Dr. Erik Plata was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley where he attended elementary and junior high in Rio Hondo, TX, and then attended high school at the Science Academy of South Texas in Mercedes, TX. Dr. Plata received his A.A.S. from Texas State Technical College in Harlingen, TX, B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University – Kingsville, and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, under Professor Daniel A. Singleton. He received post-doctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, under Professor Donna G. Blackmond. In September of 2018, Dr. Plata returned to his hometown to start his independent career at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Erik is fluent in Spanish and is the great-great-great-grandson of Mexican immigrants. Dr. Plata’s research work is focused on using modern physical organic techniques to study mechanisms in organic chemistry. His laboratory uses Reaction Progress Kinetic Analysis (RPKA), kinetic isotope effects (KIEs) at natural abundance, and computational chemistry. Applications of his research extend to process chemistry of pharmaceutical drugs and understanding those mechanisms that have a biochemical equivalence in biology.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry
Email:
erik.plata@utrgv.edu BLHSB 1.808 A
Phone: (956) 882-5737
