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Rajendra Rathore, Pfletschinger-Habermann Professor of Organic Chemistry at ÏòÈÕ¿ûÊÓƵ, unexpectedly passed away on February 16, 2018, following a brief battle with respiratory disease. Dr. Rathore was a devoted husband and loving father to two daughters, and had a zeal for life that was embodied in his passion for his family, as well as for his science.

Professor Rathore received his M.Sc. in 1986 from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kanpur and earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada in 1990. He was a post-doctoral research associate (1992-1997) and a visiting assistant professor (1997-2000) at the University of Houston under the supervision of Dr. Jay K. Kochi. He joined the faculty at ÏòÈÕ¿ûÊÓƵ in August 2000.

Dr. Rathore made key contributions to the areas of organic supramolecular and materials chemistry. He was particularly interested in the rational design and synthesis of novel electro-active molecules with applications in molecular recognition, photovoltaics, and molecular electronics. His recent work demonstrated that frontier molecular orbitals can be applied in the design and synthesis of novel electro-active species, akin to their well-known application in the rationalization of pericyclic reactions.

During Dr. Rathore’s incredibly distinguished career, he has published more than 150 articles in various respected journals, including Science, Journal of the American Chemical Society, and Angewandte Chemie. He has an h-index of 35, and his research papers have been cited more than 3,700 times. Dr. Rathore’s incredible passion for research and science will live on through the Raj Rathore Memorial Lecture and Memorial Scholarship.

Research Areas
Dr. Rathore's research was broadly defined as in the area of organic supramolecular and materials chemistry. He was interested in a variety of topics with a strong emphasis on the design and synthesis of novel electro-active molecules that can be utilized as practical molecular devices for the applications in the emerging field of nanotechnology as well as in biomaterial applications. Graduate and undergraduate student and postdoctoral researchers in his group were exposed to a broad range of topics including synthetic organic chemistry, organometallic chemistry, electrochemistry, photochemistry, time-resolved laser spectroscopy, and X-ray crystallography. The projects his group pursued were independent but highly interrelated and are best summarized as follows:

• Development of Molecular Sensors for NO and other analytes
• Design and Synthesis of Molecular Switches for Data Storage
• Preparation of Paramagnetic Materials as Molecular Conductors and Wires
• Synthesis of Supramolecular Assemblies Based on Donor-Acceptor Interactions and Study of Long-Range Electron Transfer
• Isolation of Highly-Reactive Cation-Radicals, Carbocations, and Wheland Intermediates
• Development of Novel Electron-Transfer Catalysts and New Synthetic Methodologies for Organic Synthesis.
• New exploratory projects for the design and preparation of novel molecular wires and biosensors are being actively pursued in my group and will be disclosed in the coming year.

This research lies at the interface of synthetic organic chemistry, molecular recognition, material science, solid state electronics, and biology with the ultimate aim of studying and exploiting new organic molecules and materials that can be used as molecular devices, such as sensors, switches, wires, ferromagnets, semiconductors, and other electronic and optoelectronic devices. To fulfill this task, the group used intra- and inter-molecular interactions that are present in supramolecular and macrocyclic assemblies containing multiple redox-active chromophores for the construction of higher-order organic materials. Ultimately, a fundamental understanding of weak interactions among molecules and ions (i.e. molecular recognition) encompasses all of these issues, and has wide ranging implications from areas as diverse as molecular machines to solar energy storage.

As an example, the group showed that a systematic study of the interaction of cofacial receptors (in which the aryl moieties are oriented at varying angles) with gaseous nitric oxide (NO)-an important biological messenger, led to the development of remarkably efficient receptors for NO (K_NO > 10⁸ M^-1). The group also exploited this remarkably efficient binding of NO with stilbenoid and calixarene receptors to develop functional molecular sensors for nitric oxide.

Selected Publications

• "Interplay between Entropy and Enthalpy in (Intramolecular) Cyclophane-Like Folding versus (Intermolecular) Dimerization of Diarylalkane Cation Radicals", T. S. Navale, M. R. Talipov, R. Shukla, R. Rathore, J. Phys. Chem. C. 2016, 120, 19558-1965. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b07006
• "Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd: Exciton Localization in Cofacially Arrayed Polyfluorenes", Marat R. Talipov, Maxim V. Ivanov, Scott A. Reid, Rajendra Rathore, J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2016, 7, 2915–2920. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b01268
• "First Experimental Evidence for the Diverse Requirements of Excimer vs Hole Stabilization in p-Stacked Assemblies", Neil Reilly, Maxim Ivanov, Brandon Uhler, Marat Talipov, Rajendra Rathore, Scott A. Reid, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2016, 7, 3042–3045. DOI:10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b01201
• "Inclusion of asymptotic dependence of reorganization energy in modified Marcus based multistate model accurately predicts hole distribution in poly-p-phenylene wires", Marat R. Talipov, Maxim V. Ivanov, R. Rathore Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2016, 120, 5402-6408. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b00514
• "A Circle Has No End: Role of Cyclic Topology and Accompanying Structural Reorganization on the Hole Distribution in Cyclic and Linear Poly-p-phenylene Molecular Wires", M. R. Talipov, R. Jasti, R. Rathore, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 4999-15006. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5b09596
• "Does Koopmans’ Paradigm for 1-Electron Oxidation Always Hold? Breakdown of IP/Eox Relationship for p-Hydroquinone Ethers and the Role of Methoxy Group Rotation", Talipov, M. R.; Boddeda, A.; Lindeman, S. V.; Rathore, R. J. Phys. Chem. Letters 2015, 6, 3373-3378. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01532
• "Crossover Crossover from Single-Step Tunneling to Multistep Hopping for Molecular Triplet Energy Transfer", J. Vura-Weis, S. H. Abdelwahed, R. Shukla, R. Rathore, M. A. Ratner, M. R. Wasielewski Science 2010, 328, 1547-1550.DOI: 10.1126/science.1189354

The Department of Chemistry is pleased to announce that the Fall 2024 Rathore Lecture will be given by , University of Texas at Austin on Friday, September 13 at 4 pm in room 121 of the Todd Wehr Chemistry Building.

 

 

2023, University of Texas at Austin

2022, , University of Wisconsin-Madison

2021, , Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2019, , Northwestern University