Christian Oswood

Ph.D., MIT, 2023

Christian was born in New Haven, CT, but grew up in the Twin Cities of Minnesota (Minneapolis and St. Paul). He stayed in MN for his undergrad, attending St. Olaf College and receiving a B.A. in chemistry and math in 2018. While at St. Olaf, he worked on developing instrumentation for low-temperature photophysics measurements with Professor Rodrigo Sanchez-Gonzalez. He also participated in REUs at the University of Minnesota and Columbia University, working with Professors Tom Hoye and Colin Nuckolls on hexadehydro-Diels—Alder cyclizations and superatom synthesis, respectively. Looking to leave the tundra, Christian headed east to join the MacMillan group at Princeton for his graduate studies. Outside of lab, he enjoys biking, running, climbing, and reading novels.

Fun Facts

• Two weeks before leaving for Princeton, Christian went on a solo 400-mile bike camping trip from his house to Canada.
• Christian is almost inconveniently tall, but not quite.
• His family has been naming people Christian for 300 years.
• He holds the all-time record for finding the most objects in different point groups on the St. Olaf campus.