Melanie Sanford (born June 16, 1975) is an American chemist, and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry at University of Michigan.[1] Sanford is best known for her studies of high-valent organopalladium species, particularly those implicated in Pd-catalyzed C–H functionalization reactions.[2][3] She has received numerous awards and honors, including selection as a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.[4] She is also a Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Sanford was born and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. She graduated from Yale University with a BS and MS in 1999, having carried out research with Robert H. Crabtree, and from the California Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. in 2001, where she studied with Robert H. Grubbs. She did postdoctoral work at Princeton University, where she studied with John T. Groves.[5]