Dr. Wade Downey, Professor of Chemistry in the School of Arts and Sciences, and his student lab group study the ability of trimethylsilyl trifluoromethanesulfonate (TMSOTf) to mediate new reactivity or increase the efficiency of known reactions. The most likely downstream application of this new chemistry is in the fields of pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and herbicides. In 2018 he co-authored two articles, along with his students, in both the Journal of Organic Chemistry and Tetrahedron Letters.