About the Speaker:

Education and Affiliation:

Research:

Professor Johnston obtained his B.S. (Honors) in Chemistry (summa cum laude) in 1992 from Xavier University. While at Xavier, he completed his undergraduate thesis research with Professor Robert G. Johnson. He continued his training in organic chemistry at the Ohio State University working with Leo A. Paquette. There, he developed the oxonium ion-mediated pinacol rearrangement and was involved with two efforts in natural products total synthesis (polycavernoside A, taxol). In 1997, he moved to Harvard to join Professor David A. Evans as an NIH postdoctoral fellow. In the Evans group, he developed (with M. Willis, U. Bath) the first highly diastereoselective and enantioselective Mukaiyama-Michael reactions using bisoxazoline copper(II) Lewis acids as catalysts while delineating the associated mechanistic details. He began his independent career at Indiana University in 1999 and was ultimately promoted to Professor of Chemistry with tenure. In 2006, he moved with his research group to Vanderbilt University where he is currently a Stevenson Professor of Chemistry and a member of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology. He is also currently Director of the VU-Beckman Scholars Program for undergraduate research, and co-Director of the Synthesis Core Facility. His research program has been recognized by several organizations, including the Boehringer-Ingelheim New Investigator Award, the Yamanouchi and Astellas faculty awards, an Amgen Young Investigator Award, and an Eli Lilly Grantee Award. At Indiana University, he received the IU Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, as well as an IU Trustees Teaching Award. In 2011, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), awarded a Stevenson Endowed Chair, and was a recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Research. He was a 2013 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellow, received the ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award in 2014, and a Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship in 2016. Since 2016, he has served on the Board of Directors for the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the leading private supporter of research(ers) in the chemical and biological sciences. His short C.V. can be found here. His group is a 2-time winner of the VICB Most Highly Cited Article award.

For more information on his research, take a look at the website.