Jia-Rong Chen was born in 1980. He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Central China Agricultural University in 2003. He went on to get his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Central China Normal University in 2009 on design and application of readily tunable and bifunctional organocatalysts in the labs of Prof. Wen-Jing Xiao. From 2011 to 2012, Dr. Chen worked as a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Carsten Bolm at the RWTH Aachen University on asymmetric Lewis acid catalysis. He then returned to Central China Normal University, where he works as an associate professor. His group’s work has focused primarily on asymmetric catalysis and radical chemistry. In July of 2016, he was promoted to Professor of Chemistry.

Education

2003-2009: PhD in Organic Chemistry, Central China Normal University, China

                        (Supervisor: Prof. Wen-Jing Xiao)

1999-2003:   B.S., Huazhong Agricultural University, China

Academic Career

2016-present    Full Professor, Central China Normal University, China

2011-2016:    Associate Professor, Central China Normal University, China

2016 (January)  Visiting Professor at University of Ottawa, Canada

2010-2012:    Humboldt Postdoctoral Researcher, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

                          (Supervisor: Prof. Carsten Bolm)

2009-2011:   Assistant Professor, Central China Normal University, China

2008-2009:   Research intern in R&D of GlaxoSmithKline, Collegeville, PA, USA

Selected Awards and Honors

2021, Outstanding reviewer for Organic Chemistry Frontiers in 2020

2019, Perfect Light Excellent Young Scholar Award of Photochemistry in China

2018, Emerging Investigator, Chemical Communications (Royal Society of Chemistry)

(https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/cc/c8cc90258e#!divAbstract)

2017, First Rand of 2012 Award of Natural Science of Hubei Province (No. 3)

2017, Top Ten Youth Teacher Award of CCNU

2016, The National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars of China

2016, Distinguished Young Scholar of Hubei Province

2014, Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, Thieme Publishers (2015)

2013, First Rand of 2012 Award of Natural Science of Hu bei Province (No. 2)

2012, The National Excellent Ph. D. Thesis Normination Award (China)

2011, Excellent Ph. D. Thesis Award of Hu bei Province

2010, Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers, Germany