Rene Johnson completed her undergraduate work at San Francisco State University, where she received a B.S. in Biochemisty and a B.A. in Japanese. After graduation she came to UC Davis where she finished her PhD under Professor William H. Casey.
Rene's first project involved synthesizing 17O enriched versions of polyoxoniobates and studying the reactivity of various oxygen sites by 17O NMR. She followed isotopic oxygen exchange for the 19 non-equivalent oxygen sites in a tetrasiliconiobate ion to prepare for her future thesis work involving various NMR and computational methods to study uranyl complexes. Currently she is investigating the reactivity of uranyl monomers and polyoxo-uranyl compounds. This work includes studying 'yl' oxygen exchange and ligand exchange with variable pressure, as well as studying the stability and reaction dynamics of large uranyl clusters in an aqueous environment.
2011
4. Johnson, Rene L.; Harley, Stephen J.; Ohlin, C. André; Panasci, Adele F.; Casey, William H. "Multinuclear NMR study of the pressure dependence for carbonate exchange in the UO2(CO3)34-(aq) ion", ChemPhysChem, 2011, 12, 2903-2906. Link
3. Johnson, Rene L.; Villa, Eric M.; Ohlin, C. André; Rustad, James R.; Casey, William H. "17O NMR and computational study of a tetrasiliconiobate ion, [H2+xSi4Nb16O56](14-x)-", Chem. Eur. J., 2011 , 17, 9359-9367. Link
2. Harley, Stephen J.; Ohlin, C. André; Johnson, Rene L.; Panasci, Adele; Casey, William H. "The pressure dependence of oxygen-isotope-exchange rates between solution and apical oxygens on the UO2(OH)42- ion.", Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. , 2011, 50(19) 4467-4469. Link
1. Ohlin, C. André; Harley, Stephen J.; McAlpin, J. Gregory; Hockin, Rosalie K.; Mercado, Brandon Q., Johnson, Rene L.; Villa, Eric M.; Fidler, Mary Kate; Olmstead, Marilyn M.; Spiccia, Leone; Britt, R. David; Casey, William H. "Rates of water exchange for two cobalt(II) heteropolyoxotungstate compounds in aqueous solution", Eur. J. Chem. , 2011, 17(16), 4408-4417. Link
The Casey laboratory specialises broadly in aqueous chemistry related to the environmental and geological sciences. More ...