Dr. Chris Joseph, a postdoc in Prof. Serena DeBeer’s research group, has been granted a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers.
Dr. Joseph comes to the MPI CEC from Austin, Texas, where he completed his Ph.D. under Prof. Michael Rose at the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation focused on the development of synthetic strategies for functionalizing carbide-containing multi-iron clusters to serve as structurally biomimetic FeMoco models. Dr. Joseph then joined Prof. DeBeer’s Inorganic Spectroscopy Department to study Cu-catalyzed C–H activation by lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs).
Dr. Joseph’s interests are motivated by the utility of bioinorganic spectroscopy techniques (XAS/XES, EPR, Raman, etc.) and their applications towards characterizing dynamic chemical and biological systems involving catalysis at transition metal centers. In combining his background in synthetic chemistry with the resources and expertise available at MPI CEC for both controlled protein expression and transition metal spectroscopy, Dr. Joseph intends to spectroscopically explore metal-residue cooperativity in O2/H2O2 activation in a synthetically produced metalloenzymatic construct: “It’s a unique and fun project to elaborate upon my synthetic training while gaining first-hand experience in spectroscopic research.”
With this Research Fellowship the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables highly-qualified scientists and scholars from abroad who are just embarking on their academic careers and who completed their doctorates less than four years ago to spend extended periods of research (6 – 24 months) in Germany. Scientists and scholars from all disciplines and countries may apply. The research outline is carried out in cooperation with academic hosts at research institutions in Germany.
The AvH awards about 500 such fellowships, which is worth 2,650 EUR per month, each year to postdocs and more senior scientists. (Source: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.)