Dr. Saz is a Wisconsin native, born and raised in Chippewa Falls, about 180 miles west of Appleton, WI. He has enjoyed playing with all the phases of matter since he was small, and went on to pursue that interest in college at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. There, he had his first forays into research chemistry, working in the group of Shannon Stahl on ligand development for asymmetric catalysts. After graduating from UW-Madison, Graham pursued his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at Harvard University as a member of Theodore Betley’s group. There, he developed an understanding of the electronic structure of iron complexes of pyrrole-based ligands, with implications for the fields of catalysis and redox-active ligands. He then held a Ruth L. Kirschstein NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship in the lab of Prof. Timothy Swager at MIT. There, he designed and synthesized stable organic radicals for use in Dynamic Nuclear Polarization NMR experiments and in the field of organic materials chemistry more broadly. In 2016, he began his career teaching and leading undergradute research at Lawrence University. He and his students pursue the synthesis and study of luminescent organic radicals and investigate the properties of fascinating 3-dimensional materials known as metal-organic frameworks.
