About James

I’m an organic chemist originally from Glen Williams, Ontario, Canada. I obtained my Ph.D. in organic chemistry from McGill University (2006) and then did a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at MIT (2006-2008). In December 2008 I moved to Jerusalem, Israel, where I worked as a medicinal chemist at HUJI. In February 2010 I started tutoring organic chemistry online through Skype, and started MasterOrganicChemistry.com . Since then I’ve spent >1000 hours working 1-on-1 with undergraduates taking introductory organic chemistry.

MasterOrganicChemistry.com has been featured in Chemical and Engineering News and in BoingBoing. Since April 2010 it has attracted over 200,000 pageviews.

I currently live in a small town in Ontario you’ve probably never heard of.

You can read about some of my research here and here. My personal site is here.

Contact : jameswritechem dot com

skype: writechem

twitter @jamesashchem

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- Alkyne Reaction Patterns - The Carbocation PathwayPosted on: May 24, 2013
- Hydroboration and Oxymercuration of AlkynesPosted on: May 14, 2013
- Organic Reaction Flashcards Version 2.0 Is Here! Posted on: May 10, 2013
- Partial Reduction of AlkynesPosted on: May 08, 2013
- The 2 Most Important Reactions of AlkynesPosted on: May 01, 2013
- james said in Hydroboration of alkynes using BH3 to give aldehydes - Oops. Yes, thank you! →
- james said in Addition of LiAlH4 to aldehydes to give primary alcohols - Reduction of aldehydes can be performed with NaBH4 or LiAlH4. If ether is mentioned, it acts as a solvent only.... →
- james said in Friedel Crafts alkylation of arenes - They generally don't occur when meta-directing groups are present, but FC alkylations are possible when a singl... →
- james said in Formation of epoxides from alkenes using m-CPBA - This reaction doesn't work with alkynes! Can you think why not? [hint - it has something to do with aromaticity... →
- james said in Dehydration of amides to give nitriles - Lone pair of amide is strongly donating into carbonyl carbon - there is pseudo double bond character between ca... →
About Master Organic Chemistry

Imagine having a comprehensive online guide to help you solve your own problems in organic chemistry. That's my mission with this site. After earning a Ph.D. at McGill and doing a postdoc at MIT, I applied to be a professor. That didn't work out. So I decided to teach organic chemistry anyway. Master Organic Chemistry is the site I wish I had when I was learning the subject.
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