Join us at the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program's STEM Bytes Seminar to hear research done at USC by current PhD students and postdocs.

Speakers:

3:00 - 3:30 pm PDT
Anju Nalikezhathu, PhD student in Chemistry

Talk Title: Hydrogen-Borrowing N-alkylations: A Green Approach to Synthesize Bioactive Heterocycles

Anju Nalikezhathu is a fifth-year chemistry graduate student at the University of Southern California (USC). She has done her master’s in chemistry from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Thiruvananthapuram. As a student, who secured top 1% marks in higher secondary exam, she has received INSPIRE fellowship, by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India during her Integrated BS-MS course. Even though, her childhood ambition was to become a doctor, life at IISER- an Institute established by the Indian’s Ministry of Human Resource Development, with an aim to provide high quality education in basic sciences played a major role in choosing a proper carrier path. Nalikezhathu has done internships in various institutes such as CSIR-NIIST, Trivandrum; IISC, Bangalore and IISER Thiruvananthapuram. After graduating from IISER in 2017, she joined Prof. Travis Williams’ lab at USC for full time research. Currently, she is working in homogenous catalysis, synthesis of bioactive molecules by hydrogen-borrowing N-alkylations etc. She has volunteered as a mentor in WiC for 2020-2021; and serving as the co-president of the Chemistry Graduate Student Organization (CGSO) this year. The idea of being engaged in research for
lifelong enthrals her and she hopes to continue in academia with strong emphasis on research.