Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF)
Purpose
To provide funding for summer research opportunities for outstanding undergraduate organic chemistry students attending colleges and universities in the United States.
Nature
These competitive fellowships ($5,000) are awarded on the merits of students’ research proposals, academic records, faculty recommendations and their passion for laboratory science. SURF fellowships will provide support for undergraduates in organic chemistry to carry out research at their respective colleges/universities in the summer between their junior and senior year. In addition, the program will provide financial support to enable recipients to visit an industrial campus in the fall for a dinner, award session, scientific talks, a tour of the campus and a poster session, where the results of the summer research investigations would be presented. Information on the program and application forms are available below.
History
The program was established in 2009. The complete list of Previous DOC SURF Awardees is available
Support
Donations from companies and individuals for the Organic Division’s SURF Program is strongly encouraged.
Please contact Michelle Tran-Dubé make an inquiry on how to support this rewarding program. The 2021 SURF awardees.
2022 Sponsors:













Selection Criteria:
Fellowship recipients will be selected by an Advisory Committee using the following criteria:
- Demonstrated interest and talent of the student in organic chemistry
- Merit and feasibility of the research project
- Commitment of the faculty mentor to support the student in his/her work
- Academic record, particularly in organic chemistry and related sciences.
- Demonstrated importance of the award in facilitating the personal and career plans of the nominee.
- A Faculty research mentor may not have two awardees within a three year period
Nomination process
Nominations from women and minorities who are typically under-represented in chemistry are especially encouraged.
The faculty mentor (who must be a member of the Organic Division) must submit the completed SURF Application and the requested documents through the online application form as a single PDF file consisting of the following items in the following order:
- The completed “Student Application Cover Sheet” (page 1 of the SURF Application as a docx file)
- A statement from the nominee describing the importance of this opportunity to his/her personal and career plans (typically 1-2 paragraphs). Indicate how a summer research project fits into your long-range plans. Provide any background about yourself and/or your personal or professional goals that you would like us to know.
- A description of the proposed research project, authored by the student in collaboration with the faculty mentor (typically 2-5 pages). Describe the project you propose to undertake next summer. Describe your background that has prepared you to do this work and your proposed methodology. Provide as much detail as possible.
- An unofficial transcript (with overall GPA) of the nominee and a list of courses to be taken during the rest of the current application year.
- The completed “Faculty Mentor Cover Sheet” (page 2 of the SURF Application as a docx file) – A Faculty mentor may not have two awardees within a three year period
- A letter of recommendation from the faculty mentor on the qualifications of the nominee to carry out the project successfully.
- The completed “Department Chair/Head Cover Sheet” (page 3 of the SURF Application as a docx file)
- A brief letter from the Department Chair indicating that the student is a departmental nominee (there may be no more than 2 nominees per department, and no more than 1 nominee per research group) and that the department will provide the necessary equipment, space and administrative support to the project. In the event the faculty mentor is also the department chair, then the faculty member’s immediate supervisor should complete this form.
Student nominees should be U.S. citizens or permanent resident visa holders at the time of application. Applications from minorities are especially encouraged. This program targets current Juniors and they will be given preference. Student may not hold a DOC Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship concomitantly with a similar fellowship from another source. The student nominees are required to be members of the ACS and the Organic Division (their ACS number will be requested). Information on becoming a member of the Division can be found here. Please be sure the nominated students do not have fall travel/study commitments (i.e. study abroad) that conflict with the poster session, scheduled for September/October.
Applications are to be submitted by the Faculty Mentor who must be an Organic Division Member as a single PDF file (named using the format: StudentNominee’sLast Name_First Name-SURF.pdf i.e. Smith_Jane-SURF.pdf) through this online form SURF
Application Deadline is Friday, February 18, 2022.
Applications submitted late, via mechanisms other than the online form, or out of order (as described above) will be disqualified.
Announcement of the awards is typically made in March.
Questions regarding the program should be directed to Michelle Tran-Dubé
2022 Students

Susanna Angles
School: Illinois State University
Mentor: Andy Mitchell
Research: Applications of [5+2] Cycloadditions Toward Cleavable Tethers
Sponsor: Pfizer/Janssen

Maxwell Austin
School: University of Utah
Mentor: Andrew Roberts
Research: Safe and efficient preparations of triazolinedione (TAD) reagent precursors to enable peptide bioconjugation and cyclization chemistry
Sponsor: Biohaven

Reece Carew-Lyons
School: Bryn Mawr College
Mentor: Bill Malachowski
Research: Enantioselective Total Synthesis of Cephanolide B via Birch-Heck sequence
Sponsor: GSK

Catherine Chiang
School: Scripps College
Mentor: Anna Wenzel
Research: Silver-catalyzed Friedel-Crafts Reaction
Sponsor: Pfizer

Damien Cooper
School: University of Southern Mississippi
Mentor: Matthew Donahue
Research: Investigation of N-Sulfonyliminium Ion Triggered aza-Prins Cyclizations for the Synthesis of Nitrogen Heterocycles
Sponsor: Merck

Evan Ferry
School: University of Michigan
Mentor: Corinna Schindler
Research: A Substrate Dependent Lewis Acidity Scale for Carbonyl-Olefin Metathesis
Sponsor: Morphic/Snapdragon

Hannah Ford
School: College of Holy Cross
Mentor: Kevin Quinn
Research: Synthesis of the 2,6-trans-tetrahydropyran natural product diospongin B
Sponsor: Vertex

Anjali Gurajapu
School: University of California Berkeley
Mentor: Thomas Maimone
Research: A Shapeshifting Strategy Toward the Synthesis of Rugulosone
Sponsor: Merck

Lauren Harstad
School: Arizona State University
Mentor: Kyle Biegasiewicz
Research: Vanadium-Dependent Haloperoxidases for Selective Biocatalytic Halooxycyclization Reactions
Sponsor: Takeda

Daniel Hubin
School: Kansas State University
Mentor: Socrates Munoz
Research: Copper-Catalyzed Difluoroacylation and C(sp3 )–H Fluorination Reactions
Sponsor: BioPharmaWorks

Sebastian Ibarraran
School: Yale University
Mentor: Timothy Newhouse
Research: Total Synthesis of Trichinelide D, a Potent PTP1B Inhibitor
Sponsor: Lilly

Nikki Keramati
School: University of Michigan
Mentor: David Sherman
Research: Isolation and Structural Diversification of Novel Metabolite for Further Insight into Rare Biocatalytic Cope Rearrangement and Synthesis of Indole Alkaloid Natural Products
Sponsor: BMS

Madison Maiorano
School: Stonehill College
Mentor: Louis Liotta
Research: The Synthesis of the Pentahydroxylated Pyrrolidine Casuarine and Seven of its Stereoisomers from D-Glucopyranoside
Sponsor: Pfizer

Mark Mouch
School: University of San Diego
Mentor: Timothy Clark
Research: Oxidative Homocoupling of Borylated Aryl Phosphonates
Sponsor: Pfizer

Isabelle Petrucci
School: University of Vermont
Mentor: Matthias Brewer
Research: Achieving Enantioselective Control over a Conjugate Addition of Enoxy Silane and Indole Carbon Nucleophiles to Vinyl Diazoniums
Sponsor: Pfizer

Nathan Tang
School: Northeastern University
Mentor: Roman Manetsch
Research: Total Synthesis of Phlegmadines B and C via a Photoredox Catalyzed Aldol Cyclization
Sponsor: BMS

Jason Wu
School: Boston College
Mentor: Shih-Yuan Liu
Research: Diels–Alder Reaction Provides Facile Access to 1,2-Azaborine Derivatives
Sponsor: Pfizer
Testimonials
2021 SURF Awardee-Olivia Morales

The University of Chicago
Mentor: Scott Snyder
Sponsor: Merck
Moreover, the SURF program gave me incredibly useful insights into the different career paths I can undertake as an organic chemist, allowing me to interact and build connections with scientists at various pharmaceutical companies through virtual industry presentations. It was quite inspiring to interact with diverse groups of scientists from various educations and backgrounds to learn about what drove them to pursue careers in industry. Overall, I truly appreciated and enjoyed getting to learn more about what an industry career path looks like, and feel that I’ve gained a lot of knowledge from these virtual sessions.
The SURF program has also given me the opportunity to meet an amazing cohort of up-and-coming organic chemists. I was especially delighted to be able to learn about the research of my fellow SURF awardees and share my work with them in a virtual oral presentation at the end of the summer.
2021 SURF Awardee-Jonathan Meinhardt

Cornell University
Mentor: Song Lin
Sponsor: Merck
It was also pleasure to get to know my fellow SURFers throughout the course of the summer. I particularly enjoyed our virtual symposium at the end of the summer, wherein we were able to share the results of our research and ask each other questions about work outside of our respective labs. I enjoyed the collegial spirit of the program, and will look back on this experience as a formative moment in my development as a chemist.
2021 SURF Awardee-Walker Smith

Cornell University
Mentor: Song Lin
Sponsor: Merck