spjcramer@ucdavis.edu
(510) 486-4720

Stephen Cramer
Advanced Light Source Professor

Stephen P. Cramer, whose research straddles the fields of synchrotron x-ray spectroscopy and bioinorganic chemistry, is an Advanced Light Source Professor at UC Davis and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He became involved with synchrotron radiation in 1974, during thesis work on the EXAFS of nitrogenase at Stanford's SSRP. Following an NIH post-doc with Harry Gray, he joined Exxon Research, where he used EXAFS and other methods to characterize man-made and biological catalyst. Since then, he has worked on developing new synchrotron methods for characterizing metals in biology. These include the first bioinorganic applications of soft x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS). More recently, his group has employed nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy (NRVS) and femtosecond pump probe spectroscopy (FPPS), as well conventional methods such as FT-IR, resonance Raman, and Mossbauer spectroscopy.

hxwang2@lbl.gov
510-717-9396

Hongxin Wang
Associate Project Scientist

Hongxin is an associate project scientist in the University of California at Davis. He is specialized in studying trace amount transition metal ions in biological enzymes with synchrotron radiation based modern X-ray spectroscopies and other laboratory based spectroscopies. His current research is focused on the nuclear resonant vibrational spectroscopy(NRVS), combined with traditional FTIR and resonant Raman spectroscopies, on 57Fe labelled Fe-S enzymes, such as nitrogenases and hydrogenates. In addition to research activities, he also constructs new instruments; writing user manuals and standards operation procedures; supervises and provides technical support to daily experiments.



sarragain@ucdavis.edu
530-752-8574

Simon Arragain
Post-Doctoral Fellow

Simon joined Professor Cramer's group as Associate Project Scientist at the University of California, Davis in February 2017. His research focuses mainly on the biochemistry of FeS clusters especially on the Radical SAM enzyme superfamily. He also works more particularly on sulfur insertion. In his research projects he used several spectroscopies (UV-Vis, EPR, Mossbauer) and X-ray crystallography to study several metalloenzymes. Besides he is developing new biochemical tools to facilitate FeS cluster enzymes studies. He has a particular interest in FeFe and NiFe hydrogenases, nitrogenases and other atypical metalloenzymes.



Giorgio Caserta
Post-Doctoral Fellow

Giorgio Caserta received his B.S. in Chemistry in 2010 and M.S. in Chemical Sciences in 2013 at University of Naples Federico II. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2016 at the Coll�ge de France under the guidance of Prof. Marc Fontecave working on the development of artificial hydrogenases based on [FeFe]-hydrogenases. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Oliver Lenz (TU-Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Stephen Cramer working on [NiFe]-hydrogenases. His research focuses mainly on the biochemistry of FeS cluster enzymes with particular focus on the reconstitution of metallo cofactors in protein scaffolds. He employs chemical, biochemical and spectroscopic tools to study the mechanism and the catalytic properties of these enzymes.


hugwang@ucdavis.edu
530-752-8574

Huigang Wang
Visiting Scholar

Huigang received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1999 and Ph.D. in physical Chemistry in 2004 at Zhejiang University. He joined the Cramer group in 2017 as a visiting scholar in the Chemistry Department. His research interest is on the Resonance Raman Spectroscopy (RRS) and its application in the biological systems. Various phenomenons related with intermolecular interactions such as the Noncoincidence Effect, concentration effect and solvent effect have been explored. The work includes the obtain of various selected wavelengths Resonance Raman spectra, the density functional calculations and absolute Raman intensity analysis of various porphines, adenosine, guanosine, and thymidine etc. to study the short-time photo-relaxation dynamics and the photosynthesis and respiration mechanisms. His current research is on the photo-induced conformation changes in the photoreceptor/transducer complex Sensory Rhodopsin II/HtrII using spectroscopic NRVS, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy,time-resolved IR spectroscopy and femtosecond pump probe spectroscopy (FPPS).


ccpham@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-8574

Cindy Pham
Graduate Student

California State University, Long Beach - B.S. Chemistry (2013)
Analytical Chemistry Graduate Student GAANN Fellow, 2013-2014.

Cindy Pham joined the group in January 2014. Her focus is on the catalytic mechanism and maturation of [FeFe]-hydrogenase (FeFe-ase). FeFe-ase is a prime candidate for an alternative hydrogen energy consumer/producer. The active site of the enzyme contains [4Fe4S] and [2Fe2S]clusters decorated with CN and CO ligand; it is a metallo-enzyme that is intolerant to oxygen. In order to make a hydrogenas, or a mutant there of, a viable hydrogen producer the catalytic mechanism and maturation must be understood. She employs spectroscopic techniques such as NRVS, Stop -flow FTIR, EPR,and Mössbauer to study FeFe-ase and its maturases HydG,HydE,HydF. Please refer to the publication section of our website for more information on FeFe-ase.

pnserrano@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-8574

Pauline Serrano
Graduate Student

Major: Biochemistry B.S. Minors: Women's Studies and Mathematical Sciences University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Major: Chemistry M.S. University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Pauline joined the Cramer Research Group Spring 2014 as a qualified Ph.D. candidate in chemistry. Electrochemistry has been a long time research interest for Pauline and she will be coupling that knowledge with Synchrotron radiation, photolysis, and FT-IR on various proteins and model compounds. Outside of dissertation research Pauline enjoys mentoring underrepresented high school and undergraduate students in STEM, chemical safety, and teaching.

zmao@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-8574

Ziliang Mao
Graduate Student

Ziliang received his BS in Physics from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2010. Currently, he is a PhD student in the Applied Science graduate program at UC Davis. From 2011-2013, he worked in the Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology (CBST) at UC Davis with Profs. Dennis Matthews and James Chan. During that time, he research focus was on Raman spectroscopy of blood cells and nonlinear microscopy (SHG and TPF) of cardiomyocytes. After receiving a master degree in Applied Science on August 2013, he joined Prof. Stephen Cramer's group. His current research focus is on nitrogenase and hydrogenase active site studies using spectroscopic NRVS, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. He is also interested in photolysis techniques, time-resolved IR spectroscopy and femtosecond pump probe spectroscopy (FPPS), and may apply these techniques to his research.

nmishra@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-8574

Nakul Mishra
Graduate Student

M.S. Chemistry: Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad, India

Nakul joined the research group as a summer student in May 2013. Currently, he is a graduate student in Chemistry at UC Davis. He employs various spectroscopic techniques such as NRVS, Raman, FTIR and Mossbauer spectroscopy to study the intermediates of Nitrogenase with Janus intermediate (E4) being his primary focus. Previously, he has worked on the synthesis of Metal Organic Frameworks(MOFs) and study of hetero-synthons in crystal engineering.

Adam Jenkins
Graduate Student

Adam graduated summa cum laude from UC Davis with a B.S in Chemistry in Spring 2016. He starts graduate school in the Chemistry Department of UC Davis in Fall 2016. After transferring to UC Davis from Butte Community College he entered the Ng lab, where he worked as an undergraduate researcher from 2014-2016. For the first year he was studying the bracing ratio of N2 using Vacuum Ultraviolet - Velocity-Map Imaging (VUV-VMI). At the end of his first year he was awarded the 2014-15 ACS Undergraduate Award for Analytical Chemistry. For the second year he was involved in the state selected work, studying the charge transfer reaction of different rovibrational states to observe the effect that rotational, vibrational, and electronic energy levels have on reaction dynamics. At the end of his senior year, he was one of the awardees of the 2015-16 Citation for Outstanding Graduating Seniors, 2015-16 Outstanding Graduating Senior Award, and 2015-16 Departmental Highest Honors.