Welcome to the Caputo Lab @ YorkU
Recent Highlights
Big congrats to Taylor on being awarded an NSERC CGS-D! 
Taylor, Sam, and Avik’s work was recently published in Chemical Communications as a Hot Article! 
Incredible presentations by Taylor, Charley, and Casey at the Canadian Society for Chemistry conference in Winnipeg.
Latest News
June 2024 – We’d like to welcome Liza and Grazia who are joining us as undergraduate researchers this summer! Congrats to Taylor for recently publishing her findings on redox-active Lewis acids in Chemical Communications where the work was chosen as a Hot Article where she had the chance to design the Front Cover! A lot of presentations have happened over the last few months; Casey, Charley, and Taylor all presented their research at the recent Canadian Society for Chemistry conference in Winnipeg; Lucas presented his work at the 20th European Workshop on Phosphorus Chemistry in Würtzburg, Germany.
January 2024 – Just because I am terrible at updating the latest news in a timely manner doesn’t mean the team hasn’t been accomplishing some fantastic things! Three papers were published from the group this fall – congrats to Taylor for publishing her work on air- and moisture-stable Lewis acidic borinic acids in RSC Sustainability. We also published a culmination of so many team members work on understanding the mechanism of genipin dye formation in Dyes and Pigments. Big shout out to Charley, Avik, Nico, Fiona, Jesse, and Howard for getting this project across the finish line. Finally, thanks to Charley and Josh for putting our FLA method to work in a collaborative project with the Mehrkhodavandi group at the University of British Columbia, where we explored the Lewis acidity of cationic gallium and indium catalysts. This work was featured in ACS Catalysis.
Summer 2023 – A lot of exciting things have happened during the Winter and Spring this year! Both Dr. Nico Bonanno and Dr. Amandeep Brar have moved on to successful careers in industry, thank you both for your contributions to the team and we wish you all the best as you enter the next phase of your careers! Samantha Henneberry successfully defended her CHEM4000 thesis and gave a stellar presentation at SOUSCC51 at Trent University. We also welcomed Nicole Frias to the group as a summer NSERC USRA student.
Casey, Taylor, and Avik travelled to the CSC Conference in Vancouver to present their work, and Casey took home a poster prize for top presentation! Congrats!! Two papers came out of the group as well, congrats to Amy, Josh, Paul and Thomas for expanding the FLA method with their publication in the inaugural issue of Precision Chemistry. Furthermore, Lucas, Amandeep, Clive, and Jesse’s work on allenic phosphonium borate zwitterions was published in ZAAC in a special issue for Dr. Doug Stephan’s 70th birthday.
December 2022 – Some exciting news to share from the lab; first off Chris’ Canada Research Chair was renewed for another 5-year term and he was granted tenure and promoted at York. Secondly, kudos to Lucas for being awarded a Mitacs Globalink Research Award to undertake a 6-month exchange at the University of Innsbruck in Austria! Finally, both Lucas and Taylor gave fantastic presentations at the 53rd Inorganic Discussion Weekend at Brock University and Taylor was awarded a presentation prize for her work. Congrats everyone!
Fall 2022 – We say goodbye and a big thank you to Dr. Josh Gaffen and Lily Hoang as they leave the group. Wishing them all the best in their future endeavours! With departures, we also welcome several new faces to the team, Casey Lenart, Dr. Avik Bhattacharjee, Na-Yung Seoh, and Samantha Henneberry.
Also, congrats to Paul, Josh, and Thomas on our recent publication in the special issue of Canadian Journal of Chemistry honouring Dr. Suning Wang.
Spring 2022 – First off, many congrats to Nico for being awarded an NSERC PDF award, Lucas for receiving an NSERC PGS-D, and Taylor for winning the Michael Pollard Award. Congrats to Lily for successfully defending her CHEM4000 thesis, and we want to thank Angela for volunteering as a YSSA student over the last year, best of luck with everything!
Keep an eye out for presentations from our lab this summer, Charley and Taylor will be presenting their work at the CCCE in Calgary this year. Chris participated in Science Meets Parliament as a delegate this spring, meeting with MPs and other Government Officials on Parliament Hill to discuss the importance of science.
Fall 2021 – It has been a hectic summer as lab operations begin to return to normal. First, a big congratulations to Amy for successfully defending her M.Sc. Thesis over the summer! We welcomed a number of new members to the team over the last few months. Three postdoctoral fellows have joined the team, Dr. Nico Bonanno from Brock University, Dr. Amandeep Brar from Texas Tech University, and Dr. Josh Gaffen has joined as a joint postdoctoral fellow between Chris and Dr. Thomas Baumgartner. Furthermore, Taylor Cosby joins us from Western University as a M.Sc. student, and Lily Hoang has started her CHEM4000 Thesis this fall.
Lucas’ paper on allenic phosphonium borate zwitterions was recently published in Chemical Communications. Chris co-wrote a book chapter with Dr. Meera Mehta from the University of Manchester on state-of-the-art Frustrated Lewis Pair Chemistry for Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry. Finally, our first collaborative paper with the VandenBoer lab was published in Analyst.