Justin Bogart

Justin Bogart

Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry,
Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics

CONTACT INFORMATION

Courses

• General Chemistry I Laboratory
• General Chemistry II Lecture and Laboratory
• Inorganic Chemistry Lecture and Laboratory

Research

• Inorganic Synthesis
• Biomimetic Design
• C-H Bond Activation
• Catalysis

Education

• BA, Middlebury College
• PhD, University of Pennsylvania

Academic Profile

Teaching chemistry has been my passion ever since I fell in love with the subject in high school. I was fortunate to have amazing teachers throughout my education who really inspired me to think critically about the world around me and look at the unanswered questions through an experimental lens. I hope through my teaching and scholarship to pass this same passion for critical thinking along to the next generation of scientists.

My research interests involve the understanding of the chemistry of metal ions in biologically relevant systems with the intent of using such knowledge to design highly reactive model complexes. By mimicking the structural motifs that nature has engineered into metalloproteins, students in my laboratory will prepare metal complexes that are capable of harnessing similar synthetic potentials. Various spectroscopic techniques will be used to characterize the molecular and electronic structures of these complexes and their reactivities toward multielectron processes will be assessed. These experiments will be used to create structure-function relationships that will help progress the bioinorganic chemistry field.

Other interests include the chemistry of the f-block elements and their applications in energy production. In particular, the recently discovered physiological role of these elements in methanol dehydrogenase activity within methanotrophic bacteria. These elements provide a competitive advantage over the Lewis acids typically found in biology and have potential applications in the design of the next generation of biomimetic catalysts.