Joseph A. Romo
Your Catalyst For Success.
Joseph was born and raised on Long Island, New York. In 2010 he launched PreemPrice.com LLC, a successful start-up specializing in marketing niche consumer electronic accessories in which he currently participates as CEO. During his time in high school, Joseph fell in love with chemistry and doing hands-on research.
Under the direction of Dr. Michael Vacariello, Joseph conducted an extensive study on the behavioral changes of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) and their exposure to popular artificial sweeteners. Joseph graduated high school in 2014 with honors and distinctions to spare and was inducted into various honor societies, including the National Honor Society, National Science Honor Society, TRI-M Music Honor Society, and the Societé Honoraire de Français.
He started his undergraduate university career at Macalester College where he has since been actively pursuing a B.A in chemistry with added emphasis in biochemistry. Joseph found his way into Professor Dennis Cao’s research lab in April of 2016 where he since has been conducting research in organic materials chemistry. Specifically, Joseph is working on self-assembled structures and photocatalysis. After his undergraduate coursework is completed, Joseph is eager to pursue a Ph.D in organic synthesis or materials science starting in the Fall of 2018.
Aside from chemistry, Joseph enjoys playing intramural soccer and balancing his time with photography, travel, and New York Yankees baseball.
Macrocycles' unique and symmetric structures enable them to encapsulate other molecules within their structural cavity, and can be designed to bind with charged or neutral substrates. The focus of our project is to synthesize novel macrocycles by exploiting the 109° angle of sp3 carbons to direct the assembly of pentagonal shapes, and through the power of alkene metathesis. Recently, we were excited to synthesize a novel aforementioned macrocycle...
Cyclodextrins are cavitary compounds that are highly attractive for supramolecular design since they are naturally occurring, and can be solubilized in water or organic solvents, depending on their protective groups. By use of selective debenzylation, we proposed a successful method by which it is possible to introduce a chiral spatial arrangement on the primary rim to then facilitate its selective modification...
I conducted an extensive study on testing metal-free visible-light active conjugated polymer photocatalysts for water splitting, and attempted to make analogous molecules of my own. One challenge I encountered was the lack of suitable instrumentation to quantify the amount of hydrogen evolved. Though we did not have a suitable mass spectrometer with a TCD detector at my institution. I instead developed a simple to use and cost-effective alternative....
| # | Conference | Venue | Location | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senior Capstone Presentation | Macalester College | Saint Paul, MN | Apr. 25, 2018 |
| 2 | 255th ACS National Meeting | Ernest N. Morial Convention Center | New Orleans, LA | Mar. 19-20, 2018 |
| 3 | Macalester Summer Research Poster Fair | Macalester College | Saint Paul, MN | Oct. 6, 2017 |
| 4 | Winchell Undergraduate Research Symposium | Macalester College | Saint Paul, MN | Apr. 22, 2017 |
| 5 | MCMS Undergraduate Research Symposium | Washington University | Saint Louis, MO | Nov. 4-5, 2016 |
| 6 | ACTC Chemistry Summer Symposium | Bethel University | Saint Paul, MN | Jul. 20, 2016 |
| # | Conference | Venue | Location | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 255th American Chemical Society National Meeting | Ernest N. Morial Convention Center | New Orleans, LA | Mar. 19, 2018 |
Follow me on social media!
You can also fill out the form below to send me a message! or click here to compose an email!