Our latest postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Tara Clayton, arrived a week ago, between a week-end and a holiday. Tara comes from Montana, USA, and got her Bachelor’s in Chemistry at Reed College. She then went on to get her PhD in chemistry from the University of Oregon under the supervision of Professor Ramesh Jasti. She focused on the synthesis of highly strained aromatic macrocycles known as cycloparaphenylenes, CPPs, or carbon nanohoops. She developed synthetic methods aimed at late-stage transformations of CPPs decorated with versatile functional groups, affording efficient synthesis of a variety of CPP derivatives. She explored the reactivity of fluorinated and alkyne-containing CPPs to make novel extended structures including metalated CPPs, redox-active CPPs, novel guest-host CPP-fullerene complexes, and trimeric CPPs. She defended in March 2025 and will now start to explore the vibrational strong coupling. Welcome Tara !