The first annual MIT Chemistry Organic Retreat was held on Thursday May 31, 2018 at the MIT Samberg Conference Center. More than 120 attendees enjoyed the day-long symposium, featuring ten graduate student speakers representing each participating research group as well as two poster sessions followed by an evening reception.

The Organic Retreat was generously sponsored by Professor Scott Denmark, an MIT alumnus and the Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. During his time at MIT, Professor Denmark spent all four years performing undergraduate research through the UROP program but felt unaware of research activities in other research groups within the department. Inspired by a longstanding graduate research conference at his current institution, Professor Denmark made a generous gift to MIT Chemistry to foster community and collaboration amongst the organic chemistry research groups through a similar, student-hosted symposium. He hoped that this opportunity would allow students within the division to interact and discuss their science more informally and provide an opportunity for students to develop organizational and leadership skills, which Professor Denmark emphasized in his opening remarks at the retreat.

The very first annual retreat was entirely organized by a seven member graduate student committee: Julian Cooper (4th year, Radosevich Group), Kelley Danahy (4th year, Jamison Group), Joey Dennis (3rd year, Buchwald Group), Krysta Dummit (3rd year, Radosevich Group), Saki Ichikawa (4th year, Buchwald Group), Bryan Ingoglia (4th year, Buchwald Group), and Julia Zhao (3rd year, Johnson Group).