Levi Knippel ’16 was featured in MIT news for his work on taking olefins and using copper catalysts to generate new compounds that might someday aid in the design of new drugs and other therapies, and his passion for kickboxing.

Levi Knippel began his undergraduate career here at Johns Hopkins University in 2012 and had a keen interest in chemistry. Dr. Thomas Lectka took Levi under his wing and awarded him numerous opportunities from conducting research in his lab space with graduate students to getting him a teaching assistant position.

This mentorship that Dr. Lectka graciously offered later proved to be monumental in Levi’s future as he is now a Ph.D. candidate in the Buchwald research group at MIT.