Rate My Professor James Bour

James Bour is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Wayne State University, where he leads the Bour Lab. A native Michigander, he earned his B.Sc. from Hope College in 2013, during which he was a Beckman Scholar and Phi Beta Kappa inductee. Bour completed his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 2018 as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, conducting thesis research under Professor Melanie Sanford on the elementary reactivity and catalytic applications of highly oxidized late transition metal organometallics. From 2018 to 2020, he served as an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Professor Mircea Dincă’s laboratory, focusing on the synthesis of phosphine-containing metal-organic frameworks and the effects of nanoconfinement on molecular catalysts. Since joining Wayne State University, Bour has received the Ebbing Faculty Development Award in 2021, 2022, and 2024, the Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator grant, the NSF CAREER Award in 2023, the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award, the NIH ESI R35 MIRA award, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teaching Award in 2024.

The Bour Lab addresses challenges in catalysis and organic reaction development through the design and synthesis of new catalyst platforms in solution and solid phases. The group exploits long-range molecular order in supramolecular assemblies and porous organic solids to enable highly selective chemical transformations. Research emphasizes the synthesis of novel porous organic materials and the synthetic applications of organometallics confined within them. Lab members are trained in organometallic chemistry, materials chemistry, organic synthesis, and inorganic synthesis. Bour's expertise spans catalysis, organometallics, porous organic materials, and methodology development. His influential publications include “Base-Free Nickel-Catalyzed Decarbonylative Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling of Acid Fluorides” (Nature, 2018, co-authored), “Carbon-Carbon Bond-Forming Reductive Elimination from Isolated Ni(III) Complexes” (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2016), “Oxidation of NiII to NiIV with Aryl Electrophiles Enables Ni-Mediated Ar-CF3 Coupling” (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2015), “Connecting Organometallic Ni(III)/(IV): Reactions of Carbon-Centered Radicals with High-Valent Organonickel Complexes” (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2019), and “Relationships Between Defectivity and Porosity in High Surface Area Porous Aromatic Frameworks” (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2023). Bour serves on the department's Warrior Strong Committee to foster inclusive chemistry education.