Vy M. Dong

Organic molecules make up nearly everything around us, including our medicines, clothing, and fuels. Research in organic chemistry is thus an essential pursuit that can impact many other scientific disciplines. By finding novel methods of building molecular architecture, we can facilitate the discovery of life-saving therapeutics, invention of novel materials, and search for alternative energies. 

 

Dr. Vy Dong’s research mission is to invent better tools for organic synthesis, including new reagents, catalysts, and strategies. More specific goals include finding ways to directly convert carbon-hydrogen bonds into other functional groups, use carbon dioxide as a raw material, and make biologically active heterocycles.

 

She was born in Big Spring, Texas and grew up in Anaheim, California. She graduated magna cum laude from UC Irvine where she majored in chemistry and

completed an honor’s project with Professor Larry Overman. After graduation, she earned her Ph.D. at Caltech and completed postdoctoral studies at UC Berkeley.

 

She began her independent academic career at the University of Toronto, where she was named the Adrian Brook Professor.

 

In the summer of 2012, Vy returned to the United States to assume a professorship at her mater, UC Irvine.  Amongst her many accolades, Dong is recipient of the Eli Lily Grantee Award, the Roche Excellence Award in Chemistry and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.