text: Ramesh Jasti is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oregon. He was the first person to synthesize the elusive cycloparaphenylene in 2008 during post doctoral work in the laboratory of Professor Carolyn Bertozzi. He started his laboratory at Boston University where he was the recipient of the NSF CAREER award. His early lab repeatedly broke the record for the synthesis of the smallest cycloparaphenylene known. In 2014, he moved his laboratory to the University of Oregon where he expanded his focus to apply the molecules he discovered in the areas of organic materials, mechanically interlocked molecules, and biology. He is the Associate Director of the Materials Science Institute at the University of Oregon.