Senior in Chemistry
Hometown: Englishtown, New Jersey
Research Project: Iterative Synthesis of Csp3 Rich Small Molecules by using Bifunctional Carbenoid-Boronate Building Blocks
Faculty Sponsor: Prof. Martin Burke
Research Mentor: Dr. Daniel Blair

Prior to Illinois, Sriya conducted research on near infrared probes in the Ramachandran Lab at Rutgers. In her sophomore year at U of I, she joined the Burke Lab and developed a new method to forge sp3-sp3 carbon-carbon bonds with high enantiospecificity enabling the building block-based synthesis of three dimensionally enriched small molecules. Her current project builds off her preliminary research and focuses on completing the synthesis of specific building blocks and exploring the scope and limitations of the novel Csp3 cross coupling method.

Sriya has presented her work in various local and national conferences. She has won the “Outstanding Poster Prize” for for two consecutive years (2018 and 2019) for her presentations at the East Central Illinois ACS Conference. She was also awarded “Best Poster” in the 2019 National Conference for Women in Physical Sciences. She has also been awarded funding to support her research.

As early as her sophomore year, Sriya has been taking graduate level courses in chemistry. She also volunteers at local high schools to educate students about science and serves as a mentor to her fellow undergraduate students.

Starting Fall 2021, she will be pursuing her PhD at Stanford, after which she hopes to continue research in academia to become a research professor at an R1 institution.

Fun Facts:
Sriya loves singing pop music and South Asian classical music. She enjoys watching Netflix documentaries on politics, crime, science, and industry.