Sivagroup Highlights
What we do
About Siva
Jayaraman Sivaguru (Siva) is the Distinguished University Professor and holds the Antonia and Marshall Wilson endowed Professorship at the Department of Chemistry, Bowling Green State University (BGSU), Bowling Green, Ohio. He also serves as the Associate Director for Center for Photochemical Sciences at BGSU. He completed his bachelor’s (1996) and master’s (1998) degrees from St. Joseph’s College, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India, and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Tamil Nadu, India, respectively. He came to the United States in 1998 to pursue his doctoral degree and worked with Prof. V. Ramamurthy at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2003, he did his postdoctoral studies with Prof. Nicholas J. Turro at Columbia University, NY, USA, from 2003 to 2006. Siva began his independent career as an assistant professor at North Dakota State University (NDSU) in 2006 and was promoted as an associate professor in 2011 and as a full professor in 2014. He is a recipient of a 2008 NSF CAREER award, 2010 Grammaticakis-Neumann Prize from the Swiss Chemical Society for outstanding independent research by a young faculty under the age of 40 in the fields of photochemistry or photophysics or molecular photobiology, 2011 young-investigator award from the Inter-American Photochemical Society (I-APS), and 2012-young investigator award from Sigma-Xi. In 2021, Siva was named Honda-Fujishima Lectureship awardee by the Japanese photochemical association for extremely outstanding achievement in the study of photochemistry.
Currently his research program works on both basic and applied aspects of photochemical sciences with emphasis on (a) Uncovering new excited state chemical reactivity, b) light induced axial to central chiral transfer in atropisomeric systems, (c) asymmetric organo-photocatalysis, (d) supramolecular photocatalysis with water-soluble nanocontainers, (e) light responsive materials and initiators, and (f) Designing light-initiated strategies for eye protection and ophthalmic applications (e.g. contact lenses, eyeware etc.).