Rate My Professor James Donahue

James P. Donahue is a Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Tulane University’s School of Science and Engineering. He earned a B.S. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991, an M.A. in Inorganic Chemistry from Harvard University in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Harvard University in 1998. Donahue joined Tulane as an assistant professor and progressed to full professor. In 2009, he received the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, a five-year $570,000 grant to support research on tungsten-mediated reduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide and to integrate research with education by mentoring undergraduate, graduate, and high school students. In 2022, his team was awarded a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop catalysts for producing clean hydrogen from water using sunlight in a fully integrated photochemical water-splitting system.

The research in the Donahue Group is synthesis-driven inorganic chemistry, focusing on coordination compounds, dithiolene and metallodithiolene complexes, redox-active ligands, multimetallic assemblies, hydrogen-evolving catalysts, and models for molybdoenzyme active sites. Key publications include “Assembly of a metal–organic framework by sextuple intercatenation of discrete adamantane-like cages” (Nature Chemistry, 2010), “A thermodynamic scale for oxygen atom transfer reactions” (Polyhedron, 1993), “Stabilization and immobilization of polyoxometalates in porous coordination polymers through host–guest interactions” (Coordination Chemistry Reviews, 2009), “Synthesis, structures, and reactivity of bis(dithiolene) molybdenum (IV, VI) complexes related to the active sites of molybdoenzymes” (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1998), and “Synthesis and structures of bis(dithiolene) molybdenum complexes related to the active sites of the DMSO reductase enzyme family” (Inorganic Chemistry, 2000). With over 4,000 citations and an h-index of 33 on Google Scholar, Donahue’s work has advanced understanding in coordination chemistry and catalysis. He has advised multiple Ph.D. students who have defended theses on topics such as synthesis and characterization of novel compounds and secured positions in academia, industry, and postdoctoral roles.