Malek Ibrahim
Postdoctoral Research Associate
I grew up in Cairo (Egypt) and was always fascinated by how natural resources can be converted to the materials we use every day in a sequence of steps. I did my Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with Professor Scott Denmark. I developed new reductive alkylation and carbonylation methods that utilize heavy water to produce selectively deuterated compounds, and performed mechanistic studies on the rhodium-catalyzed Water-Gas Shift Reaction. I also worked in the oil and gas industry for a few years as an R&D Engineer where I developed a new process for making propylene monomer with continuous catalyst regeneration. My research skills include heterogeneous catalyst synthesis, kinetics studies, and organic synthesis.
My current work is designing a flexible homogeneous catalytic process in-flow that allows manufacturers to switch between products with minimal changes to the reaction setup.
When not doing chemistry, I am either playing video games, reading, or watching horror movies.