“The Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida is pleased to welcome Dr. Alex Grenning as a tenure track Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Grenning received his undergraduate degree from Lake Forest College in 2007 and then pursued Ph.D. studies at The University of Kansas under the direction of Prof. Jon Tunge. As a graduate student he discovered “deacylative allylation” and developed the first general one-pot approach to asymmetric 1,6-dienes via Pd-catalyzed bisallylation. Dr. Grenning was awarded the 2012 Higuchi Doctoral Award for the top chemistry department dissertation. After receiving his doctoral degree he headed to Boston University where he worked with Profs. John Porco, Jr. and John Snyder. There he was central in the development of an oxygen-directed oxidative Mannich reaction. His graduate and postdoctoral work has resulted in nine publications to date.”