Group Members
Principal Investigator – Marvin Parasram
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Background
Marvin Parasram was born and raised in The Bronx, New York. He received his B.S. in Chemistry in 2010 from Stony Brook University. Later that year, he joined Prof. Vladimir Gevorgyan’s group at the University of Illinois at Chicago for his doctoral studies, where he was involved in developing novel Pd-catalyzed synthetic methodologies. In 2017, he joined Prof. Abigail G. Doyle’s Group at Princeton University as a National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Scholar, where he worked on the development of Ni/Photoredox catalyzed methods. In Fall 2020, he began his independent career at New York University as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry.
Check out Professor Parasram’s “Introducing” Profile in Angewandte Chemie.
Awards and Funding
NSF Career Award (2025)
Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2025)
ACS New York Section Teaching Award (2025)
Amgen Young Investigator Award (2024)
Stony Brook University 40 Under 40 Alumni Award (2024)
NYU Golden Dozen Award (2024)
ACS GCIPR Ignition Grant (2023)
NIH MIRA Award (2023)
NYU Teaching Innovation Award (2023)
Thieme Journal Award (2023)
ACS PRF DNI Award (2022)
Fun Facts
Hobbies: cooking, mixology, running, snowboarding, reading, golfing, watching football, and exploring NYC with my life partner
Favorite Team: New York Giants
Favorite Chemist: Richard F. Heck
Ethnicity: Guyanese
Postdoctoral Scholars
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Background
Ajay Bansode was born and raised in Maharashtra, India. He received his M.Sc. degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Pune in 2014. While there, he worked in the lab of Dr. D. S. Reddy developing a route for the first total synthesis of natural products nitrosporeusines A and B. Next year, he joined Dr. G. Suryavanshi’s group at the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune where he focused on the synthesis of biologically active compounds and developed methodologies for oxidation reactions. In 2021, he completed his Ph.D. degree before starting as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. M. Dukat at Virginia Commonwealth University, VA. There he worked on the synthesis and structure-activity-relationship studies of structurally and mechanistically novel antidepressants. In 2023, he joined the Parasram group as a Postdoctoral Associate.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: playing and watching cricket, exploring, hiking, and movies
Favorite Food: Indian and Caribbean cuisine
Favorite Chemist: Robert Woodward
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Background
Shrey Desai grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and received his B.Sc. in 2019 at York University. During his honours thesis, he studied methods for pyridine functionalization in the group of Prof. Arturo Orellana. He later completed his Ph.D. in 2024 with Prof. Mark Taylor where he studied organoboron methodologies for a variety of transformations such as epoxide ring-openings, aza-Michael additions, N-glycosylations, and [2+2] photocycloadditions. He also spent a summer during his doctoral studies as a graduate student intern in the II&AI Medicinal Chemistry team at Pfizer Groton. In late 2024, he joined the Parasram group as a Postdoctoral Fellow to explore photochemical transformations of 1,3-dipoles.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: playing basketball, watching a lot of sports (big four leagues, F1, tennis, and cricket), listening to sports and history podcasts
Favorite Teams: Raptors, Blue Jays, and the Leafs
Favorite Chemist: Bertram Fraser-Reid
Graduate Students
Fifth-Year Students
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Background
Josh Paolillo was born and raised in North Haven Connecticut. He received his B. S. in Chemistry in 2019 from the University of Connecticut. While there, he worked in the lab of Dr. Nicholas Leadbeater developing a method to oxidize α-trifluoromethyl and non-fluorinated alcohols via the merger of an organocatalyst with photoredox catalysis. Afterward, he joined Boehringer Ingelheim as a process chemist where he worked on process development for large-scale syntheses of small molecule APIs for clinical trials.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Exercising, video games, reading, hiking, swimming, golf, and learning new things
Favorite Team: Denver Broncos
Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite Chemist: Ei-ichi Negishi
Ethnicity: Italian and German
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Background
Emma Gogarnoiu was born and raised just outside of Philadelphia in Lower Merion. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 2019, where she conducted research under the mentorship of Prof. Joseph A Cotruvo. She spent her time characterizing novel metallochaperone domains to better understand Fe(II) trafficking in cells. Upon graduation, she worked as a Post-baccalaureate fellow at the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). She worked for Dr. Amy Newman, synthesizing selective bitopic dopamine D3 receptor partial-agonists/antagonists that are effective in attenuating drug-seeking behavior. In the fall of 2021, Emma began her Ph.D. studies at NYU.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Hiking, painting, dancing, cooking, reading, playing sports and rock climbing
Favorite Food: Poke bowls, Thai and Japanese cuisine
Favorite Chemist: Richard Ernst
Ethnicity: Romanian
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Background
Joshua Mitchell was raised in New York & Florida and attended The City College of New York for his B.S. and M.S in Chemistry. He did research in both environmental and organic labs, developing new methodologies and materials for industrial applications. He also has also worked in programming, management, app development, and internet publishing.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: reading, cooking, streams, programming, writing, politics, and traveling
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Background
Alana Duke received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Delaware in 2020, where she conducted research in the field of nickel catalysis under the mentorship of Prof. Mary P Watson. In 2019, she spent an internship at Merck developing a method for a diastereoselective coupling toward a drug target derived from nucleotide mimics.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Painting, writing, exploring, and learning new things
Favorite Food: A good sandwich
Favorite Chemist: Max Tishler
Third-Year Students
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Background
Mahmoud Saleh Hussien was born and raised in Assiut, Egypt. He received his M.Sc. degree in Chemistry from Assiut University in 2021, where he conducted research under the mentorship of Prof. Haitham El-Bery. He spent his time synthesizing conducting polymers for photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical hydrogen production via water-splitting. In the fall of 2023, Mahmoud began his Ph.D. studies at NYU.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Soccer, cooking, reading, and playing sports
Favorite Food: Bechamel Pasta, Lasagna, Koshari
Favorite Chemist: Ahmed Zewail
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Background
Melissa Griffin was born and raised in Milpitas, California. She received her B.S. in Chemistry in 2023 from San Jose State University, where she conducted research with Professor Madalyn Radlauer. She worked in constructing polymer architecture scaffolds for transition metal catalysis to construct a synthetic enzyme. In the fall of 2023, Melissa began his Ph.D. studies at NYU.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Reading manga, building dollhouses, terrible Netflix shows
Favorite Food: My mom’s spaghetti
Favorite Chemist: Julien Ferreira
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Background
Mahmoud Afrasi was born and raised in Amol, a city in northern Iran. He obtained his M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS), Zanjan, Iran, where he conducted research under the mentorship of Dr. M. Gholinejad. His research focused on investigating transition metal catalysis for the aerobic oxidation of alcohols. Following his graduation, he continued his research as a research assistant fellow at IASBS from 2018 to 2022. His work involved Cu and Ag complexes as catalysts in cross-coupling reactions. In the fall of 2023, Mahmoud commenced his Ph.D. studies in the chemistry program at NYU.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Climbing, soccer, photography, cooking, and playing futsal
Favorite Food: Qorme sabzi, Kalapch, and Kabab
Favorite Team: Real Madrid and Persepolis F. C.
Favorite Chemist: Benjamin List
Ethnicity: Iranian
Second-Year Students
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Background
Joe Bergen grew up in Bergen County New Jersey. He ventured deeper into New Jersey where he studied chemistry at The College of New Jersey. There, he conducted research under Prof. Giovanny Parada and Prof. Heba Abourahma. Joe spent the summer of 2022 at NYU, where an REU opportunity introduced him to Marvin and the rest of the group. It was here that Joe ran his first column. The following summer, Joe interned at Merck in Kenilworth, NJ focusing on Palladium cross-couplings. After receiving his BS in chemistry, Joe returned to the Parasram lab.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Joe enjoys playing chess (when he’s winning) and running
Favorite Movie: Rocky
Favorite Team: The New York Yankees
Favorite Reaction: Doering-LaFlamme allene synthesis
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Background
Poulami Ghosh was born and raised in Santiniketan, West Bengal, India. She received my B.Sc. degree in chemistry from Visva-Bharati University. After that, she received my M.Sc. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2024. During her Master’s thesis, she worked on the chiral total synthesis of Bisabosqual C and Stachybisbin H in the group of Professor Dattatraya Dethe. In the summer of 2023, she spent an internship at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal under Professor Manmohan Kapur where she did the synthesis of structurally modified norbornene derivatives and tested Pd/norbornene cooperative catalysis to facilitate sequential ortho C-H functionalization of aryl halides. In the Fall of 2024, Poulami began her Ph.D. studies at NYU.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Singing (learning Indian folk and classical music over 17 years), dancing, cooking, and traveling with friends and family.
Favorite Food: Ice cream and Indian cuisine
Favorite Team: Indian Cricket Team
Favorite Chemist: Karl Barry Sharpless
Post-Baccalaureate Researcher
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Background
Max was born and raised Green Bay, Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a B.Sc. in Chemistry and certificate in Biology. He conducted research with Dr. Katherine Henzler-Wildman studying bacterial multidrug efflux proteins. In summer 2024 Max also worked with Dr. Peter Rosenthal doing Cryo-EM modeling of viral capsid assemblies. After graduation, Max joined the Parasram lab as a post-baccalaureate researcher.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: writing, exploring the city
Favorite Food: Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies
Favorite Chemist: Marie Curie
Undergraduate Students
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Background
Alex Reyes is currently a third-year student pursuing a degree in Global Public Health and Chemistry. Born and raised in Shanghai before moving to Northern California at 14, they are super excited to be back in a big city to learn and grow as a person and as a chemist.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: Reading, writing, wandering, snowboarding
Favorite Food: Any Shanghainese food
Favorite Chemist: Rosalind Franklin
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Background
Gabby DiRusso is a current sophomore born and raised in Princeton Junction, New Jersey. She is pursuing a BS in Chemistry at NYU and is excited to be part of the Parasram lab during her undergraduate studies.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: biking, baking, crochet, running
Favorite Food: gelato
Favorite Chemist: Carolyn Bertozzi
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Background
Angela Zheng was born in Shanghai and raised in LA. She is a third-year student studying Global Public Health and Chemistry. After studying abroad in London, she is excited to be back in NYC to further her chemistry knowledge in Parasram Lab.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: going to concerts, trying out different cuisines, baking
Favorite Food: Korean and Japanese cuisine
Favorite Chemist: Arthur Michael
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Background
Eileen Kwak was born and raised in South Korea before coming to NYU. She is currently a junior pursuing a B.S. in Chemistry, with a growing interest in synthetic chemistry and its applications in developing new materials and medicines. She looks forward to expanding her research experience throughout her undergraduate years.
Fun Facts
Hobbies: baking, watching baseball
Favorite Food: desserts
Favorite Chemist: Louis Pasteur
Former Group Members
David Weader (Graduate Student, 2020-2021, Woerpel Lab, NYU)
Max Kadarauch (Visiting Scholar, May-September 2021, Phipps Lab, University of Cambridge)
Emiko Eisnor-Kho (Undergraduate Student, September-December 2021)
Jules Zambito (Graduate Student, 2020-2022, Weck Lab, NYU)
Michael Soltero (Undergraduate Student, 2021-2022)
Mohan Das (Undergraduate Student, 2021-2022)
Taylor Vacala (Graduate Student, 2021-2022, Woerpel Lab, NYU)
Sharon Lim (G-STEM Summer 2022)
Joseph Bergen (REU Summer 2022)
Farhan Chowdhury (Graduate Student, 2020-2022, Woerpel Lab, NYU)
Heeju Cho (Undergraduate Student, June-December 2022)
Patrycja Lis (Undergraduate Student, 2021-2023)
Tyler DeSena (Undergraduate Student, 2022-2023)
Gabby DiRusso (G-STEM Summer 2023)
Ben Kozloff (REU Summer 2023)
Michael Choe (Undergraduate Student, 2022-2023)
Reyana Samaroo (Undergraduate Student, January –August 2023)
Joshua Stich (Undergraduate Student, 2022-2023)
Ryan O’ Connor (Graduate Student, 2022-2023)
Yongkang “Kenneth” Li (M.S. 2023)
Glen Aguilar (M.S. 2023)
Dan Wise (Postdoctoral Scholar, 2021-2024)
Preya Persaud (Undergraduate Student, January 2023–May 2024)
Michelle Kim (Undergraduate Student, January 2023–June 2024)
Waseem Hussain (Postdoctoral Scholar, 2022-2024)
Yiyi (Joy) Zhu (Undergraduate Student, June 2024–December 2024)
Chenxi (Selina) Xie (Undergraduate Student, September 2023–December 2024)
Akshata Thupili (Undergraduate Student, May 2024–December 2024)
Lifeng (Dimo) Yin (M.S. 2025)
Sylvester Deng (Undergraduate Student, September 2023–May 2025)