In 2006, Kondo and coworkers inspired Anita, who was a graduate student at the time, with their intriguing report of silanediols hosting anions through hydrogen bonding interactions (see the first page on the right). The silanediol functional group is interesting alone, but the observation that it could recognize anions presented an irresistible opportunity to develop an entirely new family of catalysts that could enable reactions that are otherwise inaccessible.

 

It was not until 2009, when Anita started her independent at Ohio State University, that the Mattson team began working on silanediol catalyzed reactions. At the time the research program began, there was nothing in the literature about silanediols catalyzing reactions through hydrogen bonds.  Anita and Andrew (one of the first graduate students in the Mattson team) took on the challenge of synthesizing silanediols and studying their abilities as non-covalent catalysts.