Paula Diaconescu

Education:
BS, University of Bucharest
PhD, MIT
Post Doc, Cal Tech
Paula Diaconescu joined the UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry department in 2005 after spending two-years as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Robert Grubbs at California Institute of Technology. She obtained her Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Prof. Christopher Cummins at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working on arene-bridged complexes of uranium. Her earlier education was completed in Romania, where she obtained her B.S. from University of Bucharest and worked on coordination complexes of transition metals and lanthanides at University Politehnica of Bucharest. Her current research efforts focus on the design of reactive metal complexes with applications to small molecule activation, organic synthesis, and polymer formation.