I am happy to announce that I will be continuing my education by pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry at Washington State University, where I plan to perform research in radiochemistry.

Check out Matt Heaney latest paper where we show that azo pigments… are not really azo pigments pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

We are looking for 2 postdocs! One will work on exp. modeling of the evaporites and karsts on Titan, and proving that earth-like life can survive (in) the lakes. We have excellent preliminary data and we are looking for a bright scientist to work with us on this exciting project!

A short thread on disability in chemistry and some food for thought. Again, I hate to be the one writing this. I'd much rather someone else did it so I could just retweet, but here we are... (1/12)

A few weeks ago, I ran a poll asking whether people had attended a scientific talk given by a speaker in a wheelchair. I imagine the responses were mostly weighted toward chemists, and 91% reported not having seen **one** such talk in the past **10 years**.

Roughly 10.4% of the American workforce is disabled, but only 2.7% of the workforce in science and engineering. Surveys of college freshman suggest disabled students are interested in STEM careers, but this interest does not translate into STEM degrees.

Barriers in finding accessible research opportunities could help explain this gap. Look around. In your training, how many disabled students did you encounter? How many talks did you attend where the speaker was disabled? Have you ever met a disabled research-active PI?

A lot of PIs don’t even need to be able to perform complex experiments in the laboratory. The most critical skills required of PIs include management, creativity, writing, teaching, mentoring. Yet we base faculty jobs on the experimental productivity of students and postdocs.

Look around your departments. How many labs have hoods that could be used by someone in a wheelchair? How many have NMR instruments that are accessible? Would your boss have tolerated someone chronically ill who could not work 8+ hours/day? Would you?

If a disabled student approached you and inquired about joining your lab, would you encourage them? Is your lab space welcoming? Do you have any idea how you’d accommodate someone deaf…paralyzed…blind…chronically ill? Would you secretly hope they’d choose another lab?

It’s not like performing benchwork in organic chemistry is climbing Everest or battling a superhuman mythical beast. Many students with disabilities could do it if given accessible lab space with an accommodating advisor.

Have you ever hosted someone disabled to visit your department? It’s kind of taxing. Did you book an accessible hotel room for them? Is there reliable accessible transportation from the airport and hotel to campus? Is your seminar room accessible? Your workspaces? Restaurants?

Anyway, sorry to be so negative. But accessibility—like avoiding sexism, racism, and discrimination of LGBTQIA+ chemists—is also something that we should think about more than we do.

When the Hudlický essay came out in June 2020, it was telling how many official statements were released (e.g., from RSC, ACS Publications, and individual PIs) that specifically mentioned avoiding discrimination based on race, gender, and sexual orientation but not disability.

I’m not trying to shame anyone. My simple point is that if the plight of disabled chemists is so easily overlooked by most of these organizations, leaders, and allies, what hope is there for meaningful inclusion? I fear the situation is not even slowly getting better, but worse.

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Amazing talk by Tom Runčevski at ICCOSS. He said talking about planets “Moon=Past, Mars=Present, Titan=Future”. I propose a new saying: “Men are from Mars, and Women from Titan”. Or how about “To a diverse Titan and a positively changing Mars” 😊

Art comes so natural to Pigment R4! We just let it crystalize and look at these sculptures and elaborated paintings on the vial's walls! I really enjoyed this fun project with Matt Heaney and Daniel! pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.102…

#chemtwitter Looking for a potential solution to sealing air sensitive compounds in a quartz capillary, and keeping them sealed if the capillary is put under vacuum. Tried paraffin wax, which mixed with samples when molten, and we can’t flame seal in a glovebox.

Super-excited to share our group's latest research Sayan Maiti in collaboration with Milner Group at Cornell University Matt Addicoat Tom Runčevski Matt Heaney and Prof. D'Souza's group at UNT Department of Chemistry onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ma…