Dr. Keying Ding was born in Liaocheng, a water city in north of China, where she spent most of her childhood. She attended the local college, Liaocheng University, with a major in chemistry. She performed undergraduate research with Professor Jianmin Dou on one-dimensional metal complex. She obtained her B.S. in chemistry with the highest honor in 2001. After three years’ graduate study on nano materials at University of Science and Technology of China, she then made a big move to the United States for graduate school at University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, under the tutelage of Professor Patrick Holland (now at Yale University). Her work is in the fields of bioinorganic and organometallic chemistry, specifically on low-coordinate chemistry of cobalt and iron complexes with β-diketiminate ligand. After she finished her Ph.D. in chemistry in 2009, she went to University of Minnesota at Twin Cities, Minnesota, to have a postdoc training with Professor Connie Lu, where she worked on design and synthesis of a new wide bite angle phosphine and its transition metal complexes with their novel reactivities for hydroformylation, hydrosilylation and hydrogenation. To further expand her research scope, in 2011, she joined the labs of Professors William Tolman (now at Washington University in St. Louis) and Marc Hillmyer at University of Minnesota. She worked on a couple of projects including a) kinetics and mechanism study of ring opening polymerization of cyclic ester. b) homogeneous catalysis for biomass conversion to styrene using high-throughput catalyst screening technique. c) development of bio-derived block copolymers as thermoplastic materials. In 2013, Dr. Ding took a position as Assistant Professor at Middle Tennessee State University starting officially on August 1st. Dr. Ding was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor on August 1st, 2019.
Awards and Distinctions:
1. One of the Seven Female Faculty Members among Rising Research Stars, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, MTSU, 2018.
2. Outstanding Woman in STEM for the Month, MTSU, June 2019.
Awards and Distinctions:
1. One of the Seven Female Faculty Members among Rising Research Stars, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, MTSU, 2018.
2. Outstanding Woman in STEM for the Month, MTSU, June 2019.