Group Picture (Jun3 2023):

Group Picture (August 2022):

Group Picture (July 2021):

Group Picture (November 2019):

Graduate Students:

Magdalene Togoh (Third-year)

Magdalene graduated from the University of Ghana in 2020 receiving the Best Female Chemistry Student Award. She worked with Nestle Ghana for a year. In 2021, she joined the Drug Innovation Group (Medicinal Chemistry- University of Ghana) in 2021 working under the supervision of Dr.Richard Amewu. She was involved in rational and target-based drug design, synthesis of drug analogues with various medicinal properties, particularly malaria, tuberculosis, and antifungal. With the desire to further her studies in chemistry, she joined VCU in January 2023 as a PhD student in the Sieber lab.

TyAnn McHenry (Third-year)

TyAnn McHenry graduated from Alcorn State University in 2022 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, becoming a first-generation college graduate. Following her graduation, she began working as a Manufacturing Chemist at Sterling Pharma Solutions, where she gained hands-on experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing and process operations. In addition to her academic and professional achievements, TyAnn serves as a member of the United States Air Force. Her military service includes managing multimillion-dollar operations and optimizing processes to support critical missions, earning her the prestigious Air and Space Achievement Medal for outstanding contributions. Driven by her passion for advancing her knowledge in chemistry, she joined VCU in August 2023 as a PhD student and joined the Sieber lab.

David Radford (Second-year)

David graduated from Colorado State University in 1998.  As an undergraduate, he conducted research in the area of self-assembled monolayers on gold with Professor David A. Grainger leading to two publications.  He began graduate school at VCU in 1999 and joined the Micheal E. Wright group working on solid electrolytes based on rigid backbones with appended PEG and ordered dipole materials for nonlinear optics.  In 2002, he left the VCU graduate program to focus on building a family.  He worked in residential construction as a project manager until 2009. In 2012, he joined Wako Chemicals USA (now Fujifilm) as a research chemist conducting   custom syntheses of photoacid generators.  Over the 12 years with the specialty chemical company, he contributed to the introduction of several production processes along with analytical support for plant operations, fine chemical characterizations and addressing regulatory issues.  With an interest in enriching his skills for a different sector within the chemical field he entered the Ph D program at VCU in 2025 and joined the Sieber Group.

 

Murell Sanders (first-year)

Murell graduated in 3 years with her B.S in Chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2025. During her time in her undergraduate studies she worked under the guidance of Dr. Charles McGill in developing regularizations for chemical machine learning models. Additionally, she also interned for Haleon, a wellness company, developing cold cough and flu products. With a desire to further her knowledge in synthetic organic chemistry, she joined the Sieber Lab in 2024. Now she continues to work in the Sieber Lab as a graduate researcher working towards her PhD.

Undergraduates:

 

Previous Group Members:

Postdoctoral:

Toolika Agrawal (Jan. 2020-Nov. 2021); Research Chemist at SpiroChem, Basel, Switzerland

Dang Ho (Feb. 2020 – Aug. 2021); Synthetic Chemist at OTI Lumionics Inc. Ontario, Canada

Graduate Students:

Stephen Collins, PhD Spring 2024; Postdoctoral researcher at TCG GreenChem Inc.

Raphael Klake, PhD Spring 2023; Postdoctoral researcher at Merck Boston

Samantha Gargaro, PhD Fall 2022; Technology Specialist at Lando & Anastasi

Kevin Burns (currently at University of Virginia)

Undergraduates:

Murell Sanders

Mikaela Aftel

Christian Knott

Jermaine Cort

Kimberly Perez-Morales (NSF REU)

Skyler Gentry 

Mytia Edwards (NSF REU)

Sharon Elele

Nathaniel Kaetzel

High School Students:

Sonia Marquez (ACS Project SEED, Summer 2025)

Colby Basnett (ACS Project SEED, Summer 2023)

Jonae Burwell (ACS Project SEED, Summer 2022)

Bre’Shon Dunson (ACS Project SEED, Summer 2019)