"Hydrogen... a light, colorless, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people"
- Ted Harrison, British Astronomer/Cosmologist
"For first the first-beginnings of things move of themselves; then those bodies which are formed of a tiny union, and are, as it were, nearest to the powers of the first-beginnings, are smitten and stirred by their unseen blows, and they in their turn, rouse up bodies a little larger. And so the movement passes upwards from the first-beginnings, and little by little comes forth to our senses, so that those bodies move too, which we can descry in the sun’s light"
- Titus Lucretius Carus, "On the Nature of Things"
Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), 2016
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2016
Professor, UC Davis, 2011-present
Associate Professor, UC Davis, 2008-2011
Assistant Professor, UC Davis, 2003-2008
Postdoctoral Associate, Cornell University, 2000-2003
PhD, Chemistry, UCLA, 1995-2000
AB, Chemistry, Harvard University, 1991-1995
Born (1973) and raised in Quincy, Massachusetts, USA
Our research is driven by intriguing mechanistic and structural questions and spans many areas of organic chemistry. These include natural products synthesis and biosynthesis, enzyme catalyzed reactions, polycyclization reactions, catalyst design, physical organometallic chemistry, carbocation structures and rearrangements, pericyclic reactions, regio- and stereoselectivity of synthetically useful reactions, and computer-aided design of enzyme inhibitors and unusual substrates.
Our group is particularly interested in understanding the mechanisms of carbocation cyclization/rearrangements used by Nature to synthesize complex terpene natural products such as those shown below.
We are also interested in the concept of "transition state complexation" as an approach towards designing new catalysts for otherwise unfavorable organic reactions, such as formally "forbidden" pericyclic reactions.
Our primary tool for tackling these mechanistic problems is quantum chemistry. We apply various methods - e.g., density functional theory (DFT) - to compute structures, relative energies, activation barriers, NMR and IR spectra, isotope effects, and solvation effects. We also make use of ab initio direct dynamics trajectory calculations to explore nonstatistical dynamic effects on reactivity.
Using these methods, we like to make structural and reactivity predictions and have these predictions put to the test in the wet lab.
Research Information
CheShiReCCat Chemical Shift/Coupling Constant Scaling Factor Website
Events
Groups
Dean has taught both graduate and undergraduate chemistry classes for both chemistry and non-chemistry audiences. These classes have ranged in size from less than ten to over three hundred students. For more details, follow the links below.
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Dean 
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