Tyler graduated from Saline High School in Saline, Michigan. He has been an active leader at Anchorhouse Christian Fellowship. He completed his senior research on the use of microreactors to produce pharmaceutical precursors. He was the recipient of a GRO Fellowship for Undergraduates sponsored by the EPA. Tyler completed a summer working in Cinncinati for the EPA's National Risk Management Research Laboratory, and spent a summer in San Francisco with the American Chemical Society's Nuclear Summer School. Tyler will be pursuing his PhD at Washington State University in the Fall.
"I can't tell you how much the chemistry faculty has helped me during the last couple of years. Tremendously is the word that comes to mind."
--David Beckman
Pre-pharmacy Graduate,
Attending Pharmacy School at Ferris State University
"I have especially enjoyed seeing undergraduates get involved in fairly high-powered research projects. Many of these projects are better than a typically masters thesis. For example, a former student of mine presented his data at a national meeting and was awarded the top student presentation. He was competing against numerous masters and graduate students at that meeting. LSSU's small size allows professors to work directly with motivated students and the faculty are truly interested in student success."
--Marshall Werner, Ph.D
Associate Professor
Asymmetric Synthesis Using Chiral Auxiliaries and Titanium Enolates
Michael Overbeek
Chiral auxiliary-mediated asymmetric aldol additions are an important method for asymmetric carbon-carbon bond formation. Dr. Daveid A. Evans from Harvard University has developed the use of a boron enolate to allow for specific stereochemistry, often called an “Evan’s Aldol Reaction’. The use of a titanium enolate, instead of a borony enolate, has been documented to create the opposite stereocenters when utilizing the Evan’s Aldol methodology. This project describes an attempt to form an anti-Evans product with the addition of phenylacetaldehyde to R-(-)-4-Benzyl-3propionyl-2oxazolidinone. The use of an aldehyde substrate when utilizing a chiral titanium enolate has not been well documented in the literature.
