One of our research goals is the synthesis of aldehydes that cannot be prepared in high purity using existing literature methods.  Using a photochemical method that we discovered in our laboratory, we hope to generate a family of compounds called 3-alkynals that are free of their 2,3-dienal isomers.   It is also our intent to show that these unsaturated aldehydes can be used to synthesize other substances.

Another research goal in our laboratory is to identify a multi-step synthesis
of an organic compound that employs the Suzuki reaction in one of its steps.
Although this reaction is used widely in industry and academia to synthesize a
variety of important compounds, it is absent in current textbooks that describe
experiments that can be carried out in the undergraduate laboratory.  If we
achieve this goal, we hope to publish this work in the Journal of Chemical
Education.