The Blakemore Laboratory
Inspired by sustainability and stewardship, our group synthesizes new compounds and studies reactivity involving actinides, lanthanides, and light gases. We draw on perspectives from inorganic/organometallic chemistry, molecular electrochemistry, and surface science.
RECENT BLAKEMORE GROUP NEWS
16-17 April 2026 – This week, James was thrilled to visit Prof. Charlotte Williams and the Williams Research Group at the University of Oxford. Although motivated by different goals, the Williams Group and our own have kindred interests in chemistry. On Thursday, we discussed quantifying the effective Lewis acidity of metal cations, as well as the concept of Lewis acidity as a descriptor in multimetallic chemistry and catalysis. On Friday, James delivered an invited seminar on our approaches to quantification of Lewis acidity and understanding heterometallic effects in platinum-templated macrocycles. Thanks to Charlotte for the invitation—a real pleasure to meet and discuss the bright future of multimetallic chemistry!
23 March 2026 – James returns to Germany to continue his extended research visit to the Institute for Nuclear Waste Disposal (Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, INE) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). At KIT, James is being hosted by our collaborator Prof. Tonya Vitova and her research group, and supported by a KIT International Excellence Fellowship. Funding for the fellowship comes from the Exzellenzstrategie des Bundes und der Länder, with backing from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat). This grant is supporting our joint work on generation and spectroscopic studies of reactive U(V) compounds and their derivatives. Graduate students Natalie Lind, Alex Ervin, and Grant Arehart are all contributing expertise to this project as well from the Kansas side. Onward to more science!
23 February 2026 – Congratulations to our graduate student Alex Ervin, who is beginning a year of collaborative research in transuranium chemistry with Dr. Richard Wilson in the Heavy Element Chemistry and Separation Science Group at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)! Alex is being supported at ANL by the DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program, as part of the 2025 Solicitation 1 round of awards. To begin, we will be doing some Np and Pu electrochemistry to probe proton-coupled electron transfer processes and their influence on solution speciation. Congratulations, Alex, and good luck with the research!