Linda Doerrer

Professor (Chemistry, MSE) Associate Director, Kilachand Honors College

Office 590 Commonwealth Ave, SCI 383
Email doerrer@bu.edu
Phone 617-358-4335
Website The Doerrer Group Home Page

Honors and Awards

Fulbright Scholar Award, 2013
Henry Dreyfus Fellow, 2005
Emily Gregory Award for Excellence in Teaching and Service, Barnard College, 2002
Goodwin Medal for Conspicuously Effective Teaching by an MIT Graduate Student (Finalist), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993
Department of Chemistry Award for Excellence in Recitation Teaching by a Graduate Student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992
The American Institute of Chemists Foundation Student Award, Cornell University, 1991
National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, Honorable Mention, March 1991
Member, American Chemical Society, 1991

Areas of Interest

Magnetic materials and metals.

Research Areas

The Doerrer Group specializes in synthetic inorganic chemistry and is an equal-opportunity element utilizer. The lab currently has two main research thrusts, but there are always spirits of other ideas floating around the lab waiting for the right person to embody them with intelligence, direction, passion, creativity and give them life in publications.
The first research area is the use of highly fluorinated aryloxide and alkoxide ligands for the stabilization of high oxidation states in first-row transition metals. Spectroscopic work strongly suggests that these ligands generate a medium field environment and can serve as fluoride mimics. We have prepared many phenolate and alcholate anions of the form [M(OR)n]m- as well as neutral derivatives, and are investigating their reactivity with a broad spectrum of oxidizing and reducing agents.
The second investigation arena is the bottom-up synthesis of potentially conducting one-dimentional nanowires. The early stages of the project used the fascinating phenomenon of metallophilicity to facilitate assembly. This attractive interaction between electron rich metal centers with filled or pseudo-filled subshells, e.g. d10 Au(I), d8 Pt(II), can be as strong as hydrogen bonding and can act seemingly in opposition to electrostatic forces. We are modifying the so-formed one-atom-wide metal atom chains to have an odd number of spins and investigate their behavior as low-dimensional conductors.

Department or Division: Materials Science & Engineering

Affiliation: Primary & Affiliated Faculty

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