Congratulations to Sergey Pronin for being awarded an NSF CAREER Award! His project, "Development of catalytic enantioselective hydrofunctionalizations of alkenes" allows Professor Pronin and his students to continue to develop new methods for the direct conversion of compounds that contain a double bond between two carbon atoms (i.e., alkenes) to compounds that contain nitrogen (amines), a oxygen-hydrogen groups (alcohols), and their derivatives. The reaction conditions are mild and use environmentally-abundant materials, making the new synthetic routes attractive for conserving both energy and critical elements. These new molecules are valuable chemicals used extensively in industry, especially the pharmaceutical industry. The chemical transformations being studied are a long-standing challenge in the field of organic chemistry. This research is taking advantage of underexplored patterns of chemical reactivity and producing new and general solutions to these problems.