Rate My Professor Rachel Baker

Rachel Baker, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Queen's University, holding the inaugural Robins Family Professorship of Engineering Chemistry since 2023 and a cross-appointment to the Department of Chemistry. She earned her BASc in Engineering Chemistry from Queen's University in 2017. Baker completed her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Toronto from 2017 to 2022 under the supervision of Professor Mark Lautens, where her research involved developing dearomative rhodium-catalyzed cyclopropanation reactions from cyclopropenes and synthesizing imidazothiazole compounds for the control of parasitic nematodes. Subsequently, she held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology from 2022 to 2023 with Professor Karthish Manthiram, focusing on mechanistic investigations of organic electrochemical systems.

At the Baker Lab, Baker's research centers on harnessing renewable electricity and greenhouse gases such as CO2 as sustainable building blocks to create carbon-neutral and carbon-negative processes for manufacturing paints, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and other essential chemicals, thereby reducing the chemical industry's fossil fuel dependence. Her approach integrates electrochemical reaction optimization, catalyst and reactor design, and mechanistic pathway analysis, with projects including electrode materials for CO2 carboxylation and paired electrolysis of biomass-derived alcohols. Key publications include 'Recent Progress in the Development of Electrode Materials for Electrochemical Carboxylation with CO2' (Ton, Baker et al., Journal of Catalysis, 2024), 'Discovery and Characterization of a Chemical Probe Targeting the Zinc-Finger Ubiquitin-Binding Domain of HDAC6' (Harding, Baker et al., Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2023), 'Nemacol is a Small Molecule Inhibitor of C. elegans Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter with Anthelmintic Potential' (Harrington, Baker et al., Nature Communications, 2023), and 'Selective Control of Parasitic Nematodes Using Bioactivated Nematicides' (Burns et al., Nature, 2023). She holds several patents on imidazothiazole compounds and methods for treating nematode infections in plants.

Baker's pioneering work in sustainable chemical manufacturing has garnered the 2024 John Charles Polanyi Prize in Chemistry, Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science (2025), Kingston Young Professionals 40 Under 40 (2024), Second-place Poster Award at the CaRLa Winter School (2020), and NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarships (2018-2022). She contributes to STEM diversity through outreach events such as Science Rendezvous and Go Eng Girl.