Current group members
Piret Villo, PhD
Piret did her PhD with Dr. Lauri Vares at University of Tartu and with Prof. Peter Somfai at KTH and Lund University. During that time she looked into syntheses of analogues to an acetogenin – a bioactive natural product, as well as asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of α-amido-β-keto esters. After that she spent another year with Dr Vares studying new methodology how to functionalize biomass platform molecules. Her subsequent three-year postdoc work was done with Prof. Berit Olofsson at Stockholm University on hypervalent iodine chemistry making diaryliodonium salts and using them as arylating reagents. She is currently working on methodology development and kinetic studies of electrosynthetic reactions.
Cristiana Margarita, PhD
Cristiana graduated in Organic Chemistry from Sapienza Università di Roma in 2014. Then, she worked on Ir-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenations under the supervision of Prof. Pher G. Andersson at Stockholm University, where she received her PhD in 2019. She is currently involved in methodology development and kinetic studies of Lewis acid-catalyzed transformations of alcohols.
Pintu Maity, PhD
Pintu obtained his B.Sc. degree from Ramkrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur (University of Calcutta) in 2010. Following this, he pursued M.Sc. in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (India) from 2010–2012. He earned his PhD degree (2012-2017) under the supervision of Prof. Brindaban C. Ranu at the department of Organic Chemistry in Indian Association for the Cultivation of science, Kolkata, India. His Phd research work is based on metal catalyzed and visible light photocatalyzed coupling reactions towards synthesis of useful molecules. Then he joined as a postdoc in Prof. Choong Eui Song´s group at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. He continued his postdoctoral research under Prof. Arkadi Vigalok (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Prof. Kyungsoo Oh (Chung Ang University, South Korea). His postdoctoral research mainly focused on asymmetric organocatalysis, NO gas sensing by bis-calixarenes through fluoroscence study. Pintu is currently working on electroreductive methodology development.
Guillermo Ahumada, PhD
Guillermo received a BSc degree in chemistry (2012) from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso (PUCV), Chile, and a Ph.D. degree (2017) in cotutelle between the PUCV (Chile) and the Université de Rennes 1 (France) under the supervision of Prof. Carolina Manzur and Dr. Jean-René Hamon, focusing on the electrosynthesis of metal-containing polymers. After completing his Ph.D. in 2017, he moved to UNIST, South Korea, where he began a postdoctoral position in Prof. Bielawski's laboratories and, later, a senior research position with Prof. Grzybowski (2020). In August 2022, he began performing research on electrosynthesis in the Lundberg lab at KTH.
Kevin Breitwieser, PhD
Kevin conducted his undergraduate studies at TU Darmstadt and Fraunhofer LBF. After obtaining his M.Sc. degree, he joined Professor Peter Chen's research group for physical organic chemistry at ETH Zürich as a PhD student. In 2021, he graduated on the topic of palladium-catalyzed cyclization reactions. In 2022, he was a postdoc in Dominik Munz’s research group at Saarland University, working on novel palladium complexes (e.g., palladium nitrene complexes) and computational studies (e.g., elucidation of reaction mechanisms). He is currently working on developing systems for the electroreductive activation of C‒F bonds.
Andrey Shatskiy, PhD
Andrey received his MSc degree in organic chemistry from Stockholm University in 2014 and subsequently joined the group of Prof. Björn Åkermark at Stockholm University as a doctoral student. His graduate studies were focused on the development and mechanistic studies of ruthenium-based water-oxidation catalysts. After receiving his PhD degree in 2018, Andrey joined the group of Assoc. Prof. Markus D. Kärkäs as a postdoctoral researcher at KTH, focusing on the development of photochemically-mediated organic reactions. In 2023, Andrey joined the Lundberg group as a postdoctoral researcher to pursue development of electrophotochemical synthetic transformations.
Julius Kuzmin, PhD student
Julius received his masters’ education in molecular science and engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 2021, doing his thesis work on application of sulfonimidamides in asymmetric synthesis under the supervision of Associate Professor Peter Dinér . During his masters he did an exchange year at ETH Zürich (Switzerland) and worked for half a year on bicyclic hydroxylamines for faster KAT ligation in the Bode group. He is enrolled as PhD student since December 2021 and is currently working on electrochemical activation of strong polarized sigma bonds bonds.
Malin Lill, PhD student
Malin is enrolled as PhD student since August 2022 after receiving her MSc in Chemical Engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology earlier the same year after a diploma work in our group. She is targeting method development for electrosynthetic transformations with a particlar focus on reductive strategies.
Ellymay Goossens, PhD student
Ellymay received her master's degree in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Gothenburg and did her thesis work on development of an aerobic oxidative N-heterocyclic carbene catalyzed synthesis of highly functionalized benzene derivatives in the group of professor Henrik Sundén. She enrolled as a PhD student in January 2023 and is currently working on method development of electroreductive transformations.
Darius Pakarinen, PhD student
Darius is a PhD student in the group on 25% and the remaining 75% at the Division of Applied Electrochemistry (Dept. of Chemical Engineering, KTH) with Assistant Professor Amirreza Khatami and Professor Rakel Wreland Lindström, working on organic redox flow batteries. He carried out his MSc diploma thesis work on Lewis acid catalysis in the group during spring semester 2021 for his M.Sc. in Engineering.
Astrid Kjaer Steffensen, PhD student
Astrid is a PhD student in the group on ~25% and spends the rest of her time at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) with Professor Anders Riisager. Astrid enrolled as doctoral student in 2023 and works on electrochemical carboxylation on biomass-derived compounds with the purpose of creating renewable monomers for polymer applications. Astrid received her MSc degree in applied chemistry with focus on catalysis and green chemistry from DTU. She did her thesis work in the Riisager group working on catalysts development and mechanistic studies of furfural oxidation.
Natalia Wojciechowska, visiting PhD student
Natalia received her master’s degree in organic chemistry from University of Warsaw in 2021. Her graduate studies were focused on hypervalent iodine compounds with particular focus on the synthesis of iodonium salts and their application as functional groups transfer reagents. Natalia enrolled as a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. hab. Marcin Kałekb in 2021 and is currently working on electrochemical asymmetric oxidations mediated by chiral iodoarene electrocatalysts.
Robert Sibusiso Yafele, visiting PhD student
Robert obtained his BSc (2016), BSc Hons (2017) and MSc (2020) from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He did his MSc under the supervision of Associate Professor Henok Kinfe and his thesis was focused on the development of N^N^N cationic palladium(II) complexes and their catalytic evaluation in selected cross-coupling and hydrogenation reactions. He is currently enrolled as a doctoral student at the University of Warsaw (since Oct 2021) where he is working on electrochemical oxidations promoted by iodoarene catalysts, including enantioselective processes under the supervision of Dr. hab. Marcin Kałek.