Meet Our Team

Neal Mankad

Professor & Associate Head, UIC Chemistry

Associate Editor, Dalton Transactions

Postdoc. 2012, UC Berkeley (Dean Toste)
Ph.D. 2010, Caltech (Jonas Peters)
B.S. 2004, MIT (Joseph Sadighi)

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, 2023
NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, 2021
UIC Teaching Recognition Program, 2018
UIC Honoring Our Professors’ Excellence, 2017
UIC Rising Star Researcher of the Year, 2016
Sloan Research Fellow, 2015
NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow, 2010
NSF Graduate Research Fellow, 2004

Daniel Kim

Postdoctoral Research Associate

2020-2024 – Postdoc (Korean military service), KAIST (w/ Sukbok Chang)
2015-2020 – Ph.D., Yale University (w/ Patrick Holland)

Roushan Singh

Graduate Research Assistant (G5)

B.Sc. – M.Sc. 2021 – IISER Bhopal

Ananthu Modappilappally

Graduate Research Assistant (G5)

M.Sc. 2021 – IIT Kanpur
B.Sc. 2019 – University of Delhi

Mahesh Choudhary

Graduate Research Assistant (G4)

B.Sc. – M.Sc. 2022 – IISER Thiruvananthapuram

Connly Yan

Graduate Research Assistant (G4)

B.Sc. 2022 – University of Illinois Chicago

Eunhye Lee

Graduate Research Assistant (G3)

B.Sc. 2022 – University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Sumali Roychowdhury

Graduate Research Assistant (G3)

M.Sc. 2021 – Baranas Hindu University
B.Sc. 2018 – Lady Brabourne College (Calcutta University)

Ira

Graduate Research Assistant (G3)

B.Sc. – M.Sc. 2022 – Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology

Karla Almaraz

Graduate Research Assistant (G2)

M.Sc. (Chemical Science) 2022 – Mexico National Autonomous University
B.Sc. 2020 – Mexico National Autonomous University

Prajal Chhetri

Graduate Research Assistant (G2)

M.Sc. 2021 – Amity University Uttar Pradesh
B.Sc. 2019 – Amity University Kolkata

Parvathi Santhosh Kumar

Graduate Research Assistant (G2)

2022–2024 – Research Assistant, CMS College Kottayam
M.Sc. 2022 – CMS College Kottayam
B.Sc. 2020 – CMS College Kottayam

Bhavya Vira

Graduate Research Assistant (G2)

2022–2024 – Research Assistant, IIT Bombay
M.Sc. 2022 – University of Mumbai
B.Sc. 2020 – University of Mumbai

Adnan Banatwala

Graduate Research Assistant (G1)

M.Sc. 2024 – Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad
B.Sc 2022 – St. Xaviers College, Mumbai

Aranya Chakraborty

Graduate Research Assistant (G1, joint with Nguyen Group)

M.Sc. – Jadavpur University
B.Sc. – Jadavpur University

Arkopal Nandy

Graduate Research Assistant (G1)

2018-2023 – IISER Mohali

Nathan Siciliano

Graduate Research Assistant (G1)

B.Sc. 2025 – Trinity University

Sherlyn Cazares

Undergraduate Research Assistant

UIC Class of 2026, Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Award

Jonthan Alvarado

High School Research Assistant

Walter Payton College Preparatory High School

Alumni

Alumnus	Last Known Position
Upul Jayarathne (postdoc)	Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Southern Illinois University
Suparna Banerjee (postdoc)	Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Uluberia College
Dominic Pye (postdoc)	Senior Scientist – Process Chemistry, Pharmaron
Li-Jie Cheng (postdoc)	Professor, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University
Chia-Wei Hsu (postdoc)	Information Scientist, Chemical Abstracts Service
Michael Drummond (postdoc)	Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Saint Mary’s College
Soumen Sinhababu (postdoc)	Postdoc, Colorado State University (Shores Group)
Debashis Basu (postdoc)	Departed UIC 2024
Sean Parmelee (MS)	Departed UIC 2014
Thomas Mazzacano (PhD)	Scientist, Intel Corporation
Brittany Johnson (PhD)	Scientist, Entegris Inc.
Malkanthi Karunananda (PhD)	Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Saint Louis University
Sharareh Bagherzadeh (PhD)	Senior Manager, CMC Regulatory, Sarepta Therapeutics
Greyson Waldhart (PhD)	Scientist, Intel Corporation
Richard Kellow (MS)	Actuarial Manager, Milliman
Noel Leon (PhD)	Postdoc, Argonne National Laboratory
Suresh Rathnayaka (PhD)	Research Scientist, VWR Avantor Innovation and Technology
Siling Zhao (PhD)	Scientist, Kumquat Biosciences
Dibbendu Ghosh (PhD)	Scientist, Intel Corporation
Hsien-Cheng Yu (PhD)	Scientist, Honeywell
Yutthana Lakliang (PhD)	Postdoc, Chulalongkorn University
Maxim Radzhabov (PhD)	Project Leader, Evonik Corporation
Pinku Tung (PhD)	Postdoc, Yale University (Spiegel Group)
Pinar Alayoglu (PhD)	Research Scientist, UL Research Institute
Simon Gersib (PhD)	Formulation Scientist, Entegris Inc.
Beria Tanriover (PhD)	Departed UIC 2025
Supundrika Subasinghe (PhD)	R&D Scientist, Baxter Healthcare
Slavi Tsarev (undergrad)	UIC Pharm.D. program
Bart Iwan (undergrad)	Ph.D. student, Loyola University Chicago Department of Chemistry
Larry Sanchez (undergrad)	UIC Pharm.D. program
Maryam Muhammad (undergrad)	Ph.D. program, UIC College of Pharmacy
Robert Lopez II (undergrad)	UIC undergraduate
Joseph Sahagun (undergrad)	UIC M.D. program
Alexander Raa (undergrad)	UIC undergraduate
Caleb Frank (undergrad)	PSU-Hershey M.D. program
Karim Muratov (undergrad)	Postdoc, University of Ottawa Department of Chemistry
Fiyin Adeboye (undergrad)	SIU MEDPREP program
Kyle Brook (undergrad)	Ph.D. student, Purdue University Department of Chemistry (Uyeda Group)
Radhika Patel (undergrad)	Midwestern University M.D. program
Sarah Iniguez (undergrad)	Departed UIC 2020
Diana Arteaga (undergrad)	UIC undergraduate
Cody Arnold (undergrad)	Chemistry M.S., University of Chicago
Ava Sommer (undergrad)	M.D. student, UIC