Kyle Murphy

Name:

Kyle Murphy, Ph.D.

Title:

Assistant Professor

Department:

Chemistry

Email Address:

kmurphy@tntech.edu

Phone:

(931) 372-3238

Office:

Lab Science Commons, Rm 3317

Kyle Murphy grew up in Massachusetts and went to Bridgewater State University to receive his B.S. in professional & environmental chemistry in 2014 while performing green chemistry research under Dr. Ed Brush. He then went to the University of Vermont and obtained his Ph.D. in 2019 working in the lab of Dr. Severin Schneebeli where he researched stereoselective synthetic organic and polymer chemistry. He relocated to North Carolina to work alongside Dr. Amanda Wolfe at UNC Asheville as a GlaxoSmithKline postdoctoral teaching and research fellow (2020 – 2022), mentoring undergraduate research students, while teaching and working on the total synthesis of natural products and designing new antibiotic adjuvants. In 2022, Kyle then accepted a tenure-track position as an assistant professor in the chemistry department at Tennessee Tech University, where he now teaches and researches broadly in the areas of organic and polymer chemistry. Outside of work, Kyle also enjoys trail running, dungeons and dragons, and game design.

ABOUT

Education and Development:

GlaxoSmithKline Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow, UNC Asheville, 2020 – 2022.

Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, University of Vermont, 2019.

B.S. in Professional & Environmental Chemistry, Bridgewater State University, 2014.

Areas of Interest:

Organic polymers and macromolecules, sustainable chemistry using renewable resources, medicinal chemistry in combating antibiotic resistance, and biomimetic methodology for precise aromatic modifications.

Research Projects:

Well-defined Macromolecules: Synthesis of macromolecules of various shapes and sizes using selective reaction methodology to develop materials with interesting properties and features.

Synthesizing a variety of important precursor monomers/building blocks.
Coupling together said building blocks to create macromolecular shapes.
Investigations of these macromolecules, including: optical properties, detangling nanoplastics, and asphaltene interactions.

Sustainable Polymer Design: Starting from renewable feedstock chemicals, employing green chemistry to make and explore sustainable polymers, a growing need in our world of plastics.

Generating polymers from green resources and investigating their end-of-life potential.
Altering the backbones of these polymers to study their antimicrobial, physical, and chemical properties.

Antibiotic Discovery: A rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria challenges us to find new ways to combat bacteria and discover new antibiotics.

Using green chemistry methodology to develop a library of compounds to probe their biological activity.
Developing macromolecules to investigate their potential as a new generation of antimicrobial materials.