(Principal Investigator)
Dr. Upendra Sharma obtained his PhD (2011) from the CSIR–Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT), Palampur, India, and subsequently held a lecturer position at the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar. He pursued postdoctoral research training at leading international institutions, including KU Leuven, the University of Cambridge, Eindhoven University of Technology, and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (CAS), and served as a visiting research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2020, he joined KU Leuven as a Research Expert (Junior Group Leader), marking the start of his independent research career, before joining the faculty at the University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL) in fall 2024. At UMSL, he leads the UKS Research Group, where his research focuses on next-generation enabling synthetic technologies (the NEST), integrating continuous-flow chemistry, photoredox catalysis, synthetic electrochemistry, and boron-based radical chemistry to address chemically demanding transformations governed by extreme redox requirements, while training students in modern, interdisciplinary synthetic chemistry, emphasising mechanistic insight, scalability, automation, and safe chemical innovation.
