Our Plenary Speakers
Dr. Curtis Rieder
Invited Talk: Batch and Continuous Flow as Complementary Processes for Scaling Highly Energetic Chemistry
Biography
Curtis Rieder is a Principal Scientist in Process Development at Gilead Sciences in Edmonton. He earned his BSc from the University of Saskatchewan and PhD from the University of Alberta with Fred West, followed by postdoctoral research at New York University with Keith Woerpel. Curtis joined Gilead in 2012 and has supported drug substance development across the clinical lifecycle. Outside Gilead, he has served on the Canadian Society for Chemistry Board of Directors as Industrial Liaison, chairs the Transitions Program at the CSC Conference and is a co-organizer of the CORGI seminar series.
Prof. Mary P. Watson
Invited Talk: Deaminative Cross-Couplings
The ubiquity of alkyl amines and the ease of their synthesis makes them attractive precursors for a variety of transformations. In contrast to their classical use as starting materials for complex nitrogen-containing products, we have developed a suite of deaminative methods to convert primary amino groups (NH2) into various carbon substituents via Katritzky pyridinium salt intermediates. Our recent progress will be discussed, including enantioselective and difunctionalization reactions, along with peptide macrocyclization strategies.
Biography
Mary Watson completed an A.B. in Chemistry at Harvard University in 2000, where she performed research with Prof. David Evans. Under Prof. Larry Overman, she earned a Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of California, Irvine. She was then a NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Professor Eric Jacobsen. In 2009 she joined the University of Delaware, where her group develops catalytic methods for the synthesis of organic molecules. Her research has received generous support from the University of Delaware Research Foundation, the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, Pfizer, and the Department of Energy (EFRC). Her research impact has been recognized with a Cope Scholar Award, the 2023 ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Science, a Rising Star award from the Women Chemists’ Committee of the American Chemical Society, a Delaware ACS Section Award, and as a 2023 ACS Fellow. Mary was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016 and to Professor in 2018, and currently serves as a co-organizer of the annual Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry conference and the proud mom of two daughters and two Bernese Mountain dogs.
Prof. Micheal T. Taylor
Invited Talk: Aromatic Cation Photochemistry for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery
Biography
Michael grew up in Salisbury, Maryland. He received his B.S. from Salisbury University in 2006, where he was an undergraduate researcher in Professor Elizabeth Papish’s group. He received his Ph.D. in 2013 from the University of Delaware, where he worked in Professor Joseph Fox's laboratory. His research in the Fox group focused on the development of new synthetic methods, the total synthesis of natural products, and the development of bio-orthogonal chemistry. Michael then moved to the United Kingdom to take up a post-doctoral position in the laboratory of Professor Matthew Gaunt at the University of Cambridge, where he was awarded a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2014. His research at Cambridge primarily focused on the development of a non-classical reactive platform for the selective chemical modification of proteins. In 2017, Michael moved back across the pond to take up his position in the Chemistry Department at the University of Wyoming. In August of 2022, Michael moved to Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of Arizona and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in Fall 2025. Michael’s research program is underpinned by an interest in developing organic transformations for use at the chemistry-biology interface.