Julia Kalow

Kalow is from Newton, Massachusetts. She studied chemistry and creative writing at Columbia University. She played the flute for the Columbia University Wind Ensemble. She worked with James L. Leighton on the synthesis of isocyclocitrinol and on an enantioselective imino-Nazarov reaction.[1] During this placement she became more interested in a research career.[2] She was awarded the Chemistry Undergraduate Award and Brownstein Writing Prize.[3] She was also the salutatorian of her graduating class at Columbia.[4] She worked as an intern at Merck Research Laboratories, where she investigated trifluoromethylation using metal catalysts. In 2008 Kalow joined Princeton University as a graduate student with Abigail Doyle.[5] Together they worked on asymmetric nucleophilic fluorination. She used cooperative catalysis in fluorination reactions, which allowed for selective radiofluorination.[6] Her work was awarded an American Chemical Society Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellowship.[7]

In 2013 Kalow joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow with Timothy M. Swager. She worked on telechelic P3HT synthesis, as well as miktoarm polymers using ring-opening metathesis polymerisation. Kalow became interested in the use of complex emulsions in enzyme sensing, as well as self-assembly of block copolymers.[8]

She joined Northwestern University in 2016.[9] She is a member of the National Science Foundation Center for Sustainable Polymers.[10] Her work considers organic synthesis and polymer chemistry, and is interested in photoresponsive materials.[2][11] This includes creating polymers with controlled chain lengths using selective photoexcitation. To achieve this, Kalow is developing photochemically gated junctions, which allow spatiotemporal control of junction dynamics. These junctions permit for transient regions of fast and slow exchange dynamics, which operate over long length scales.[12] Her group are also developing hydrogels that can be controlled using light.[13] In 2017 Kalow was named a Searle Fellow at Northwestern University.[14]