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By:听Neil Savage, special to C&EN

Tejas Shah remembers the date clearly: June 16, 2010. That was the day he and his colleagues submitted the first paper that included his name as a coauthor. The paper, published a few months later in the , was about combining nucleophilic and hydrogen-bonding catalysis to get a better reaction.

At the time, Shah, an undergraduate at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, was already filling out applications to medical school, but he鈥檇 taken a position as an undergraduate research assistant in a chemistry lab to get a more well-rounded education. 鈥淚 was not going to do chemistry,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he research experience in that lab changed my life path.鈥�

He graduated the next year with degrees in chemistry and molecular biology and biochemistry, then earned a PhD in chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. While there, he helped his professor, Neil Garg, develop a series of tutorials to introduce organic chemistry to life sciences students. Dubbed , the tutorials use pop culture references to show the real-life relevance of organic chemistry.

Shah took a job as a researcher with Dow AgroSciences, which has since become Corteva Agriscience, in Indianapolis. There, he helps develop new crop-protection chemicals鈥攈erbicides, fungicides, and the like, though he prefers to think of them as small-molecule drugs for plants.

The challenges are many. Any weed or disease is always evolving resistance to substances that target it. 鈥漈here鈥檚 always a need for a new mode of action or a new molecule,鈥� Shah says. Researchers also try to tweak the molecular structures of the chemicals they create鈥攐r derive from nature鈥攖o make them more specific to their targets. They test the chemicals to make sure they or their breakdown products aren鈥檛 harmful to humans, soil, or other parts of the ecosystem. And they have to figure out how their products can be made economically on a scale of metric tons. 鈥淲e have to provide a green and sustainable manufacturing route for all these materials,鈥� Shah says.

Who鈥檚 your mentor?

Corteva herbicide chemistry leader Joshua Roth and my professor, Neil Garg.

What paper are you most proud of?

鈥淓xpanding the Strained Alkyne Toolbox: Generation and Utility of Oxygen-Containing Strained Alkynes鈥� (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, DOI: ).

What鈥檚 in your lab coat pocket?

Pens and a cheat sheet on the species and genus of different weeds and crops.

Do you have a favorite crop?

Wheat.

What鈥檚 the most important product you鈥檝e worked on?

BACON is one of the most important things I鈥檝e worked on. I鈥檝e not made a product yet here.

What can鈥檛 you live without in the lab?

Music. Anything that has a beat to it. Anything that keeps me moving.

What problem keeps you up at night?

Coming up with new ways to look at data and processes that can be automated.

What is the best advice you鈥檝e received?

鈥淏e humble in everything you do.鈥� That鈥檚 something I learned from my graphic design teacher in high school.

Who鈥檚 your science hero?

Madame Curie.

What鈥檚 your most recent experiment?

Using one-electron chemistry, combining radicals to do ring closing.

What are your hobbies?

Traveling, mixing music, and coding.

What鈥檚 your favorite beer?

Taxman Brewing Company鈥檚 Deduction.听