William Zhao

B.Sc., UChicago, 2023

Will is from the beautiful city of Toronto, Ontario. Self-identifying as a somewhat quirky polymath, he attended the University of Chicago and graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in history. While at UChicago, he conducted research in total synthesis and the preparation of allenes in Professor Viresh Rawal’s lab. Under the supervision of Prof. Rawal, he prepared early-stage precursors for an ambiguine total synthesis project. Immensely excited by photoredox chemistry, he decided to continue his graduate studies at Princeton and joined the MacMillan lab in August 2023. In his free time, Will is a foodie and enjoys cooking, travelling, and reading history.

Fun Facts

• Joining the group as the third Will, Will decided to go by Wiz when in lab to avoid a Will War
• As an amateur, undergraduate-trained historian, William enjoys reading Québécois, Central European, and Latin American history.
• Will studied French for two years in UChicago with a parisien instructor, but taught himself québécois before going on a short trip to the beautiful province. As a consequence of that and prolonged disuse, he can now only speak broken French with a rusty québécois accent, introduce himself as Guillaume in French, and occasionally swear in québécois when mildly irritated. (Je ne me souviens plus!)
• Moving to Princeton from the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario, William found Lake Carnegie’s alleged status as a lake questionable.