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Phone: 212.854.2037
Email: mediarelations@barnard.edu

Sun Min
Director of Media Relations

Alyssa Vine
Associate Director of Media Relations

Dina C. Merrer

Associate Professor of Chemistry

Dina C. Merrer joined the faculty of Barnard in 2001. Prior to Barnard, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Matthew S. Platz at Ohio State University and obtained her Ph.D. with Robert A. Moss at Rutgers University. In the Platz and Moss labs, she investigated the mechanisms of intramolecular carbene rearrangements by laser-flash photolysis. At Barnard, she teaches courses primarily in organic chemistry.

Professor Merrer and her research group are studying the mechanisms of intermolecular carbene additions to strained cyclic compounds and the impact of reaction dynamics on these mechanisms. They use a combination of experimental and computational techniques in their research. Professor Merrer's research is supported by the National Science Foundation, Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society, and Research Corporation.

Professor Merrer has served as the scientific and research mentor for over 18 undergraduate students at Barnard. Her students have presented their work at national meetings of the American Chemical Society, and several have gone on to PhD, MD/PhD, and MD programs in the chemical and biological sciences. She has co-authored several research papers with her students.

She serves as premajor and major adviser for chemistry and biochemistry students and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees’ Committee on Student Life and the Tenure Process Review Committee.

In 2006, Professor Merrer was awarded the Gladys Brooks Teaching Award by the faculty of Barnard College.

Selected Publications

(* = undergraduate co-author)

"A Computational Study of Chlorocarbene Additions to Cyclooctyne" (with X.
Y. Mo,* S. E. Bernard,* and Marina Khrapunovich*), J. Org. Chem. 73 (2008), 8537-8544.

"Regioselectivity and Mechanism of Dihalocarbene Addition to Benzocyclopropene" (with M. Khrapunovich*, et al.), J. Org. Chem. 72 (2007)

"Mechanisms of Halocarbene Additions to Cyclooctyne: An Experimental and Theoretical Investigation" (with S. E. Bernard*, et al.), 233rd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Chicago, IL, March 2007

"Dichlorocarbene Addition to Cyclopropenes: A Computational Study" (with P. R. Rablen), J. Org. Chem. 70 (2005)

"Experimental and Theoretical Ultraviolet Spectra of Haloindoles" (with S. Ozcetinkaya* and A. E. Shinnar), Tetrahedron Lett. 45 (2004)

"Kinetics of Intramolecular Carbene Rearrangements" (with R. A. Moss), in Advances in Carbene Chemistry, vol. 3, ed. U. H. Brinker (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 2001)

CONTACT:

Dina C. Merrer
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Barnard College

212.854.9631

EDUCATION:

B.A., Smith College

Ph.D., Rutgers University