Research Interests

• Analysis and characterization of biomarkers for toxic chemical exposure
• Chemical attribution of chemical warfare agents and acutely toxic chemicals
• Cyclodextrins as scaffolds for countermeasure development
• Development of medical countermeasures for nerve agents and opioids
• Development of novel nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methodologies for chemical forensics
• Environmental fate of acutely toxic chemicals
• Environmental remediation of toxic chemicals
• Forensic analysis of “unknown unknowns”
• Hyphenated analytical techniques based in NMR
• Interface between and synergies of computational and experimental NMR data
• Nuclear magnetic resonance 
• Optimizing/characterization host-guest affinities through joint computational/analytical chemistries
• Solution-state complexation involving cyclodextrins and related host molecules

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, 2009

B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 2004

• Mayer, B. P.; DeHope, A. J.; Mew, D. A.; Spackman, P. E.; Williams, A. M. Chemical Attribution of Fentanyl Using Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Orthogonal Mass Spectral Data. Analytical Chemistry 88, 4303-4310 (2016).
• Mayer, B. P.; Kennedy, D. J.; Lau, E. Y.; Valdez, C. A. Solution-State Structure and Affinities of Cyclodextrin:Fentanyl Complexes by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Molecular Dynamics Simulation. Journal of Physical Chemistry B 120, 2423-2433, (2016).
• Kennedy, D. J.; Mayer, B. P.; Baker, S.; Valdez, C. A. Kinetics and Speciation of Paraoxon Hydrolysis by Zinc(II)-Azamacrocycle Catalysts. Inorganica Chimica Acta 436, 123-131 (2015).
• Valdez, C. A.; Leif, R. N.; Mayer, B. P. An Efficient, Optimized Synthesis of Fentanyl and Related Analogs. PLoS ONE 9, e108250 (2014).
• Mayer, B. P.; Valdez, C. A.; Hok, S.; Chinn, S. C.; Hart, B. R. 31P-Edited Diffusion-Ordered 1H NMR Spectroscopy for the Spectral Isolation and Identification of Organophosphorus Compounds Related to Chemical Weapons Agents and Their Degradation Products. Analytical Chemistry 84, 10478-10484 (2012).