Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, KAIST, 2022 April – present
Postdoctoral fellow, Princeton University, 2020 – 2022 (Advisor: Robert. R. Knowles)
Awards
ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award, 2021
BioLEC-EFRC Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2020 – 2022, Department of Energy (USA)
Distinction in Teaching, 2016, Harvard University
Kwanjeong Graduate Fellowship, 2014 – 2019
Dean’s List, College of Natural Sciences, 2013, KAIST
RESEARCH AREA
Brief Introduction
Our lab is interested in addressing problems of energy, environmental,
and biological relevance for a greener and more sustainable future. Borrowing
inspiration from nature’s enzymatic reactivity, we aim to combine transition
metal catalysis and light-harvesting techniques to convert earth-abundant
materials into value-added commodity chemicals. Specifically, we seek to develop
generalizable transition metal architectures to conduct challenging redox
transformations (e.g., water oxidation, CO2 reduction, N2
fixation, etc.) via facile proton and electron transfer processes both in the ground
and excited states. Our research program encompasses the synthesis and
characterization of reactive transition metal complexes to correlate their
physical and electronic structure with reactivity.
Research topics
Coordination chemistry
Organometallics
Transition metal catalysis
Photochemistry
Small molecule activation
Proton/electron transfer processes
Representative publications
-Baek, Y.; Betley, T. A.* Reversible C–C Bond Cleavage of a Cobalt Diketimide into an Elusive Cobalt Aryl Nitrenoid Complexes. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, e202115437.
-Baek, Y.; Das, A.; Zheng, S-L.; Reibenspies, J. H.; Powers, D. C.; Betley, T. A.* C–H Amination Mediated by Cobalt Organoazide Adducts and the Corresponding Cobalt Nitrenoid Intermediates. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 11232.
-Baek, Y.; Hennessy, E. T.; Betley, T. A.* Direct Manipulation of Metal Imido Geometry: Key Principles to Enhance C–H Amination Efficacy. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 16944.
-Baek, Y.; Betley, T. A.* Catalytic C–H Amination Mediated by Dipyrrin Cobalt Imidos. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 7797.
