Born in Ecuador, Guayaquil and relocating to Florida, Roberto attended the University of Florida and received a B. S. in chemistry. In his undergraduate studies, he worked for Professor Alexander Grenning on the development of the reductive Cope rearrangement. After graduating, Roberto migrated to Illinois where he worked for Professor David Sarlah and completed the concise total syntheses of Scabrolide A and Yonarolide. He is now co-advised by Professor Scott E. Denmark to further hone his skills in the domain of methodology development. In his spare time, Roberto looks for complex natural products which one day he will make.
B.S., Chemistry, University of Flordia