Robert D. Boyd

Graduate Student in Chemistry
(November 2019-May 2025)

A.S. Industrial Biotechnology, Solano Community College, 2015
A.S. Chemistry, Solano Community College, 2015
B.S. Biochemistry, Sonoma State University, 2017
M.S. Chemistry, California State University, Los Angeles, 2019
Ph.D. Chemistry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2025 (thesis deposit pending)

Email: rdboyd3@illinois.edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-boyd-03057916b/

Brief Biography

Robert Boyd received A.S. degrees at Solano Community College in 2015 and a B.S. degree in biochemistry from Sonoma State University in 2017. He obtained his M.S. degree in chemistry from California State University, Los Angeles in 2019. He joined the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a graduate student in chemistry in Fall 2019, where he joined the laboratory of Prof. Scott K. Silverman to study DNAzymes. He successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in December 2025, with thesis deposit pending.

Research Interests

In my research project, I identified DNAzymes that alkylate DNA and RNA oligonucleotide nucleobases by reductive amination.