Dr. Read de Alaniz received his B.S. degree from Fort Lewis College in 1999 and his Doctoral Degree from Colorado State University in 2006. His doctoral training under the direction of Professor Tomislav Rovis focused on asymmetric catalysis using N-heterocyclic carbenes. He pursued his postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Irvine where he worked in the area of total synthesis with Professor Larry E. Overman. During that time he was the recipient of the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. Read de Alaniz joined the faculty at UCSB in 2009.

Research in the Read de Alaniz group focuses on new reaction developments and their application to the synthesis of architecturally challenging and biologically important molecules. Our main focus is identifying efficient new methods for the efficient construction of carbon–nitrogen bonds. Nitrogen-functionalized molecules are valuable pharmaceutical targets and fundamental building blocks in natural product synthesis