Season One, Episode 8; The Carbon Backbone of Civilization

Safiyah Muhammad was born in North Miami, FL. She began her undergraduate career at Nova Southeastern University as a Marine Biology major with hopes of becoming a Marine Veterinarian; however, her interest quickly changed with her first chemistry class. With the help of a teacher/mentor, she switched her major to Chemistry and began doing research in bioorganic chemistry and synthetic inorganic chemistry. Safiyah worked on two major projects in her undergraduate career; the first was dealing with harvesting biofuels from algae and the second was with the synthesis of complexes that would aid in understanding and implementing artificial photosynthesis. As she neared the end of her senior year, she decided to continue her education and attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for her Ph.D in Inorganic Chemistry. She is currently a first-year graduate student, focusing on the synthesis of first row transition metal complexes that could act as catalysts for many industrial reactions/processes.