Elizabeth Elacqua
Professional Appointments and Affiliations
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Weinreb Family Early Career Professor
Office
535 Chemistry Building
University Park, PA 16802
Email: eze31@psu.edu
(814) 865-1221
Mailing Address
104 Chemistry Building
University Park, PA 16802
Education
B.S., Le Moyne College, 2006 (Chemistry and Biology)
Ph.D., University of Iowa, 2012 (Supramolecular and Solid-State Organic Synthesis)
Postdoc, New York University, (Polymer Synthesis and Self-Assembly)
Honors and Awards
Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award (2023)
American Chemical Society, Division of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering (PMSE) Early Investigator Award (2023)
American Chemical Society, Division of Organic Chemistry (ORGN) Young Academic Investigator (2021)
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2021)
NSF CAREER Award (2021)
Thieme Chemistry Journal Award (2020)
American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Foundation Doctoral New Investigator Award (2019)
Selected Publications (undergraduate coauthors are underlined)
M. Murphy, B. Xu, K. E. Rank, S. Wu, S. Huss, J. V. Badding, S. A. Lopez, V. H. Crespi, and E. Elacqua* Cyclobutane-linked Nanothreads through Thermal and Photochemically Mediated Polymerization of Cyclohexadiene, Polym. Chem., in press.
M. Murphy, A. Mohamed, J. V. Badding, and E. Elacqua* Rational Approaches toward the Design and Synthesis of Carbon Nanothreads, Acc. Chem. Res., 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acs.accounts.5c00172
S. Gaikwad, A. Bhattacharjee, S. Baldwin, S. Huss, A. Griggs, M. Spicuzza, and E. Elacqua* Recyclable Iridium-Containing Copolymers for Homogeneous Photoredox Catalysis, Polym. Chem., 2025, 16, 1704-1712.
S. Gaikwad, A. Bhattacharjee, and E. Elacqua* Cooperative Photoredox Catalysis Under Confinement, Chem. Eur. J., 2025, e202404699
J. Han, J. J. Piane, H. Gizenski, E. Elacqua, and E. D. Nacsa* An Electrochemical Design for Catalytic Dehydration Enables a General Platform for Carboxylic Acid Substitution at Room Temperature: Amidation, Esterification, and Thioesterification, Org. Lett., 2025, 27, 1923–1928.
E. Elacqua* Diarylation encodes precision for polyolefins, Nat. Synth., 2024, 3, 1322-1324.
M. Spicuzza, S. P. Gaikwad, S. Huss, A. A. Lee, C. V. Craescu, A. Griggs, J. Joseph, M. Puthenpurayil, W. Lin, C. Matarazzo, S. Baldwin, V. Perez, D. A. Rodriguez-Acevedo, J. R. Swierk, and E. Elacqua* Visible-Light-Mediated Diels-Alder Reactions Under Single-Chain Polymer Confinement: Investigating the Role of the Crosslinking Moiety on Catalyst Activity, Polym. Chem., 2024, 15, 1833-1838.
S. Huss, A. R. Walsh, A. Griggs, D. A. Rodriguez-Acevedo, D. M. Arias-Rotondo, and E. Elacqua.* Synthesis and Characterization of a Ruthenium-Containing Copolymer for Use as a Photoredox Catalyst, Polym. Chem., 2023, 14, 4560-4568
J. N. Katzbaer, V. M. Torres, E. Elacqua,* R. Giri,* Nickel-Catalyzed Alkene Difunctionalization as a Method for Polymerization, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2023, 145, 14196-14201
S. M. Oburn, S. Huss, J. Cox, M. C. Gerthoffer, S. Wu, A. Biswas, M. Murphy, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, S. A. Lopez, and E. Elacqua,* Photochemically-Mediated Polymerization of Molecular Furan and Pyridine: Synthesis of Nanothreads at Reduced Pressures, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2022, 144, 22026-22034
M. C. Gerthoffer, B. Xu, S. Wu, J. Cox, S. Huss, S.M. Oburn, S. A. Lopez, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, S. A. Lopez, and E. Elacqua,.* Mechanistic Insights into the Pressure-Induced Polymerization of Aryl/Perfluoroaryl Co-Crystals. Polym. Chem., 2022, 13, 1359-1368
J. J. Piane, S. Huss, L. T. Alameda, S. J. Koehler, L. E. Chamberlain, A. C. Hoover, M. J. Schubach, and E. Elacqua.* Single-Chain Polymers as Homogeneous Oxidative Photoredox Catalysts. J. Polym. Sci., 2021, 59, 2865-2875
B. Matsuura, S. Huss, Z. Zheng, S. Yuan, T. Wang, B. Chen, J. V. Badding, D. Trauner, E. Elacqua, A. C. Van Duin, V. H. Crespi, and K. Schmidt-Rohr.* Perfect and Defective Furan Nanothreads from High-Pressure Synthesis Detected by 13C NMR, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2021, 143, 9529-9542.
S. Huss, S. Wu, B. Chen, T. Wang, M. C. Gerthoffer, D. J. Ryan, S. Smith, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, and E. Elacqua.* Scalable Synthesis of Crystalline One-Dimensional Carbon Nanothreads through Modest-Pressure Polymerization of Furan, ACS Nano, 2021, 15, 4134-4143.
L. G. K. Ackerman-Biegasiewicz, D. M. Arias-Rotondo, K. F. Biegasiewicz, E. Elacqua,* M. R. Golder, L. V. Kayser, J. R. Lamb, C. M. Le, N. A. Romero, S. M. Wilkerson-Hill, and D. A. Williams, D. A. Organic Chemistry: A Retrosynthetic Approach to a Diverse Field, ACS Cent. Sci., 2020, 6, 1845-1850
J. J. Piane, L. E. Chamberlain, S. Huss, L. T. Alameda, A. C. Hoover, and E. Elacqua.* Organic Photoredox-Catalyzed Cycloadditions Under Polymer Confinement, ACS Catal., 2020, 10, 13251-13256.
M. C. Gerthoffer, S. Wu, B. Chen, T. Wang, S. Huss, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, and E. Elacqua.* ‘Sacrificial’ Supramolecular Assembly and Pressure-Induced Polymerization: Toward Sequence-Defined Functionalized Nanothreads, Chem. Sci., 2020, 11, 11419-11424
S. J. Koehler, J. Hu, and E. Elacqua.* Electronically Governed ROMP: Expanding Sequence Control for Donor-Acceptor Polymers, Synlett, 2020, 31, 1435-1442
E. Elacqua,* and M. Gregor. Poly(arylenevinylene)s through Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization of an Unsymmetrical Donor-Acceptor Cyclophane, Angew. Chem., 2019, 131, 9627-9632; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 58, 9527-9532.
Prior to Penn State
Elacqua, E., Geberth, G., Vanden Bout, D. A., and Weck, M. Synthesis and Folding Behavior of Poly(p-phenylenevinylene)-based β-sheet Polychromophores, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 2144-2152.
Pomarico, S. K., Lye, D. S., Elacqua, E., and Weck, M. Synthesis of Covalent Sheet-Coil-Helix and Coil-Sheet-Helix Block Copolymers through Sequential ROMP and Anionic Polymerization, Polym. Chem., 2018, 9, 5655-5659.
Elacqua, E., Zheng, X., Shillingford, C., Liu, M., and Weck, M. Molecular Recognition in the Colloidal World, Acc. Chem. Res., 2017, 50, 2756-2766.
Elacqua, E., Manning, K. B., Lye, D., Pomarico, S. K., Morgia, F., and Weck, M. Supramolecular Multiblock Copolymers Featuring Complex Secondary Structures, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2017, 139, 12240-12250.
Elacqua, E., Croom, A., Manning, K. B., Pomarico, S. K., Lye, D., Young, L., and Weck, M. Supramolecular Diblock Copolymers Featuring Well-Defined Telechelic Building Blocks, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2016, 55, 15873-15878.
Elacqua, E. and Weck, M. Fabrication of Supramolecular Semiconductor Block Copolymers via Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization, Chem. Eur. J., 2015, 21, 7151-7158.
Elacqua, E., Lye, D. S., and Weck, M. Engineering Orthogonality in Supramolecular Polymers: From Simple Scaffolds to Complex Materials, Acc. Chem. Res., 2014, 47, 2405-2416.