of enthusiastic scientists
Our Team
Summer 2023
Lead Investigator
Dr. Jakob Magolan
Professor, Dept. of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences
Boris Family Chair of Drug Discovery
BSc (2002) Queen's University, Canada (R. Lemieux)
PhD (2007) Western University, Canada (M. Kerr)
Postdoc (2007-2010) Griffith University, Australia (M. Coster)
2010 - 2017, Assistant Professor, University of Idaho
2017 - 2023, Associate Professor, McMaster University
2023 - present, Professor, McMaster University
Research Associates
Dr. Jarrod Johnson
Research Associate
BSc & PhD: University of Waterloo (G. Dimitrienko)
Postdoctoral research: Notre Dame (S. Mobashery); McMaster (G. Wright)
Research Focus: Dr. Johnson contributes to the management of all research in our lab with an emphasis on antimicrobial medicinal chemistry projects.
Dr. Mathew Piotrowski
Research Associate
BSc & PhD: Western University, Canada (M. Kerr)
Postdoctoral research: McMaster University (J. Magolan)
Research focus: Dr. Pitrowski develops scalable syntheses of phenolic natural products of biomedical interest. His research is sponsored by a partnership between our lab and Naturally Synthetic Inc.
Dr. Lauren Irwin
Research Associate
BSc & PhD: Western University, Canada (M. Kerr)
Research focus: Dr. Irwin works on the syntheses of phenolic natural products of biomedical interest. Her research is sponsored by a partnership between our lab and Naturally Synthetic Inc.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr. Nicole Ritchie
PhD Candidate, Chemistry
BSc: University of Waterloo (G. Murphy)
PhD: McMaster University (J. Magolan)
Research focus: Dr. Ritchie is a medicinal chemist working on on projects in the field of malignant brain tumors.
Graduate Students - PhD Candidates
Lara Lima
PhD Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: Federal University of Ceara, Brazil
Research: Novel organosulfur based synthetic methods.
Princeton Luong
PhD Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Waterloo (with Prof. Michael Chong)
Research: Synthesis of bioactive phenolic natural products.
Gary Wang​
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: McMaster University (in our lab)
Research: Developing strategies to access diverse phenolic natural products.
Graduate Students - MSc Candidates
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Katie Shepherd
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Guelph (with Prof. Adrian Schwan)
Research: Early-stage discovery of antimicrobial compounds.
Angela Brujic
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: Brock University (with Prof. Travis Dudding)
Research: Early-stage discovery of anti-inflammatory compounds.​
Undergraduate Students
Erica Cho
Undergraduate Co-op Student, Chemical Biology (McMaster)
Zaina Shahrouri
Undergraduate Student, Biochemistry
Keithan Vigna
Undergraduate Student, Biochemistry
Ryan Wong
Undergraduate Student, Biochemistry
