The Science of Synthesis (SOS) Advisory Board Welcomes New Members

Stuttgart, April 2020 – Professor Jonathan Goodman of the University of Cambridge, Dr. Ye Li of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Dr. Donna Wrublewski of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have been appointed to the Science of Synthesis (SOS) Advisory Board. The SOS Advisory Board comprises experts who have significant experience of chemical information systems in both industry and academia. Published online by the Thieme Group/Thieme Chemistry, Science of Synthesis provides a critical review of the synthetic methodology for the entire field of organic and organometallic chemistry. In close cooperation with renowned chemists the interactive platform is constantly developed to include thorough and quality overviews on a range of organic synthesis topics saving researchers hours of searching and literature research.

Professor Jonathan Goodman teaches in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, where he studied chemistry and then obtained his PhD. He is now Deputy Director of the Centre for Molecular Informatics, and Academic Dean at Clare College as well as  a committee member of the RSC’s Chemical Information and Computer Applications Group, and secretary of IUPAC’s InChI subcommittee. Among other topics, his research group focuses on understanding reaction mechanisms, designing new reagents, computational chemical toxicology, and methods for making the most of chemical information. “The volume of chemical research makes it impossible to track everything that is happening. Science of Synthesis plays an important role in making this intractable quantity of data accessible to researchers”, he says. 

Dr. Ye Li, who obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry and M.A. in Library and Information Science, started her career as a chemistry librarian at the University of Michigan. She now works as Librarian for Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Material Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is currently exploring librarians’ roles in computational access and reuse of data and texts. She is a member of the Force11 Scholarly Communication Institute programming committee and the Associate Programming Chair of American Chemical Society, Chemical Information Division. In her new function as a member of the Advisory board she hopes to pass on her experience and knowledge: “The value of evaluated data and information in tertiary resources, such as Science of Synthesis, can oftentimes be overlooked by researchers and learners. Librarians can help highlight those unique values through instruction and educational materials based on real-life use cases.”

After receiving her degree in Chemical Engineering from MIT, Dr. Donna Wrublewski graduated with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2012 she received the Employee Excellence Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Instruction and Training from the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida, where she held her first faculty librarian position. In 2013, after moving to the Caltech Library as Librarian for Chemistry and Biology, she was selected to participate in the Council on Library and Information Resources Postdoctoral Fellowship program. In her function as an Associate Editor of the journal Science & Technology Libraries she provides an annual analysis for science librarians of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “It is an honor to use my experience to assist researchers, and especially to be asked to participate in helping shape the products that help them, such as Science of Synthesis.”

The three new members will join the existing Advisory Board which includes G. Baysinger (Stanford University), L. Betschart (ETH Zurich), J. Currano (University of Pennsylvania), C. Keil (Pfizer), and Xiaoxia Li (CAS, China). They will be responsible for a regular contribution to the continued development of the SOS electronic product as well as providing important feedback on the user needs of chemists and market research. The Advisory Board also provides advice on potential publisher/librarian initiatives and collaborations, cheminformatic topics, scientific seminars, and chemistry publishing in general. Dr. M. Fiona Shortt de Hernandez, Senior Director for Digital Services & Strategic Partnerships at Thieme Chemistry, is very much looking forward to the future collaboration which has already proven valuable to the members of the Advisory Board so far. “It will help us to continue considering the needs of our Science of Synthesis users and potentially also help us to find new chemistry information solutions to the problems of chemistry researchers worldwide”, she says.

To get access to Science of Synthesis 4.17 or a free trial, please visit: http://sos.thieme.com.

For more information about Science of Synthesis, please visit the website at www.thieme-chemistry.com/sos/.