Our research interests are focused on discovery of novel transition metal- and Lewis acid-catalyzed transformations and development of fundamentally interesting catalytic methodologies for broad synthetic applications.  We place a special emphasis on mechanistic investigation to gain insight into the origins of chemo- and stereoselectivity of discovered processes.  Deep understanding of reaction mechanisms governs our optimization work towards identifying the most efficient and general protocols and allows for expanding the scope of our methodologies.  The developed new methods and strategies are being applied to the synthesis of valuable building blocks for organic chemistry, biologically important and structurally interesting organic compounds. [click a picture for details]