Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

Biography

2013-present

Research Professor, University of Notre Dame

2008-2013

Associate Research Professor, University of Notre Dame

2006-2008

Associate Specialist, University of California, Santa Cruz

2002-2006

Assistant Specialist, University of California, Berkeley

2000-2002

Postdoctoral Research Scholar, University of California, Berkeley

2000

Ph.D. in Chemistry, Waikato University, New Zealand

1994

M.S. in Chemistry, Waikato University, New Zealand

1993

B.S. in Chemistry, Waikato University, New Zealand

Research Interests

Crystallography is the study of crystals, their form and structure. In chemistry, we most commonly use crystallography to determine the composition and connectivity of the atoms that make up crystals. From this we can get the 3D molecular structure or the extended structure, which is useful to answer questions of coordination, connectivity, function, reactivity, biological activity, and more. Here at Notre Dame, we use crystallography to study models for the heme site in proteins, to study drug candidates, metal-organic frameworks, and the structure of carbohydrates, as well to study more basic questions of coordination chemistry.

The Molecular Structure Facility is a department resource providing single-crystal X-ray structure determinations for researchers both within the department and without. We perform hundreds of experiments each year, using three state of the art instruments. Most of the experiments are performed by students for their own research after coursework and individual training in crystallography.

Recent Papers

• Díaz, D.E., Llanos, L., Arce, P., Lorca, R., Guerrero, J., Costamagna, J., Aravena, D., Ferraudi, G., Oliver, A., Lappin, A.G., Lemus, L. "Steric and Electronic Factors Affecting the Conformation of Bimetallic CuI Complexes: Effect of the Aliphatic Spacer of Tetracoordinating Schiff-Base Ligands" 2018 Chemistry - A European Journal, 24 (52), pp. 13839-13849. DOI: 10.1002/chem.201802290
• Hu, C., Oliver, A.G., Turowska-Tyrk, I., Scheidt, W.R. "A study of the effect of axial ligand steric hindrance" 2018 Journal of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines, 22 (7), pp. 588-595. DOI: 10.1142/S1088424618500700
• Liu, W., Oliver, A.G., Smith, B.D. "Macrocyclic Receptor for Precious Gold, Platinum, or Palladium Coordination Complexes" 2018 Journal of the American Chemical Society, 140 (22), pp. 6810-6813. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b04155
• Li, M., Oliver, A.G., Scheidt, W.R. "Characterization of Metalloporphines: Iron(II) Carbonyls and Environmental Effects on νcO" 2018 Inorganic Chemistry, 57 (9), pp. 5648-5656. DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b00599
• Zhang, X., Tutkowski, B., Oliver, A., Helquist, P., Wiest, O. "Mechanistic Study of the Nickel-Catalyzed α,β-Coupling of Saturated Ketones" 2018 ACS Catalysis, 8 (3), pp. 1740-1747. DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.7b04105​​​​​​​
• Helgert, T.R., Webster, C.E., Hollis, T.K., Valle, H.U., Hillesheim, P., Oliver, A.G. "Free methylidyne? CCC-NHC tantalum bis(imido) reactivity: protonation, rearrangement to a mixed unsymmetrical CCC-N-heterocyclic carbene/N-heterocyclic dicarbene (CCC-NHC/NHDC) pincer tantalum bis(imido) complex" 2018 Inorganica Chimica Acta, 469, pp. 164-172. DOI: 10.1016/j.ica.2017.08.050