Research

Creativity. Sustainability. Reactivity.

Research in the Fout group aims to design and characterize novel metal complexes to answer sustainability challenges in chemistry. We leverage ligand design to access new chemical space and mediate unusual multi-electron reactivity.

Bioinorganic

The architecture of metalloproteins inspires our approach to ligand scaffold design. Featuring a hydrogen-bonding network for stabilizing reactive intermediates and channeling substrates, as well as functional moities for tuning redox potential, the structure mediates multi-electron transformations and models small molecule activation of metalloenzymes.

Organometallic

Drawn to the low toxicity and earth abundance of first-row transition metals, our complexes have overcome one-electron pathways common to first-row metals through employing a strong-field ligand framework. These systems have also demonstrated tunable reactivity of the metal site through structural modifications.

Students in the group develop a strong foundation in synthetic inorganic chemistry and master a suite of characterization techniques. Alumni have brought these skills all over the world into chemical industry, national research, and academic spaces.

Are you an undergraduate, graduate, or postdoctoral researcher interested in researching with us?

We want to hear from you.