Alumni

My name is Jasmine Hickson and I am currently a sophomore at Richard Bland College of William and Mary. I am majoring in Clinical Lab Sciences and plan to transfer to the College of William and Mary to obtain my bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience. I would like to attend medical school afterwards, all to achieve my goal of becoming a Pediatric Surgeon. I have always been interested in working in the healthcare field and even more so, passionate about working with children.

Hi, my name is Kiara Edge and I’m from Dillon, SC. I am a junior chemistry pre-med major at Norfolk State University. I’m very excited to be working with Dr. Bender this summer. I’m hoping to gain research experience, become more knowledgeable in organic chemistry, and I’m hoping this experience will help me decide what I would like to do once I complete my undergrad degree. As of now, I plan to attend graduate school to persue a degree in pharmaceutical sciences. A fun fact about myself is that I love to shop.

Austin graduated from Baylor University magna cum laude as an Honors Baylor Business Fellow and finance double major. During his time at Baylor, he worked in the laboratory of Dr. John Wood on multiple synthetic organic research projects. After doing internships at MD Anderson Cancer Center and at Bristol Myers Squibb, in drug discovery and process chemistry respectively, he moved to ODU to pursue a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry with Dr. Bender. Currently, he works on the synthesis of expanded scorpionate ligands and their application to catalysis, as well as non-conventional Lewis acid activations of organometallics to achieve tailored reactivity.
Paul Miller
Paul joined the Bender group in the Fall of 2023 after completing their doctoral research at NC State University under David A. Shultz. There he worked on the design and characterization of conjugated, organic biradical systems to better understand the electronic structure of biradicaloids. His hobbies include: reading, board games, and writing.