Jacob Walley, of the Gilliard Group, has been named the 2020 Adam Ritchie Outstanding Graduate Student in Chemistry. This award was established in remembrance of Adam Ritchie (UVA Ph.D., 1968) to provide financial assistance to an outstanding graduate student.

According to Jacob's submission, the majority of his early graduate work focused on beryllium, the least explored member of the alkaline earh metals. This work has led to four first-author papers and contributions to several other manuscripts. His research is now focusing on the pnictogens, group 15 on the periodic table. These elements include nirtogen, phosphorous, arsenic, antimony and bismuth with a focus on antimony and bismuth. A listing of Jacob's publications is below. 

7. Walley, J. E.; Dickie, D. A.; Gilliard, R. J., Crystallographic study of a heteroleptic chloroberyllium borohydride carbodicarbene complex. ZNB. 2020, 75, 497.

6. Wang, Guocang; Walley, Jacob E.; Dickie, Diane A.; Pan, Sudip; Frenking, Gernot; Gilliard Jr., Robert J. "A Stable, Crystalline Beryllium Radical Cation" J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, ASAP. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b13777.
*Highlighted by Chemical & Engineering News: "Beryllium Radical Cation Isolated"

5. Walley, Jacob E.; Wong, Y.-O.; Freeman, L.A.; Dickie, D.A.; Gilliard, R.J., Jr. NHeterocyclic Carbene-Supported Aryl- and Alk- oxides of Beryllium and Magnesium. Catalysts 2019, 9, 934.

4. Freeman, L. A.; Walley, Jacob E.; Dickie, D. A.; Gilliard, R. J., Low-nuclearity magnesium hydride complexes stabilized by N-heterocyclic carbenes. Dalton Trans 2019, 48, 17174-17178.

3. Walley, Jacob E.; Obi, A. D.; Breiner, G.; Wang, G.; Dickie, D. A.; Molino, A.; Dutton, J. L.; Wilson, D. J. D.; Gilliard, R. J., Jr., Cyclic(alkyl)(amino) Carbene-Promoted Ring Expansion of a Carbodicarbene Beryllacycle. Inorg Chem 2019, 58 (16), 11118-11126.

2. Freeman, L. A.; Walley, Jacob E.; Obi, A. D.; Wang, G.; Dickie, D. A.; Molino, A.; Wilson, D. J. D.; Gilliard, R. J., Jr., Stepwise Reduction at Magnesium and Beryllium: Cooperative Effects of Carbenes with Redox Non-Innocent alpha-Diimines. Inorg Chem 2019, 58 (16), 10554-10568.

1. Walley, Jacob E.; Breiner, G.; Wang, G.; Dickie, D. A.; Molino, A.; Dutton, J. L.; Wilson, D. J. D.; Gilliard, J. R. J., s-Block carbodicarbene chemistry: C(sp3)–H activation and cyclization mediated by a beryllium center. Chem. Commun. 2019, 55, 1967-1970.