsylvania State University

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Chemistry

  Columbia University

  2017

• B.S. Chemistry, Chemistry

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2012

Awards & honors

• NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018–2…
• Arun Guthikonda Memorial Graduate Fellowship (2017)
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2013-2016)

Similar researchers at Pennsylvania State University

• Long-Qing Chenh-150
• Qin Wangh-123
• Richard Alleyh-120
• William H. Bruneh-99
• Ayusman Senh-96