Contacts

Education and Employment:

July 2017 - present: Associate Professor with tenure, Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo.

November 2011 – June 2017: Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo. 

October 2010 – October 2011: Post-Doctoral Fellow: Biorefining Conversions Network, Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada) under the supervision of Dr. F.G. West.

January 2008­ – August 2010: NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellow: Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University (Colorado, USA) under the supervision of Dr. John L. Wood. 

November 2006 – November 2007: JSPS Post-Doctoral Fellow: Department of Chemistry, Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan) under the supervision of Dr. M. Hirama.

September 2001 – October 2006: Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry): Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada) under the supervision of Dr. F.G. West.

September 1994 – December 2000: B.Sc. (Chemistry Major, Co-Op Program): University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada).

Honours and Awards:

Keith Fagnou Award of the Canadian Chemical Society, 2021

Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Science, University of Waterloo. 2018, 2015

Province of Ontario Early Researcher Award, 2016

CNC-IUPAC Travel Award, 2016 (For attending ICOS21 in Bombay, India)

Chem Club Periodic Table of Teaching Excellence Award 2014

NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2008­–2010

JSPS Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2006–2007

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Inc. Graduate Scholarship, 2004

NSERC PGS D2, 2004–2006

Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Graduate Studentship, 2002–2007

Coop Employment:

January - August 2001: Merck-Frosst, Montreal, QC.

May 1999  - April 2000: Kao Corporation, Tochigi, Japan.

January - August 1998: Raylo Chemical, Edmonton, AB.

May - August 1997: Suncor Energy, Fort McMurray, AB.

January - April 1996: Cominco LTD, Vancouver, BC.

Dr. Yulia Vlasenko joined the lab as part of the NSERC Alliance-funded deuterium science project.

Welcome to the group!

Avery has joined the group for his M.Sc./Ph.D. studies, and completed his PhD in 2024.

He is exploring new areas for fluorinative rearrangements, in the context of cyclizations and ring expansions.

He spent a semester in Leipzig, Germany on a DAAD fellowship in the lab of Dr. Tanja Gulder.

Lately, he has been perturbing the bonding in fluoroiodanes, looking for new reactivity.

In addition to his OGS awards, he has won two WIN Nanofellowships and was the 2023 recipient of the Charles S Humphrey Award from GWC2.

Carlee is pursuing new reactions of iodonium ylides, guided by computational analysis. She started working on X–H insertions of iodonium ylides and is now pursuing new blue LED reactivity.

Winner of the Charles S. Humphrey Award from GWC2.

Winner of the Chem795 Doctoral Seminary Award from GWC2.

Winner of the 2024 J. Alan George Leadership Award from UWaterloo.

Annie joins us from the University of Toronto. Welcome!

Harjeet joins us from the University of Guelph. Welcome

Nuro joins us from the University of Toronto. Welcome!

Isabel will be working on new fluorination methods for iodonium ylides.

Tessa is working on deuteration and PAH syntheses.

Milena is working on deuterated small-molecule syntheses.

Fabio joined the group to work on new fluorination methods. He has particularly focused on fluorinative cyclizations using a fluoroiodane, and is currently testing new reactivity of vinyliodonium ions.

In addition to his NSERC and OGS awards, he was a 2021 and 2023 recipient of a WIN Nanofellowship.

Ben was a Chem494 BSc Thesis Project (2021) student working with iodonium ylides.

He has returned to the group to work on deuteration of small molecule organics as part of an NSERC Alliance collaboration.

Dr. Radell Echemendía Pérez joins us from the Chemistry Institute of São Carlos, USP, Brazil. He is part of a FAPESP-funded collaboration between us and the lab of Dr. Antonio C. B. Burtoloso, merging sulfur and iodine chemistry.

Emma is working on novel iodonium ylide synthesis.

Ye is working on the synthesis of novel (diacetoxyiodo)arenes, for use in metallonitrene chemistry.

Sarah joins us from Queen's University, to explore iodonium ylides using both organic and computational chemistry.

Peter joins us as part of a collaboration with the Dieckmann Lab, building labelled probes for NMR studies.

Shubham joins us from IIT Kharagpur as a Mitacs Globalink Summer Intern. He is working on new reactions of HVI reagents.

Mr. Nayar will join an existing project on iodine-mediated alkene arylations.

Josh is carrying on the work of intramolecular iodonium flurinations.

Massimo is a 1st year MSc student from Université Grenoble Alpes in France. He joined the group for his international internship placement, and will work on denitrogenative fluorinations of hydrazone derivatives.

Welcome Massimo!

Mike has joined the team to work on deutaration chemistry.

Welcome!

Carina is working on iodoarene catalysis.

Welcome to the group!

Audrey is working on the synthesis and reactivity of cyclic iodonium ylides.

Welcome to the group!

Eleanor is working on blue light photochemistry of HVI reagents.

Welcome to the group!

Tristan develops new hypervalent iodine-based methods to generate cyclopropanes. He works with monocarbonyl iodonium ylides and dicarbonyl iodonium ylides. He recently began investigating the blue LED photochemistry of iodonium ylides.

In November 2019, we was recognized with the "Best Flash Talk" of the 30th QOMSBOC meeting. Congratulations!

He finished his PhD in 2021 and has headed off to industry.

All the best Tristan!

Islam recently completed her BSc at the University of Waterloo, and she joined the Murphy Lab for her graduate work.

It should be evident that she works with LEDs.

Dan has joined the lab to work on fluorinated heterocycle synthesis.

Kevin worked on halogenative cyclization reactions for his Chem494 thesis project, and he returned to the group this fall for his MSc studies.

Welcome back Kevin!

And now he's all done! Thanks for all the hard work Kevin, and best of luck in your career.

Liam works on oxidative alkene arylation reactions. When he's not doing this, he's usually trying to come up with some new reactions.

Leanne works in collaboration with the Valliant group at McMaster University. Her research focuses on the use of hypervalent iodine reagents to incorporate radioactive fluorine in biologically relevant molecules.

She is a recipient of the H.G. Thode Postdoctoral Fellowship in Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Sciences.

Mila joins the lab as a Chem494 thesis student, working on new oxidation strategies for catalytic iodosoarene generation. 

Zoltan has joined the group as part of our recent NSERC Engage project synthesizing phenol-based natural products.

Welcome to the group!

Prachi is working with Avery on the synthesis of enone precursors for HVI-mediated reactions.

Welcome to the group!

Shafa is working with Tristan on photo-initiated reactions.

Grace just keeps coming back for more hypervalent iodine...

She started in the lab as a UW URI Co-op Student in Winter 2016 and worked on halogenation reactions. She came back for another term in Fall 2016 to work on new chemistry of iodonium ylides .

Now she has come back to work with us for her Chem494 thesis project, developing medicinal applications of HVI reagents.

Zhao developed many of our hydrazone and fluorinative rearrangement projects.

We wish him all the best as he pursues his next training at The Scripps Research Institute.

Thanks!

Lilian has joined the group to work on an asymmetric version of our metal-free "carbenoid" reactions, in collaboration with the Quideau Lab of the University of Bordeaux.

Welcome!

Denzel joined the lab in 2016 and worked jointly between the Murphy and Hopkins labs as part of a project with the UWaterloo start-up company Suncayr (UW Co-op Student, January-August 2016).

He returned as a joint student for his Chem494 undergraduate thesis project, which will involve the total synthesis of "societally-relevant" natural products...

Matthew worked on new fluorination reactions of allenes.

Amanda has joined the group to work on our deuteration project with our industrial partner, and hopefully spruce up the group website.

Welcome to the lab!

Jason plays with diazoketone functionalization and whatever else he dreams up. He also seems to like investigating new reactivity of HVI reagents, including cyclopropanation reactions of iodonium ylides. 

Jasmin works on halogenation and ligand transfer reactions between hypervalent iodine reagents and organophosphorus compounds.

Myriam joined the group in Fall 2015 to work on new halogenation reactions of hypervalent iodine reagents. After developing some novel Apple-type chemistry, she moved on to the fluorination of hydrazones.

She defended her MSc thesis in September 2017 and is off to see the world.

Best of luck!

Richard started in the group as a coop student.

After a stint at Syncrude, he returned to the Murphy lab to do his  Chem494 Undergraduate Project. 

Then Richard joined the group for his MSc in Fall 2015. When Richard wasn't fluorinating molecules like a champ, he's usually lounging under a tree with his guitar. He's still an inspiration to all the guys in the group...

Now that he's done, he has moved on to industry, taking a position with Piramal Solutions.

Nomaan has joined the lab as our Winter coop student. He is working on an industrial synthesis project funded by NSERC.

When Farhana wasn't in the chemistry lab, she could be found at local basketball slam dunk contests.  During her time in the lab she became a pro at making and derivatizing diazoisatins.

Farhana loves us to much that she's coming back for the Chem494 Undergraduate Thesis Project.  Welcome back!

Abhi has joined the Murphy & Nazar groups under the NRCan umbrella to work on the design, synthesis and evaluation of organic electrolytes for battery technologies. 

Welcome to the group!

Geoff joined the group (as the first member of the Murphy/Hopkins research collaboration) as a UW Coop Student (Summer 2014). After a four-month placement in the Hopkins lab doing modelling studies on the activation step of the fluorination reaction, Geoff has now come to the organic lab to put his results to the test.

He decided he couldn't get enough of the good times, so he stuck with us for his Chem494 Undergraduate Project.

Welcome (back) to the group!

Luke is working on the intramolecular a-carbonyl functionalization. He also enjoys the colour orange... (what's with that?)