The La Pierre Group

Alex was born and raised in Southern California. He attended UC San Diego for his undergraduate studies in chemistry, working with Prof. Jeffrey Rinehart, synthesizing and characterizing magnetic nanoparticle heterostructures. After earning his bachelor's, he went on to obtain a PhD in synthetic chemistry from UC Berkeley, working with Prof. Jeffrey Long, where he synthesized and characterized organometallic lanthanide single molecule magnets. He then went on to complete a brief postdoctoral appointment at the Colorado School of Mines, where he worked in collaboration with researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab to make and characterize new materials for an H2 boil-off capture unit. He is now starting his research in the group, synthesizing novel high-valent actinide complexes and characterizing their properties.