Andreas Ehnbom, a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University, has been selected as a 2019 participant in the CAS Future Leaders Program, an elite scientific leadership immersion opportunity provided through the American Chemical Society.
Now in its 10th year, the CAS Future Leaders Program rewards early-career scientists with essential scientific, business and leadership training and a trip to the ACS National Meeting and Exposition, one of the most respected scientific meetings in the world. Ehnbom is one of 29 international Ph.D. and postdoctoral students representing 16 countries and a wide array of scientific disciplines chosen as the 2019 class, which includes 11 members from the United States.
From August 19-24, Ehnbom and his fellow CAS Future Leaders will visit CAS headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, to participate in multiple inspirational networking and leadership training sessions. At the conclusion of their stay in Columbus, CAS Future Leaders will travel as a group to the Fall 2019 ACS National Meeting & Expo, set for August 25-29 in San Diego.
“We are honored to host the next class of CAS Future Leaders, providing them with access to industry thought leaders and entrepreneurs as a means to help them propel their already impressive contributions to science,” said CAS President Manuel Guzman. “These participants were chosen from a competitive field of applicants from top institutions and labs around the world. CAS will arrange two weeks of opportunities for them to forge connections with potential research partners, gain exposure to global perspectives and be inspired by some of the best young minds in chemistry.”
Since June 2015, Ehnbom has been pursuing doctoral studies at Texas A&M as a member of two different laboratories — Texas A&M chemist Dr. John A. Gladysz’ research group and that of Texas A&M theoretical chemist Dr. Michael B. Hall within the Laboratory for Molecular Simulation. The ultimate goal of Ehnbom’s research is to understand and predict the function of newly designed Werner complexes, a new class of catalysts for enantioselective organic synthesis. A 2019 Phil Gramm Doctoral Fellow at Texas A&M, he previously was honored in 2018 with a predoctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation that enabled him to visit RWTH Aachen and several other research groups throughout Germany.
Prior to coming to Texas A&M four years ago, Ehnbom received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from Lund University in Sweden in 2013. As an undergraduate, he participated in exchange studies abroad at the University of California at Irvine (2011-2012), earning summa cum laude honors as a junior specialist in Dr. Suzanne A. Blum’s research group, where he focused on a single-molecule project — investigating the mechanism of a Pd-catalyzed reaction.
Ehnbom received numerous awards, including the Oxford University Press Award for excellence in chemistry and the Dean’s Summer Student Scholarship from University College London (UCL), the latter of which enabled him to perform research on antimalarial drugs as a member of Dr. Graeme Hogarth’s research group at UCL. In addition, Ehnbom was a guest researcher at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, during the summer of 2011 with Dr. Selwin Mapolie. He continuously worked in Dr. Ebbe Nordlander’s laboratory during his undergraduate studies — work that later resulted in a highly cited publication.
After his stint at Irvine, Ehnbom returned to Lund University, where he worked with gold (I) catalysis in the Dr. Ola Wendt’s research group en route to his master’s degree. He then worked as a project researcher with Dr. Peter Somfai, focusing on photoredox catalysis and authoring a book chapter in Organic Reactions entitled “Aziridination of Alkenes using Nitrene Transfer Reagents.”
To learn more about CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, and CAS Future Leaders, go to https://www.cas.org/.
For more information on graduate studies in chemistry at Texas A&M, visit https://www.chem.tamu.edu/graduate/.
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Contact: Shana K. Hutchins, (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@science.tamu.edu or Andreas Ehnbom, (979) 845-5978 or lehnbom@tamu.edu
