• Corin Wagen
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• Blog (Archive)

Corin Wagen

About

I'm the founder and CEO of Rowan, a startup building modern computational tools for chemistry. Briefly, we're working on making molecular simulation software that "gets out of the way" and allows scientists to focus on their research. If you're interested in using Rowan (or helping to build it), let me know!

Apart from Rowan, I like thinking critically about scientific institutions, progress, and books. I write about these things on my blog, which you can also follow on Substack.

From 2019 to 2023, I was a graduate student in the Jacobsen group at Harvard, where I studied the development and mechanism of selective organocatalytic reactions. My thesis defense can be viewed on Youtube. (I was also part of the inaugural class of UATX Polaris Fellows.)

From 2016 to 2019, I was an undergraduate at MIT, where I majored in chemistry and studied the design of new phosphine ligands for Pd-catalyzed C–F coupling in the Buchwald group.

Papers

1. Mann, E. L.; Wagen, C. C.; Vandezande, J. E.; Wagen, A. M.; Schneider, S. C. Egret-1: Pretrained Neural Network Potentials For Efficient and Accurate Bioorganic Simulation. arXiv, 2025. (preprint, arXiv)
2. Wagen, C. C. Physics-Informed Machine Learning Enables Rapid Macroscopic pK_a Prediction. ChemRxiv, 2025. (preprint, ChemRxiv)
3. Wagen, C. C. Efficient Black-Box Prediction of Hydrogen-Bond-Acceptor Strength. ChemRxiv, 2025. (preprint, ChemRxiv)
4. Gair, J. J.^†; Isomura, M.^†; Wagen, C. C.; Strassfeld, D. A.; Jacobsen, E. N. Enantioselective Ring Opening of Azetidines via Charge Recognition in Hydrogen-Bond-Donor Catalysis. JACS, 2025, ASAP. (link, preprint)
5. Brew, R. R.^†; Nelson, I. A.^†; Binayeva, M.; Nayak, A. S.; Simmons, W. J.; Gair, J. J.; Wagen, C. C.. Wiggle150: Benchmarking Density Functionals And Neural Network Potentials On Highly Strained Conformers. JCTC, 2025, ASAP. (link, preprint)
6. Wagen, C. C.; Vandezande, J. E. The vDZP Basis Set Is Effective For Many Density Functionals. arXiv, 2024. (preprint, arXiv)
7. Wagen, C. C.; Wagen, A. M. Efficient and Accurate pK_a Prediction Enabled by Pre-Trained Machine-Learned Interatomic Potentials. ChemRxiv, 2024. (preprint, ChemRxiv)
8. Blackburn, M. A. S.; Wagen, C. C.; Bodrogean, M. R.; Tadross, P. M.; Bendelsmith, A. J.; Kutateladze, D. A.; Jacobsen, E. N. Dual-Hydrogen-Bond Donor and Brønsted Acid Co-Catalysis Enables Highly Enantioselective Protio-Semipinacol Rearrangement Reactions. JACS, 2023, 145, 15036–15042. (link, preprint)
9. Vonesh, H. L.; Wagen, C. C., McMinn, S. E.; Thedford, J. B.; Kwan, E. E.; Schindler, C. S. Inadequacy of Continuum Solvation for Polar Reactions: Predicting the Mechanism of Carbonyl–Olefin Metathesis. ChemRxiv, 2022. (preprint)
10. Wagen, C. C.; Jacobsen, E. N. Evidence for Oxonium Ions in Ethereal "Hydrogen Chloride." Org. Lett, 2022, 24, 8826–8831. (link, preprint)
    
    Highlights:
    • Acid Personalities (In the Pipeline post)
11. Wagen, C. C.^†; McMinn, S. E.^†; Kwan, E. E.; Jacobsen, E. N. Screening for Generality in Asymmetric Catalysis. Nature, 2022, 610, 680–686. (link, preprint)
    
    Highlights:
    • Everything Everywhere All At Once (Behind the Paper summary)
    • A Leap Forward in the Quest for General Catalysts (News and Views article)
    • Screen 'Em All At Once (In the Pipeline post)
    • JRNLclub video with Eugene Kwan
    • Synthesis Workshop video (hosted by Matthew Horwitz)
12. Kutateladze, D. A.^†; Wagen, C. C.^†; Jacobsen, E. N. Chloride-Mediated Alkene Activation Drives Enantioselective Thiourea and Hydrogen Chloride Co-Catalyzed Prins Cyclizations. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 15812–15824. (link, preprint)
13. Siegenfeld, A. P.; Roseman, S. A.; Roh, H.; Lue, N. Z.; Wagen, C. C.; Zhuo, E.; Johnstone, S. E.; Aryee, M. J.; Liau, B. B. Polycomb-lamina antagonism partitions heterochromatin at the nuclear periphery. Nat. Commun. 2022, 13, 4199. (link, preprint)
14. Li, Q.^†; Levi, S. M.^†; Wagen, C. C.; Wendlandt, A. E.; Jacobsen, E. N. Site-Selective, Stereocontrolled Glycosylation of Minimally Protected Sugars. Nature, 2022, 608, 74–79. (link, preprint)
    
    Highlights:
    • Sugars Aren't Always So Sweet (In the Pipeline post)
15. Wagen, C. C.; Ingoglia, B, T.; Buchwald, S. L. Unexpected Formation of Hexasubstituted Arenes through a Twofold Palladium-Mediated Ligand Arylation. J. Org. Chem. 2019, 84, 12672–12679. (link, preprint)
16. Ingoglia, B. T.^†; Wagen, C. C.^†; Buchwald, S. L. Biaryl Monophosphine Ligands in Palladium-Catalyzed C–N Coupling: An Updated User’s Guide. Tetrahedron, 2019, 75, 4199–4211. (link, free version)
17. Yeon, Y.; Leem, S.; Wagen, C.; Lynch, V. M.; Kim, S. K.; Sessler, J. L. 3-(Dicyanomethylidene)indan-1-one Functionalized Calix[4]arene–Calix[4]pyrrole Hybrid: An Ion-Pair Sensor for Cesium Salts. Org. Lett. 2016, 8, 4396–4399. (link)