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.
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.
Jai White, PhD
Jai did his undergraduate and honours studies at the University of Newcastle, Australia. From 2019 until 2023, Jai completed his PhD at KTH in the Applied Electrochemistry division at the Department of Chemical Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Ann Cornell. His thesis work focused on the electrooxidation of glycerol in alkaline media on Pd-based catalysts. Upon completing his PhD, he joined the Lundberg lab as a postdoc. He is currently focused on the electrochemical reduction of ethers and the development of electrochemical techniques for the analysis of organic 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.
Sergio Pérez Morente
Sergio holds a degree in Chemical Engineering (2022) from Universitat de Lleida, Spain, and Energy Technology (2022) from Yrkehögskolan NOVIA, Finland. His research during this time focused on biomethane production using CO2 from waste management plants, involving green hydrogen production and storage from renewable sources. Currently, he is pursuing a master's degree in Chemical Engineering for Energy and Environment at KTH, with a diploma work that explores electrosynthetic C-OH bond activation in alcohols.
Arvid Hedin
Arvid received his BSc (2022) from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. He is doing his master thesis in Molecular Science and Engineering MSc program at the Division of Organic Chemistry. In his project, he works with electrosynthesis and cleavage of aryl thioether bonds.