CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT

After a planning, design and construction process that spanned a total of ten years, the Chemistry Department returned to its ancestral home in the Thompson Chemistry Laboratory in 2000-01 as the new science facilities building project finally came to completion. Now sharing renovated facilities with its new building mates, the Computer Science Department, Chemistry resumed normal teaching operations in beautifully renovated classrooms, computer laboratories, and faculty offices in TCL. It’s great to be home again! Assistant Professors Mark Schofield and Tom Smith were reappointed for second terms. Assistant Professor Deborah Weiss has accepted a position at The Blake School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and will be leaving Williamstown this summer. We all wish Deborah and her family the very best with their coming adventures. George Malon joined the Department as Stockroom Manager/Technical Assistant, replacing Gisela Demant for the year as she returned to school to complete a B.S. degree in Chemistry. Next year will again prove exciting, as we anticipate hiring two new tenure-track faculty members.

This year, the Chemistry Department also put the final touches on the new curricular structure it will implement in the 2001-02 academic year. Although changes to its upper-level offerings will be phased into place in subsequent years, the major thrust of the new curriculum will reposition the two semester introductory organic chemistry sequence into the middle of the usual two semesters of general chemistry. This “sandwich” model will significantly change the landscape of the first year experience in the Department. It will also provide a different and more effective path into the Department’s upper-level electives for rising majors. In addition, the new curriculum structure will allow the Department to offer a new course for first year students who arrive with especially strong backgrounds in high school chemistry.

On the basis of its accomplishments with conducting undergraduate research, the Chemistry Department was chosen as one of the first recipients of the Jean Boissevain Undergraduate Scholarship for Excellence in Chemistry Program. This award provides $5,500 to support two summers of research at Williams by a chemistry major. Joel Schmid, ’03 was chosen to receive the award and he will spend his first summer working in Professor David Richardson’s laboratory.

This year we continued to participate in the lectureship program under the sponsorship of the Class of 1960 Scholars Program. Two distinguished scientists were invited to campus to meet with our students and present a seminar. Professor Ann McDermott of Columbia University and Professor Alanna Schepartz of Yale University were the 1960 Scholar Speakers this year. Fifteen students were selected by the faculty to be Class of 1960 Scholars during 2001 and to participate in the seminar program which includes a preliminary meeting of the Scholars with a Chemistry Department faculty member to discuss some of the papers of the seminar speaker; attendance at the seminar/discussion; and an opportunity for further discussion with the seminar speaker at an informal reception or dinner. The students selected for this year are:

During the final week of classes, a number of awards were presented to chemistry students for outstanding scholarship. Shauna Dineen ’04 received the CRC Award as the outstanding student in the general chemistry course and Steven Scroggins ’04 received the CRC Award as the outstanding student in the advanced general chemistry course. Jennifer Roizen ’03 was awarded the Harold H. Warren Prize as the outstanding student in introductory organic chemistry. At the annual Senior Honors Colloquium, Professor Richardson announced the American Chemical Society Polymer Division Award for excellence in introductory organic chemistry for Erica Dwyer ’03, the American Chemical Society Analytical Division Award for Adam Steeves ’02, the American Chemical Society Connecticut Valley Section Award for sustained scholastic excellence for Katherine Belecki ’01, the American Institute of Chemists Student Award for outstanding scholastic achievement for James Apgar ’01, the Frank C. Goodrich 1945 Award in Chemistry to support travel expenses to scientific meetings to Katherine Belecki ’01 and Mabel Djang ’01.

At Class Day activities before graduation, the John Sabin Adriance Prize was awarded to Zuzana Tothova ’01 as the senior chemistry major who maintained the highest rank in all courses offered by the Department. Also during Class Day, Daniel Clayburgh ’01 and Mabel Djang ’01 were announced as recipients of the Leverett Mears Prize in recognition of outstanding scholastic achievement, admission to graduate study in the medical sciences or to medical school, and designation by the faculty of the Department as showing outstanding promise. The James F. Skinner Prize for achieving a distinguished record in chemistry and showing promise for teaching and scholarship was presented to Laura Almstead ’01.

During the summer of 2001, ca. 30 Williams College chemistry majors were awarded research assistantships to work in the laboratories of departmental faculty. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc., the Williams College Divisional Research Funding Committee, the J. Hodge Markgraf ’52 summer research fund, the National Science Foundation, Petroleum Research Foundation grants administered by the American Chemical Society, Pfizer, Inc., Summer Science Program funds, and the Wege-Markgraf fund.

Professor Raymond Chang continues to serve on the editorial board of The Chemical Educator. He was on leave during the academic year. Professor Chang attended the American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Diego in April. The seventh edition of his introductory chemistry text was published in March.

Having gotten his feet thoroughly wet in his first year, Assistant Professor Joe Chihade plunged forward into his second year at Williams. His research is centered on RNA-protein recognition. One particular focus is on aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, the enzymes which correctly attach amino acids to transfer RNAs to create “adapters” which are the basis of the genetic code. Honors student Daniel Clayburgh ’01 worked this year on two unusual alanyl-tRNA synthetases that function in animal mitochondria. One project focused on understanding the role of tRNA tertiary structure in recognition of an unusually small tRNA found in mitochondria of the nematode worm C. elegans, while the other focused on the human mitochondrial enzyme, which appears to find its tRNA using a unique set of recognition elements. Another set of enzymes which are of interest in the lab are pseudouridine synthases, which rearrange specific uridine nucleotides in RNA to pseudouridine. Samantha Kim ’01 worked during the summer on cloning and overexpressing an E. coli pseudouridine synthase and assaying its activity. Susan Levin ’02 during the summer and Alison Peet ’03 during Winter Study worked on a collaborative project with Professor Wendy Raymond of the Biology Department examining an unexpected temperature sensitivity caused by a mutation in a yeast pseudouridine synthase.

This spring Professor Chihade presented a poster about this collaborative work on pseudouridine synthases at the Sixth Annual Meeting of the RNA Society in Banff, Alberta, where he managed to get in only one short hike, but took lots of pictures.

Professor Chihade continued teaching CHEM 121, Fighting Disease: The Evolution and Operation of Human Medicines, in the fall. The course is designed for non-majors and covers the history and mechanism of action of pharmaceuticals, but pays special attention to the human factors involved in the discovery, development, approval, and use of new drugs. During Winter Study he taught CHEM 010, The Origins of Life, in which students read from the primary literature on current theories about our chemical origins. In the spring, he taught CHEM 310, Enzyme Kinetics and Reaction Mechanisms.

Professor Lawrence J. Kaplan (http://www.williams.edu/Chemistry/lkaplan/) with colleagues Professors Emelita Breyer and Jerry Smith of Georgia State University and David Collard of Georgia Institute of Technology were recently awarded $1,853,807 by the National Science Foundation to develop a program of workshops in the chemical sciences. They created the Center for Workshops in the Chemical Sciences (http://chemistry.gsu.edu/CWCS/) to administer the program and Kaplan and his colleagues will serve as co-directors of the Center.

The Center’s 36 workshops will teach basic and applied concepts of the newest chemical sciences and innovative instructional techniques. They are free to qualifying participants from both two and four year undergraduate institutions, at various locations around the country over the next three years. Faculty representing a broad array of institutions including those of the co-directors will lead workshops in their specialized fields. Kaplan led a five-day workshop, June 18-22 on “Forensic Chemistry” at Williams College. The workshop provided an understanding of the application of forensic science to all aspects of undergraduate chemistry instruction. (See http://www.williams.edu/Chemistry/lkaplan/forensicchemistry.html).

Kaplan continued as an adjunct faculty member of the District Court Committee on Continuing Education. On June 20 and 21, the judges of the Massachusetts District Court joined the workshop participants in sessions on drug detection and DNA profiling.

Kaplan’s new media project, “Project Sherlock,” which provides an exploration into the world of forensic science from the crime scene to the crime lab was discussed in the Adjunct Advocate in their article on “On-Line Science Labs,” January/February 2001.

Kaplan made a presentation employing computer animations and web site interaction entitled “Project Sherlock: Forensic Education Through Interactive Multimedia,” at the 153rd Two-Year College Chemistry Consortium Conference held at Hudson Community College in October 2000.

Birgit Koehler taught the first semester of physical chemistry, CHEM 301, Physical Chemistry: Thermodynamics, and CHEM 401, Quantum Chemistry and Molecular Spectroscopy, the advanced quantum mechanics class. During the spring, she taught ENVI 102, Introduction to Environmental Science, with Professor Hank Art from Biology and Professor David DeSimone from Geosciences.

Jay Slowik ’01 worked with Koehler during the summer of 2000 and throughout the academic year studying the effect of sulfuric acid on the uptake of sulfur dioxide on soot. This work is relevant to the oxidation of sulfur dioxide in the upper troposphere. Slowik and Koehler presented this work at the spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Koehler reviewed papers for the Journal of Physical Chemistry, a grant for the National Science Foundation’s Atmospheric Sciences Division, and participated in a panel review of $3M to $20M proposals for the Chemistry Division of NSF on environmental molecular sciences.

Professor Charles Lovett was on sabbatical leave this past year. While on leave he continued to serve as Director of the Science Center, Chair of the Science Executive Committee, Chair of the Divisional Research Funding Committee, and Director of the Summer Science Program for Minority Students. As Chair of the Building Committee for the new science facility, he oversaw the completion of the $47 million renovation and addition to the sciences.

Professor Lovett continued his research on the regulation of DNA repair in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, currently supported by a $375,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Last summer Williams College students Karen Chachu ’01, Peta-Gaye Burnett ’03, Shakierah Fuller ’03, Leah King ’03, and Lindi von Mutius ’03 worked on this research as full-time research assistants. Also participating in this research and providing invaluable assistance was Thomas O’Gara, now in his thirteenth year as research technician in the Lovett lab. Professor Lovett also co-directed, with Professors Wendy Raymond and Steve Swoap, the research projects of Merck Scholars, Jessica Bauman ’02 and Alison Stewart ’03. During the academic year, Professor Lovett directed Karen Chachu ’01 as a senior honors student. Professor Lovett also directed five students in a winter study research project aimed at characterizing LexA repressor mutants. The students involved in the project included Georgina Calderon ’04, Jenica Chambers ’04, Arthur Okwesili ’04, Caitlin Stashwick ’03, and Christina Villegas ’04.

Professor Lovett served as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Bacteriology, Molecular Microbiology, and Nucleic Acids Research.

Last summer, Professor Lovett taught the Chemistry lectures component of the Williams College Summer Science Program for Minority Students. Together with Professor David Richardson, he supervised the third year of science camp for elementary school students and teachers. He also taped his course, CHEM 115, AIDS, The Disease and Search for a Cure, for the Global Education Network (GEN) and has been working with GEN in the development of graphics and animations for the course.

During the past year, Professor Lovett wrote a chapter on ‘Recombination and Transformation’ for the second edition of The Biochemistry, Physiology, and Molecular Genetics of Bacillus subtilis and Other Gram-Positive Bacteria, which is now in press. Also in press are papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Journal of Bacteriology. During the fall of 2000, Professor Lovett gave research talks at Connecticut College and California State Polytechnic University at Pomona.

During the past year, Professor Lovett served as a reviewer for Molecular Microbiology, the Journal of Bacteriology, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He also served on the Beckman Foundation Advisory Panel for the Beckman Scholars Grant Program, and as a consultant for the Sherman Fairchild Foundation’s Scientific Equipment Grant Program.

Professor emeritus J. Hodge Markgraf supervised an independent study research project in the fall semester. During the spring semester, he was a visiting professor at Duke University, where he taught organic chemistry. In April at the North Carolina-American Chemical Society Regional Conference in Raleigh, he presented a paper, “Solid Phase Organic Synthesis and Combinatorial Chemistry,” which was co-authored by George A. Truran, former part-time lecturer in chemistry, Karelle S. Aiken ’00, Thomas R. Fleming ’00, and Peter J. Webb ’02. Professor Markgraf reviewed papers for the Journal of Organic Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Education, and Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications. This summer he will continue research on annulation reactions of 3-cyanophthalide supported by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

Professor Lee Park taught CHEM 103, Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section, to 20 students in the fall, and CHEM 304, Instrumental Methods of Analysis, to 13 students in the spring. She and other members of the Chemistry Department are preparing to implement major curricular changes within the Department beginning in the 2001-02 academic year, and hope that all are able to remember the new course numbers!

During the summer of 2000, she and three research students – Mark Walrod ’01, Maria Drinane ’02, and Marsha Lynch ’03 – continued working on synthesizing various ligands for use with novel metallomesogenic structures. Mark continued his research project into the academic year as a thesis student. Mark made excellent progress towards the synthesis of novel bipyridine based ligands for use with Group VIII square planar metal complexes. With some luck and hard work Susan Fulmer ’02, Carrie Jones ’02, and Laurel Hensley ’03, who will all be working in the Park lab during the summer of 2001, should be able to complete the synthesis and characterization of a few families of new ligands. Park’s research has been supported this year by the second year of a two-year grant from the American Chemical Society, as well as by a new three-year National Science Foundation grant. The NSF grant enabled her to purchase a Differential Scanning Calorimeter for use in her research, which she also incorporated into the Instrumental Methods course this year.

Park continued her professional activities on a number of other fronts as well, serving as a reviewer for NSF (Divisions of Chemistry and Materials Research), ACS, and Research Corporation. Her work (including contributions from her students) was presented as a poster at the International Liquid Crystal Conference (Sendai, Japan) as well as at the Liquid Crystal Gordon Conference (New Hampshire). In addition, she was invited to present her work as an oral presentation at the International Symposium on Metallomesogens in Nagano, Japan.

Finally, Park and Professor Sarah Bolton of the Physics Department organized the Bernhard Science Symposium in January; this symposium brought together prominent women scientists from a variety of scientific disciplines to talk about their research and career paths, and was a great success.

Associate Professor Peacock-López taught CHEM 102, Concepts of Chemistry. Also during the 2000-01 academic year, Professor Peacock and Mount Greylock Regional High School’s advanced placement chemistry instructor, Scott Burdick, organized and taught an advanced placement lab experience at Williams College. The advanced placement chemistry students came three times during the year to perform some of the experiments from the Williams Introductory Chemistry Lab Program. Lastly, Professor Peacock-López’s effort in teaching chemistry to children continued when he gave demonstrations to fifth graders from the Williamstown Elementary School and also helped with the science outreach program that had sixth graders conduct experiments in the chemistry lab.

Associate Professor Enrique Peacock-López continued his research in complex dynamical chemical and biochemical mechanisms. In work related to the self-replication molecules, his group studied a self-replicating mechanism with complementary template and triplex formation.

Ten years ago Rebeck observed that a mixture of complementary fragments like adenine ribose (AR), biphenyl imide (BI) and thymine yields two self-complementary self-replicating molecules ARBI and ART. Of the two, ART is a better self-replicator than ARBI. Recently Peacock-López studied the dynamic behavior of two competitive reactions that yield self-replicating molecules when the system is kept away from equilibrium. The dynamic properties of self-replicating systems have an impact in understanding the evolution of self-replicating RNA. It has been suggested that prebiotic chemistry created at random oligonucleotides. Of these molecules, some oligonucleotides were able to join nucleotides and perhaps eventually catalyzed its own replication. Recent work by Nicolaou with palindromic oligonucleotides has strengthened this possibility. Somehow the better self-replicators overcome others and evolve into ribozymes and possibly into self-replicating RNA. However, the role of natural selection is not clearly understood; therefore, we explore the dynamic properties of two competitive self-replicators and the possibility of coexistence or extinction of the two species. It is important to understand the differences in self-replication efficiency and its effects on the system dynamics. Our results shed some light on possible mechanism of self-replicating molecular evolution. In April, Peacock-López gave a Bag Lunch Talk, “Dynamics of Competitive Self-Replicating Molecules.”

Last November, Professor Peacock-López was invited to participate in NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates review panel. He also has served as reviewer for the Journal of Physical Chemistry and The Chemical Educator.

Professor David Richardson completed his third year as department chair during 2000-01. This year was highlighted by the final phase of the new science facilities construction project, which saw the Chemistry Department’s return to its ancestral home in the newly renovated Thompson Chemistry Laboratory. During the summer of 2000, Ryan B. Hayman ’01 began his yearlong senior honors research working in Professor Richardson’s project directed at isolating the chemical components responsible for the toxicity of Southeast Asian dart poisons. Professor Richardson also supervised the research of two students supported by the College’s Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program: Matt Luedke ’02 and Sarah Hart ’02. Sarah’s project involved a collaboration between Professor Richardson and Professor Hank Art on the isolation of allelopathic agents from two plants that grow widely in Hopkins Forest: raspberry and hay-scented fern. Matt’s work, in collaboration with Professor Dan Lynch, involved the isolation, analysis, and quantitation of sphingolipid mixtures from plants. In addition, Professor Richardson also worked with Tracey Jackson ’02 and Professor Thoman to develop analysis methods with the Department’s new gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). The GC-MS was recently acquired with funds from a NSF-CCLI grant authored by Professors Thoman and Richardson. The analytical methods developed will be used in the laboratory programs of ENVI 102, CHEM 106/108, 113, 202, 303, and 304. During Winter Study, Professor Richardson supervised the research of two students, Joel Schmid ’02 and Susan Fulmer ’02, in the Department’s offering CHEM 022, Introduction to Scientific Research. Joel continued Sarah Hart’s allelopathy collaboration between Professor Richardson and Professor Art’s laboratories, while Susan, working in collaboration with Professor Tom Smith, completed a verification of a method for synthesis of ionic liquids that will be published in Organic Syntheses. Professor Richardson served as a reviewer for the Journal of Organic Chemistry, and Organic Letters, as well as for the on-line journal, The Chemical Educator. He also served as a reviewer of grant applications for Research Corporation and The Petroleum Research Foundation.

Professor Richardson’s teaching responsibilities for the year included CHEM 201, Organic Chemistry, in the fall semester and CHEM 308, Toxicology and Cancer, during the spring semester. In the month of July, he taught the chemistry laboratory portion of the Williams College Summer Science Program for Minority Students. During August, he and Professor Chip Lovett were once again involved in the Science Camp program for local third through fifth graders that they developed in previous summers. Professor Richardson served on the New Science Facility Building Committee and as chair of the Olmsted Committee.

Assistant Professor Mark Schofield continued his research on the design and synthesis of metalloenzyme mimics. During the summer of 2000, Elizabeth Roller ’01 continued the synthetic plan established by Megumi Onishi ’00 toward the synthesis of novel zinc complexes. Elizabeth was joined by Kamille Williams ’03 who worked on the synthesis of novel tetraazamacrocycles of nickel(II) to be used as models for methylcoenzyme M reductase, an enzyme that catalyzes the final step in methane biosynthesis by methanogenic Archaea, and Gerald Lindo ’03 who synthesized a variety of organocobalt complexes for use in the laboratory curriculum. Following leads developed in the summer, Elizabeth carried out her thesis work in Professor Schofield’s lab where she worked on the synthesis of sterically hindered aminedithiolate ligands to serve as models for copper, nickel and zinc metalloenzyme active sites. In the fall, David Chung ’02 worked on the synthesis and electrochemical characterization of a series of nickel immine macrocycles, which will be used as models for methylcoenzyme M reductase. David will be returning to the lab this summer to continue research in this area. Throughout the year, Professor Schofield also coordinated our very active departmental colloquium series.

During the fall semester, Professor Schofield taught CHEM 305, Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry, and during Winter Study he co-taught CHEM 011, Science for Kids, with Professor Smith. During the spring semester, he taught CHEM 104, Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section, as well as a new tutorial, CHEM 316T, Bioinorganic Chemistry. This course focused on the vital function played by metals in biology encompassing such diverse roles as the oxygen carrying iron complex in hemoglobin, organocobalt cofactors essential to metabolism, and the zinc finger proteins necessary for gene regulation.

Professor Schofield served as an external reviewer for Research Corporation.

Dr. Anne Skinner was, as usual, responsible for the laboratory program for CHEM 101-102/104, Concepts of Chemistry. This is the last year for CHEM 102/104, so she has also been busy planning a new lab program for CHEM 256, Foundations of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry, the new fourth semester course in the introductory sequence.

Dr. Skinner again attended several professional meetings in 2000-2001 to present her research in the dating of fossil materials by electron spin resonance. At the Paleoanthropology meeting in March she presented a calibration study of fossil teeth from Olduvai Gorge, showing that ESR gives reliable ages for teeth as old as two million years. She also talked about a site in India that is approximately one million years old that may represent one of the earliest stone tool quarries known. In April, she presented the Olduvai results again at the University of Buffalo Archaeometry Workshop, emphasizing the technique this time, rather than just the results. Later in April, she presented three posters at the American Society of Archaeologists Annual Meeting in New Orleans, covering studies on heated flint from Hungary, and new results from Russia, as well as a new application of ESR dating to tooth dentine.

This summer Dr. Skinner has been invited to participate in archaeological excavations at Olduvai Gorge. She received a grant from the Stearns Foundation to support this trip.

Dr. Skinner continues as News and Features editor of the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly.

Assistant Professor Tom Smith and his team of Williams research students began their first full season in their state-of-the-art research space in the Morley Science Laboratories in the summer of 2000. Katherine Belecki ’01 began her senior honors research as a Pfizer Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow by continuing toward an asymmetric total synthesis of the terpenoid natural product, pacifigorgiol, a fish toxin originally isolated from a Pacific soft coral. The key step in this synthesis employs a transition metal–catalyzed intramolecular [4 + 2] cycloaddition to form the core bicyclic ring system and establish three of the five stereogenic centers of the natural product. Summer student Alan Velander ’02 worked to complete a project involving the selective functionalization of heteroaromatic systems such as oxazoles and thiazoles. Sophie Van Alphen, an exchange student from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, began a new project directed at a general asymmetric synthesis of the kavalactones. These natural products, including kavain, are the active constituents of the kava plant which has been used for centuries in South Pacific cultures for its sedative and muscle relaxing effects. Modern interest in the compounds from this herbal tonic stems from their reported ability to relieve anxiety. Mabel Djang ’01 took over this project in the fall as her senior honors thesis research. Several promising general synthetic routes to these molecules are being explored.

In the fall, Professor Smith taught CHEM 303, Synthetic Organic Chemistry, for the third time, to a class of seven talented advanced organic chemistry students. The capstone project for this course involved the analysis of complex total synthesis from the recent chemical literature. This year’s presentations included such challenging targets as vancomycin (D. A. Evans), crambescidin (L. E. Overman), two discodermolide syntheses (J. A. Marshall and A. B. Smith III), and dysidiolide (E. J. Corey). Professor Smith also continued in his role as faculty liaison to the Chemistry Student Advisory Committee (CSAC). Among the organized events was a summer trip to the alpine slides at Jiminy Peak, a welcome dessert for new Chemistry majors at the beginning of the semester, and a Mountain Day softball game vs. the Biology Department.

In late December, the whole Smith lab journeyed to Honolulu, Hawaii to give a poster presentation at Pacifichem 2000, The International Congress of Pacific Basin Societies. Highlights of the trip included many outstanding chemistry presentations, a Luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center with Professor Peacock-López and David Vosburg ’97, evening views of Lanikai beach from our rental cottage, and multiple trips to Leonard’s Bakery for malasadas (Portuguese donuts—yum!).

Winter Study also saw Professor Smith team-teach CHEM 011, Science for Kids, with Professor Schofield. Twenty Williams students and over 300 community members took part in the January weekend program where five different science workshops were presented to fourth grade students and their parents. This was an incredibly rewarding experience for all involved.

In the spring semester, Professor Smith instructed 70 students in CHEM 202, Organic Chemistry, where 30-second fun breaks and 2-hour midterms kept the students on their toes. CSAC events this semester included an outreach “Demo Day” where Williamstown 5th graders were treated to an afternoon of slime, pressure tricks, and an explosion or two! The end of the year Chemistry/Biology cookout, organized by CSAC, featured games, raffles, and the first annual “Smashing of the Frozen Watermelon” where the liquid nitrogen-cooled fruit was dropped from the roof of TBL to the delight of the crowd below. The picnic was a nice good-bye to all of the students and faculty who had worked so hard to make the year a success.

Professor Smith was recently awarded a $25,000 grant from the Petroleum Research Fund for “A Concise Ring-Closing Metathesis Route to the Octalactins.” He will be on Assistant Professor leave during the 2001-02 academic year, pursuing his research interests full time.

After a lonely year without students in his laboratory, Professor Jay Thoman was joined by Carolyn Adams ’02 and James Apgar ’01 in summer 2000 in his new laboratory at Williams. They constructed a gas handling system, and designed and fabricated a mount for a 20-meter cell in an UV-vis-NIR spectrophotometer. With help from Adam Steeves ’02, Apgar used this apparatus in his thesis work during the academic year to quantify the frequencies and intensities of vibrational overtone spectra of R-OH molecules of importance in atmospheric chemistry. With help from Professor Mark Schofield and Professor Henrik Kjaergaard of the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, Apgar installed the operating system LINUX, the software package Gaussian98, and some custom software on some new hardware in Thoman’s lab. As part of his thesis work, Apgar carried out extensive calculations using Hartree-Fock and Density Functional theories to model the vibrational overtone spectra of acids and alcohols of relevance to atmospheric chemistry.

Thoman continued his collaboration with Andrew McIlroy at the Combustion Research Facility, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA. Adam Steeves ’02 worked in McIlroy’s lab to develop laser-based diagnostics for low-pressure flames. Results were presented at Western States meeting of the Combustion Institute. Thoman also attended the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, where he reconnected with former students and mentors.

Thoman was the local sponsor for Julianna Connolly ’01, who worked with Professor Jim McKenna at the Williams-Mystic Program at the Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT. In her thesis work and during summer 2000 and 2001, Connolly investigated the lability of dissolved carbon in groundwater and its relation to denitrification of that groundwater.

In the fall semester, Thoman taught CHEM 101, Concepts of Chemistry, for the last time. It was particularly enjoyable to teach in the newly opened room 123 TCL, Wege Family Lecture Hall. Though he often shared demonstration set-up time with construction workers, and though the audio-visual equipment wasn’t installed until spring break, 123 TCL is a superlative teaching space. Chemistry classes in 123 TCL started with the (now traditional) bang of ignited hydrogen balloons. The transition from CHEM 101 at 9:00 a.m. to CHEM 201, Organic Chemistry, at 10:00 a.m. is much easier thanks to the construction of a pass-through to the demonstration storage room. The “demo room” was named in honor of the late Professor Jim Skinner ’62 who taught introductory, inorganic, analytical, and physical chemistry at Williams for many years. In fall 2001, Thoman will return to teach the first course in the new chemistry curriculum sequence, CHEM 151, Concepts of Chemistry. For the second Winter Study period in a row, Thoman taught CHEM 016, Glass and Glassblowing. He also sponsored Katy Miyamoto ’01 in an independent study project on “Advanced Flame Working.” In the spring, Thoman taught CHEM 302, Physical Chemistry: Structure and Dynamics, and a section of CHEM 102, Concepts of Chemistry, lab.

During the summer of 2000, Assistant Professor Deborah Weiss, Nicole Draghi ’00, and Laura Almstead ’01 made significant progress towards understanding how a particular DNA negative regulatory element, NEG-1, contributes to the controlled expression of the immunologically relevant gene, Interleukin-4. For part of the summer, James Apgar ’01 continued his independent research project examining cytokine expression in the brains of animals from the Flinders Sensitive Rat Line. This particular rat strain is proposed as an animal model of human depression.

During the fall semester, Weiss completed her Assistant Professor leave. During that time she and thesis student Laura Almstead ’01 and research assistant Nicole Draghi ’00 focused their efforts on purifying a nuclear protein that binds to the IL-4 NEG-1 DNA element. Quantities sufficient for mass spectral analysis were obtained. These samples were sent to the Mass Spectrometry NIH Resource Center at Boston University, and preliminary analysis indicates that a previously defined factor, nucleolin may be involved in IL-4 transcriptional regulation.

During the spring term, Weiss taught courses that capture both ends of student interest in the Department. Our new course CHEM 406, Special Topics in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, is aimed at upper division students, many of who continue their studies post-Williams at graduate or medical school. Weiss also taught the popular CHEM 115, AIDS: The Disease and Search for a Cure, for the first time this spring to non-science majors.

In April, the Weiss laboratory traveled to Orlando, Florida, to attend the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Annual National Meeting. In the spring, funding was obtained in the amount of $5,000 from the National Science Foundation for use during the coming summer. During summer 2001, Elaine Denny ’04 and Kuda Mutyambizi ’03 will continue the exploration of the regulation of the Interleukin-4 gene.

Dr. Jack Antel, McGill University
Sponsored by the Merck Company Foundation

“Multiple Sclerosis – What Is It, and How Can We Treat It?”
Dr. Elliot Cowan ’77, Food and Drug Administration
Dr. Thomas Feist ’85, GE Plastics
Mr. James Rowe ’98, Pfizer, Inc.
Mr. Thomas Wintner ’93, Williams College

“Careers in Chemistry”
Professor Gregory Fu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sponsored by Organic Syntheses, Inc.

“Asymmetric Catalysis with ‘Planar-Chiral’ Heterocycles”
Professor David Goldberg, Johns Hopkins University

“New NNS(thiolate)-M(II) Complexes: Small-Molecule Analogues of the Metalloprotein Peptide Deformylase”
Professor Shana Kelley, Boston College

“Structural Fragility of Disease-Associated Human Mitochondrial tRNAs”
Professor Robert Lemieux, Queens University-Ontario
Sponsored by Organic Syntheses, Inc.

“Chiral Molecular Recognition in Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals”
Professor Michael Maroney, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

“Structure and Function in Metalloenzymes: A Nickel Tour”
Professor Clifford Matthews, emeritus, University of Illinois-Chicago

“Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life”
Professor Ann McDermott, Columbia University
Class of 1960 Scholar

“Enzyme Catalytic Function: A Dynamical View”
Professor Lee Y. Park, Williams College

“Designing Molecular Wires”
“Liquid Crystal Displays”
“Liquid Crystals and Molecular Wires – Doing Chemistry in One Dimension”
Professor Enrique Peacock-López, Williams College

“Dynamics of Competitive Self-Replicating Molecules”
Professor Alana Schepartz, Yale University
Class of 1960 Scholar

“Design of Functional Miniature Proteins”
Ms. Tanya Schneider, Yale University

“The Influence of Hepatitis B virus X Protein on the Mechanism of Transcription Factor Binding”
Professor Jeffrey Weidenhamer, Ashland University
Sponsored by the Merck Company Foundation

“Killing Off the Competition: A Chemical and Ecological Perspective on Allelopathy”

Lawrence J. Kaplan

“Project Sherlock: Forensic Education Through Interactive Multimedia”
153rd Two-Year College Chemistry Consortium Conference at Hudson Community College in Hudson, NY
Lee Y. Park

“Designing Metallomesogens and Other One-Dimensional Materials”
Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, University of Maine in Orono, ME
Amherst College in Amherst, MA

“Metallomesogenic Derivatives of Copper and Platinum Based Metal-Chains”
International Symposium of Metallomesogens in Nagano, Japan
Enrique Peacock-López

“Dynamical Properties of Self-Replicating Structures”
Gordon Research Conference: Oscillations and Dynamical Instabilities in Chemical Systems at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI

“Dynamical Properties of Self-Replicating Structures”
Pacifichem 2000, The 4th International Congress of Pacific Basin Societies; Symposium on Nonlinear Dynamics in Chemistry in Honolulu, HI
Anne R. Skinner, Brian Adams, Bonnie A. B. Blackwell

“Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) and Lithic Technology”
American Society of Archaeologists 66th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA
Anne R. Skinner, Bonnie A. B. Blackwell, J. I. B. Blickstein, M. Petralglia, K. Paddayya, R. Jhaldiyai

“ESR Dating of an Acheulean Quarry Site at Isampur, India”
Paleoanthropology Society Meeting in Kansas City, KS
Anne R. Skinner, Bonnie A. B. Blackwell, Valerie S. Lothian ’01

“Calibrating ESR Dating by Using Two-Million Year Old Teeth”
Paleoanthropology Society Meeting in Kansas City, KS

“Calibrating ESR Dating: Age Effects on Uptake Models”
Archaeometry Workshop at State University of New York in Buffalo, NY
Anne R. Skinner, Bonnie A. B. Blackwell, Natalie L. Rosenwasser, Joel I.B. Blickstein, Luba V. Golovanova

“ESR Dating at the Middle Pleistocene Site, Treugol’naya Cave, Karachayevo-Cherkessiya Republic Russia”
American Society of Archaeologists 66th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA
Anne R. Skinner, J. I. B. Blickstein, Andrew Condiles

“ESR Dating of Bone: Can We Solve the Technical Problems?
American Society of Archaeologists 66th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA
Thomas E. Smith

“Application of Transition Metal–Catalyzed Cycloadditions to Organic Synthesis”
State University of New York in Albany, NY
Thomas E. Smith, Katherine Belecki ’01, Carolyn Stickney ’00, Scott Snyder ’99, Mabel Djang ’01

“Progress Toward a Concise Asymmetric Synthesis of Pacifigorgiol Using a Transition Metal–Catalyzed Intramolecular [4 + 2] Cycloaddition”
Pacifichem 2000, The 4th International Congress of Pacific Basin Societies in Honolulu, HI
John W. Thoman, Jr., Andrew McIlroy, and Adam H. Steeves ’02

“Optical and Mass Spectrometer Studies of Dimethyl Ether/Oxygen/Argon Flames
2nd Joint Meeting of the U. S. Sections of the Combustion Institute in Oakland, CA