Chemistry
Ryan Walvoord headshot
Ryan R. Walvoord
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Dr. Ryan Walvoord was born and raised in the small town of Williamson, NY and received a B.S. in chemistry from the Rochester Institute of Technology. In 2014, he earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania under the guidance of Dr. Marisa Kozlowski, after which he left the northeast for the sunny campus of the University of California, Berkeley. While at UC Berkeley, Dr. Walvoord conducted postdoctoral research in the area of chemical sensor design in the group of Dr. Chris Chang and lectured undergraduate organic chemistry. Dr. Walvoord joined the faculty at Ursinus College in the fall of 2016.
Department
Degrees
B.S., Rochester Institute of Technology
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Teaching
CHEM 106 – Organic Chemistry I
CHEM 205 – Organic Chemistry II
CHEM 408W – Advanced Organic Chemistry
CIE-100 - Common Intellectual Experience
Research Interests
Synthetic Modification of Fluorophores
Chemical Sensors
Recent Work
Bruemmer, K. J.; Walvoord, R. R.†; Brewer, T. F.; Barragan, G. B.; Wit, N.; Patel, K. J.; Chang, C. J. “A General Aza-Cope Reaction Trigger for Developing a Palette of Fluorescent Probes for Imaging Endogenous Formaldehyde Pools in Living Cells” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 5338-5350. (†co-first author)
Walvoord, R. R.; Kozlowski, M. C. “Cinchonidinium acetate as a convenient catalyst for the asymmetric synthesis of cis-stilbenediamines” Tetrahedron Lett. 2015, 56, 3070-3074 (invited contribution).
Walvoord, R. R.; Huynh, P. N. H.; Kozlowski, M. C. “Quantification of Electrophilic Activation by Hydrogen-Bonding Organocatalysts” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 16055-16065.
Walvoord, R. R.; Berritt, S.; Kozlowski, M. C. “Palladium-Catalyzed Nitromethylation of Aryl Halides: An Orthogonal Formylation Equivalent” Org. Lett. 2012, 14, 4086-4089.