Nicholas Olveda

Background

About Nicholas Olveda

Independently driven to grow as a student and as a research professional, my academic goals focus on earning a Ph.D. In Chemistry with a research focus in synthetic organic chemistry and organometallic catalysis. • Technical research experience includes total synthesis of natural products, organometallic catalysis and ligand design/development, computational analysis via Density Functional Theory (DFT). Experienced in purification processes to identify, monitor, and purge impurities through extraction, distillation/fractional-distillation, thin layer chromatography, column/flash chromatography, and recrystallization. • I’m passionate about advocating for marginalized students who come from low-income and non-traditional backgrounds with little to no opportunity to pursue higher education in STEM related fields. This passion stems from personally navigating through the academic system and through my experiences my personal academic goals are;(i) To raise awareness about inclusion and diversity in STEM related research in higher education,(ii) provide application resources to underrepresented groups for successful transfer from community college to university as well as information to acquire equal scholarship opportunities as financial support to ensure success in higher education, and promote minority participation in STEM in the K-12 school systems by developing/participating in outreach programs that target impacted school systems. • Alongside my passion to further the academic goals of aspiring scientist, I’m also passionate about researching current areas of science that are working towards developing different ways to potentially create more efficient therapeutics to treat various forms of disease. Like most, we share similar tragedies of experiencing the loss of loved ones to terminal diseases. To combat these devastating losses my continued efforts are to learn more about current potential drug candidates and utilize synthetic chemistry to help develop efficient therapeutics to treat such illness. Specifically, I hope to target rare forms of cancer as they are underfunded and overlooked but still require immediate attention as there is still an unmet need for successful treatment.