Rate My Professor Olafs Daugulis

Olafs Daugulis is the Robert A. Welch Chair of Chemistry and Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Houston. He earned a degree in Chemical Engineering from Riga Technical University in Latvia, graduating with honors in 1991, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999 under Professor Edwin Vedejs. Daugulis conducted postdoctoral research as an Associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2000 to 2003 with Professor Maurice Brookhart. He joined the University of Houston in 2003 as Assistant Professor of Chemistry, advanced to Associate Professor in 2009, and was named Professor and Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry in 2014. His research interests lie in synthetic organic and organometallic methodology, encompassing Group 11 metal chemistry, applications of organometallic chemistry to organic synthesis and polymer chemistry, and development of new enantio- and diastereoselective transformations. Daugulis is renowned for advancing C-H bond functionalization techniques, particularly through the 8-aminoquinoline directing group reported in 2005, enabling selective catalytic reactions of sp² and sp³ C-H bonds.

Key publications include "Catalytic Coupling of Haloolefins with Anilides" (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005), "Anilide ortho-Arylation Using C–H Activation Methodology" (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2005), "Two Methods for Direct ortho-Arylation of Benzoic Acids" (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2007), "Ethylene Polymerizations Catalyzed by Fluorinated “Sandwich” Diimine-Nickel and Palladium Complexes" (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2024), and "Late Metal Sandwich Catalysts for Olefin Polymerization" (Acc. Chem. Res., 2025). Daugulis has received major awards such as the Synthesis-Synlett Journal Award (2006), Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2008), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2008), University of Houston Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award (2009) and Teaching Excellence Award (2010), Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research (2013), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2014), EROS Best Reagent Award (2022), and election as an AAAS Fellow (2018). His contributions have significantly influenced modern synthetic methodologies in organic chemistry.