About

Monica first became interested in natural products as an undergraduate researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Kenneth J. Shea at UC Irvine. After graduating in 2011, she went on to pursue a Ph.D. with Prof. John L. Wood at Colorado State University where she worked on the citrinadin family of marine alkaloids. In 2013 the Wood Group moved to Baylor University, where Monica completed a modular total synthesis of the marine sponge derived polyketide hippolachnin A. For her postdoctoral fellowship, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Emily P. Balskus at Harvard University where she studied the biological chemistry underpinning nitrogen-nitrogen bond biosynthesis.

Monica is now an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021. Her research interests range from the total synthesis of natural products to microbial chemical ecology in marine sponges. Research in the McCallum lab uses tools from organic chemistry, molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology, and microscopy to understand the origin and function of unusual natural products.