Christine Thomas was born in 1980 in Cinnaminson, NJ, a suburb of Philadelphia. She graduated from Cinnaminson High School in 1998 and went on to recieve her bachelor of science degree in chemistry from
Lafayette College (Easton, PA) in 2001. As an undergraduate, she worked with Professor
Chip Nataro on the synthesis and electrochemistry of inorganic complexes, including phosphine-crown ethers and mixed valent ruthenium dimers. In the fall of 2001, Christine began her doctoral studies in inorganic chemistry at the
California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA). Christine's research with Professor
Jonas C. Peters focused on a wide range of synthetic projects related to inorganic and organometallic chemistry, including the examination of C-H activation by platinum complexes, the design of new ligands, the examination of the reactivity of coordinatively unsaturated tris(phosphino)borate iron complexes towards small molecule activation, and the synthesis of the first well-defined and structurally characterized Fe(IV) imido complex. After recieving her Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry in 2006, Christine went on to pursue postdoctoral work under the direction of Professors
Marcetta Y. Darensbourg and
Michael B. Hall at
Texas A&M University (College Station, TX). Her postdoctoral research concentrated on the experimental and theoretical investigation of small molecule models of the dinuclear active site of [FeFe]-Hydrogenase, an enzyme that catalyzes the reversible production of hydrogen from protons. In 2008, Christine accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at
Brandeis Univeristy (Waltham, MA). Her research program focuses on the synthetic inorganic, organometallic and bioinorganic chemistry.
