Miriam A. Bowring
I am the Margret Geselbracht Associate Professor of Chemistry at in Portland, Oregon. I teach general and inorganic chemistry courses, and run a research laboratory. In the laboratory, we aim to untangle the fundamental mechanisms that make catalysts work. We have a special focus on protons, the smallest nuclei, and determining what sets them apart from the heavier atoms. New efficient catalysts for synthesis and fuels can be developed based on the mechanisms we uncover.
Before my arrival at Reed, I was an NIH postdoctoral fellow with Prof. at both Yale University and University of Washington. We designed and built a single organic molecule to study the ultrafast, simultaneous movement of protons and electrons by laser spectroscopy in collaboration with the research groups of Profs. Daniel Gamelin and Cody Schlenker. I earned my with Profs. and at the University of California, Berkeley. I began my graduate work by studying the mechanism of a known platinum catalyst for breaking carbon-hydrogen bonds and discovered that the platinum was not actually the catalyst after all. In related work, we found a new way to break strong carbon-carbon bonds by breaking a carbon-hydrogen bond first, using an original catalyst. My B.S. in chemistry is from Yale University, with Prof. as my senior thesis advisor. As an undergraduate student, I worked with Prof. at the University of Pennsylvania and Prof. at MIT during two summer NSF-REU programs. Along the way, I have been a high school chemistry teacher, an ultimate frisbee coach, and worked with a science education nonprofit.
Publications
*Reed undergraduate coauthors
DaSilva, C.;* Mauk, G.;* Forshee, L.;* Pope, O.;* Doherty, M.;* Ongbongan, M.;* Lutz, N.;* Kamanya, Z.;* Bhatt, K. C.;* Braham, A.;* Kubek, M.;* Hawthorne, S.; Campillo-Alvarado, G.; Bhattacharjee, A.; Bowring, M. A.; O’Brien, R. V. . Org. Biomol. Chem. 2025, 23 (19), 4616–4621.
Blythe, I. M.; Xu, J.;* Fernandez Odell, J. S.;* Kampf, J. W.; Bowring, M. A.; Sanford, M. S. . Journal of the American Chemical Society 2023, 145 (33), 18253–18259.
Rettig, I. D.; Xu, J.;* Knight, E. A.;* Truong, P. T.; Bowring, M. A. . Organometallics 2022, 41 (23), 3770–3780.
Truong, P. T.; Miller, S. G.;* McLaughlin Sta. Maria, E. J.;* Bowring, M. A. . Chemistry: A European Journal, 2021, 27 (60), 14800–14815.
Carlson, A. W.;* Primka, D. A.;* Douma, E. D.;* Bowring, M. A. . Dalton Transactions, 2020, 49 (43), 15213–15218.
Bowring, M. A.; Bradshaw, L. R.; Parada, G. A.; Pollock, T. P.; Fernández-Terán, R. J.; Kolmar, S. S.; Mercado, B. Q.; Schlenker, C. W.; Gamelin, D. R.; Mayer, J. M. . Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2018, 140 (24), 7449–7452.
Bowring, M. A.; Bergman, R. G.; Tilley, T. D. . Organometallics, 2013, 32 (19), 5266-5268.
Bowring, M. A.; Bergman, R. G.; Tilley, T. D. . Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013, 135 (35), 13121-13128.
Hill, A. D.; Zoerb, M. C.; Nguyen, S. C.; Lomont, J. P.; Bowring, M. A.; Harris, C. B. . Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2013, 117 (49), 15346-15355.
Bowring, M. A.; Bergman, R. G.; Tilley, T. D. . Organometallics, 2011, 30, 1295-1298.