Alex Spokoyny

Dad. Chemist and whiskey aficionado. Professor and Department Chair at UCLA. Boron, nano, bioconjugation, medicinal/bio inorganic chemistry. Personal Account.

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

Check out our new work on “BOSS” coatings led by @hashim_khun. This is a new class of ultra water-repellent materials inspired by the unique chemistry of boron clusters.
These coatings are easy to apply from solution and combine several useful properties at once, including strong water resistance, durability, fire retardancy, and controlled breakdown at high temperatures.
By using three-dimensional boron-based molecular building blocks instead of traditional carbon-based materials, we were able to create coatings with performance that is impossible to achieve using conventional approaches: https://t.co/AaruTsBacU

[Thrilla Does Stuff @ThrillDoesStuff]

Just a friendly reminder to my friends older than 42:

You don’t have to put 2 spaces after the period anymore. That was for the typewriter era. You're free

[UCLA Chem & Biochem @uclachem]

Congratulations to our 25 graduate student researchers who received the 2026–27 UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Award!  Learn more here: https://t.co/zYAmn1av0d

[UCLA Chem & Biochem @uclachem]

Welcome to our newest Teacher-Scholars! Drs. Lindsey Anderson, Maya Pathuri, and Kay Xia join our instructional faculty this summer, combining teaching with cutting-edge research to prepare the next generation of faculty and researchers. @houk1000
https://t.co/8wix8V21D2

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

Please consider supporting this!

[UCLA Chem & Biochem @uclachem]

Support our Shared Instrumentation Labs Fundraising campaign, which ends tomorrow! Your gift equips our shared labs and empowers innovation. Double your impact with a 1:1 match—or triple it with a 2:1 match for gifts of $5–100K! @ucla https://t.co/lbVmPYm53T

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

Had a super fun trip to ExxonMobil yesterday. It’s always such a treat for me as an academic to learn what colleagues are doing in corporate R&D and share some of our ideas!

[UCLA Chem & Biochem @uclachem]

Support our Shared Instrumentation Labs! Your gift equips our shared labs and empowers innovation. Double your impact with a 1:1 match—or triple it with a 2:1 match for gifts of $5–100K! Support this important cause today! @UCLA
https://t.co/BCH4wkBP2S

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

Please consider helping our department in improving our instrumentation facilities!

[UCLA Chem & Biochem @uclachem]

Support our Shared Instrumentation Labs! Your gift equips our shared labs and empowers innovation. Double your impact with a 1:1 match—or triple it with a 2:1 match for gifts of $5–100K. Support this important cause today https://t.co/LxswxtNvwd
@UCLA

[Northwestern Chemistry @NUChemistry]

Mark A. Ratner (1942–2026):
A groundbreaking chemist, beloved mentor, gifted teacher, and intellectual force, Mark leaves behind a legacy that transformed chemistry, nanoscience, and molecular electronics for generations to come. #RIP

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

IT centralization has been the wet dream of every upper-level university bureaucrat for the past decade. Products like Canvas were built for this reason.

But here’s the reality check: centralization doesn’t magically fix problems. When the whole system goes down, it takes EVERYTHING with it: classes, grades, exams, screwing students and faculty in one glorious outage.

And that is a pretty gaping hole in the “centralized IT is inherently more secure” logic.

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

Richard, I disagree. Maybe you guys have less red tape in New Jersey, but we are drowning here in CA with compliance on the side of state code pertaining to construction (lab renovations etc), labor unions (all graduate students and most staff are union members now), payroll, procurement, etc. These are not secretary-level issues and need essentially project management level expertise in each individual area.

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

@LocasaleLab I asked if you can propose your own “ideal” model of operationally functional university (that is compliant with current federal and state laws), it’s not clear how your response addresses this.

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

I agree, as long as it starts with dismantling an insane amount of overregulation and red tape at state and federal level. A lot of the positions being scrutinized have appeared over the years out of compliance necessity rather than universities desire to grow the managerial group.

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

The department is looking for an academic administrator position to oversee our shared instrumentation facilities: https://t.co/CNVrzXF2zQ

[UCLA Chem & Biochem @uclachem]

🥳Congratulations to our current graduate and undergraduates, and alumni who have received prestigious 2026 National Science Foundation (@NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships (GRFP) and Honorable Mentions! https://t.co/igAtZNXIrC

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

Beautiful main group chemistry (as always) from @DobrovetskyG and his team!

[Dobrovetsky Group @DobrovetskyG]

Fresh out of the oven, in @angew_chem. That's what happens when you replace P with Sb.
Structurally Constrained Stibenium: Metallomimetic C−Si Bond Activation
https://t.co/fXhbM3R9qQ
Congrats to our very talented @DoniaToami99 👏👏!

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

@JbaraM90 Congratulations, this is so extremely deserved!

[CNSI at UCLA @cnsiatucla]

Congratulations to @UCLA professor Alex Spokoyny (@uclachem @cnsiatucla) on being elected a Fellow of the @aaas! 🎉

Learn more about the award, as well as the three other UCLA faculty members who were recognized, at the link below!

https://t.co/hPXfbzBloJ

[Alex Spokoyny @organomimetic]

Significant portion of the increases here (bringing up the average) are due to public universities. And these have increased their tuition largely due to states not funding student FTEs at the same level as they did in 1960s (there was no tuition to attend UCLA back then, for example and state subsidized each in-state student). It’s variable and dependent state by state of course, but at least in CA, prop 13 has screwed things up big time for higher ed and changed the way things work money-wise.