CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT

Although the new science facilities construction project is now becoming a dim memory, new challenges continued for the Chemistry Department in 2001-02 as we began the process of transitioning into a new curriculum. In a plan that will eventually alter the structure of our upper-level requirements and leave us with an almost totally new set of course numbers, the major changes we began implementing this year affect our introductory-level courses. Our new curriculum offers introductory organic chemistry in the spring of the first year by sandwiching this two-semester sequence between the two courses that traditionally represent general chemistry. In addition, the Department offered a new fall semester course for students with very strong high school chemistry backgrounds, CHEM 155, Current Topics in Chemistry, which was team-taught by Professors Mark Schofield and Raymond Chang.
Beyond these changes, there were also significant staffing developments in the Department. First, Assistant Professor Joe Chihade was reappointed for second term. Next we bade farewell to Ms. Julie Ann McGaulley who served the Department throughout the year as a laboratory instructor in our introductory organic chemistry program. Julie will be entering a Ph.D. program in Polymer Chemistry at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY in the fall. Ms. Jenna MacIntire, already a laboratory instructor in the Biology Department, also joined the Department this year as a part-time laboratory instructor in our general and organic chemistry programs. We also welcome two new tenure-track, chemists, Amy Gehring ’94 and Dieter Bingemann. Amy is a biochemist who earned her Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School with Professor Christopher T. Walsh and then completed postdoctoral study at Harvard University with Professor Richard M. Losick. Amy will be teaching CHEM 321,Biochemistry I–Structure and Function of Biological Molecules; CHEM 310, Enzyme Mechanisms and CHEM 406, Topics in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, (together with Professor Chip Lovett) in her first year at Williams. Dieter, a physical chemist who has most recently served as an Assistant Scientist in the Chemistry Department at the University of Wisconsin, completed his Ph.D. studies at Georg-August Universität and Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, followed by postdoctoral work at Wisconsin with Professor F. Fleming Crim. In his first year at Williams, Dieter will teach CHEM 153, Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section, and CHEM 302, Physical Chemistry: Structure and Dynamics. Finally, we welcomed the return of Ms. Gisela Demant, our Stockroom Manager/Technical Assistant, from her one-year absence while completing a B.A. degree at the College of St. Rose, magna cum laude.
This year we continued to participate in the lectureship program under the sponsorship of the Class of 1960 Scholars Program. Three distinguished scientists were invited to campus to meet with our students and present a seminar. Professor John Tully of Yale University, Professor Thomas Katz of Columbia University and Professor David Evans of Harvard University were the 1960 Scholar speakers this year. Nine students were selected by the faculty to be Class of 1960 Scholars during 2002 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 2002-03 are:

Class of 1960 Scholars in Chemistry
Peta-Gaye Burnett
Marshall Dines
Laurel Hensley
Kevin Hsueh
Jason Leith
Alison Peet
Jennifer Roizen
Alison Stewart
Catherine Sumner

During the final week of classes, a number of awards were presented to chemistry students for outstanding scholarship. Candice Li ’05 received the CRC Award as the outstanding student in the general chemistry course and Cameron Marshall ’05 and Saroj Bhattarai ’05 received the CRC Award as the outstanding students in the advanced general chemistry courses. Steven Scroggins ’04 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 Shauna Dineen ’04, the American Chemical Society Analytical Division Award for Kamille Williams ’03, the American Chemical Society Connecticut Valley Section Award for sustained scholastic excellence for Carrie Jones ’02, the American Institute of Chemists Student Award for outstanding scholastic achievement for Eli Groban ’02.

RepSci200208.jpg

Emily Balskus, Chemistry Major and Williams College 2002 Valedictorian, receiving
the Pfizer 2001 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Award
from Elias James Corey, 1990 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

At Class Day activities before graduation, the John Sabin Adriance Prize was awarded to Emily Balskus ’02 as the senior chemistry major who maintained the highest rank in all courses offered by the Department. Also during Class Day, David Chung ’02 was announced as recipient of the Leverett Mears Prize in recognition of outstanding scholastic achievement. The James F. Skinner Prize, for achieving a distinguished record in chemistry and showing promise for teaching and scholarship, was presented to Adam Steeves ’02.
During the summer of 2002, 35 Williams College chemistry majors were awarded research assistantships to work in the laboratories of departmental faculty. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc., the 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 theChemical Educator. He team-taught a new course, CHEM 155, Current Topics in Chemistry, in the fall semester with Professor Schofield, who was the organizer of the course. The third edition of his chemistry text, General Chemistry, was published by McGraw-Hill Book Company. Professor Chang published a paper titled “Illustrating Chemical Concepts with Coin Flipping” with Professor Thoman in The Chemical Educator.
Assistant Professor Joe Chihade continued his research, centered on RNA-protein recognition this year. One particular focus is aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, the enzymes which correctly attach amino acids to transfer RNAs to create the “adapters” which are required for correct translation of the genetic code. Honors student Alix Partnow ’02 worked this year on two unusual alanyl-tRNA synthetases that function in animal mitochondria. These nuclearly encoded enzymes have adapted to recognize and differentiate tRNAs that mutate at very high rates. A theme that has begun to emerge from this work is that adaptations make the mitochondrial enzymes much less specific than their cytoplasmic counterparts.
Much of the work in the Chihade lab this year has centered on pseudouridine synthases, enzymes that rearrange particular uridine nucleotides in RNA to pseudouridine. Over the summer, Jenica Chambers ’04 and Marina Vivero ’04 worked to understand the parameters of substrate recognition by anE. coli pseudouridine synthase by preparing hybrid RNA substrates. Thesis student Kristen LeChevet ’02 started a new project over this year, characterizing reagents that can be used to react with pseudouridine specifically leaving all other nucleotides in an RNA untouched.
Alison Peet ’03 continued her work in the Chihade lab during the summer and Winter Study on a collaborative project with Professor Wendy Raymond of the Biology Department examining a strain of yeast in which mutation of a pseudouridine synthase leads to cell death.
In the fall, Professor Chihade taught CHEM 311, Physical Organic Chemistry, for the first time to four brave and enthusiastic students. (Steven Scroggins ’04 spent Winter Study improving the lot of future generations of CHEM 311 students by further developing a lab involving characterization of diphenylfulvenes with Professor Chihade and Professor Markgraf.) In the spring, Chihade taught the last rendition of CHEM 202,Organic Chemistry, which fades into the sunset as the Department moves into the new curriculum. In between learning about the vast toolkit of synthetic chemistry, CHEM 202 students still had time to write minute papers about The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension.
Chihade did manage to sneak out of town to two conferences. In the summer, he attended the American Chemical Society’s National Meeting in Chicago, which thesis student Kristen LeChevet ’02 also attended. In the middle of Winter Study, Chihade spent a week on the Monterrey Peninsula talking about enzymes at the Asilomar Conference on Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases in Biology, Medicine and Evolution. Aside from wonderful science, he found the jellyfish exhibit at the aquarium particularly enchanting.
Professor Lawrence J. Kaplan (http://www.williams.edu/Chemistry/lkaplan/) along with colleagues Professors Emelita Breyer and Jerry Smith of Georgia State University and David Collard of Georgia Institute of Technology continue to administer the Center for Workshops in the Chemical Sciences (CWCS;http://chemistry.gsu.edu/CWCS/). CWCS was established last year with a $1.85 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Under the auspices of the CWCS, workshops were conducted in the following areas: Metals in Biology, Chemistry and Art, Environmental Chemistry, Computational and Theoretical Chemistry, Molecular Genetics, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Forensic Science.
Kaplan taught a five-day workshop, June 18-22, 2001 on “Forensic Science” at Williams College (http://www.williams.edu/Chemistry/lkaplan/forensicchemistry.html). The workshop provided an understanding of the application of forensic science to all aspects of undergraduate chemistry instruction. Fourteen participants from institutions ranging from Washington State University to Greenfield Community College and East Tennessee University to Haverford College became criminalists for the week. They processed crime scenes and analyzed evidence such as glass and soil, fibers and fingerprints, drugs and alcohol, blood and bullets, and, of course, DNA. This summer, due to overwhelming demand, Kaplan will be conducting two weeklong sessions of the workshop.
Kaplan was a co-author with his colleagues from CWCS on two presentations made at the 223rd American Chemical Society National Meeting in April. One was titled “Workshops for Teaching Faculty: The Center for Workshops in the Chemical Science (CWCS),” and the other “CWCS: A National Experiment in Chemical Education.”
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 the topic of his lunchtime talk to natural science colleagues in the fall semester. It was also the topic of his presentation at the Faculty Research Luncheon for administrative and support staff given in April. This animation project also was the topic of articles by Samantha Orme ’02 in the WilliamScene and in the Parents Pages for spring 2002.
Assistant Professor Birgit Koehler taught physical chemistry CHEM 401, Quantum Chemistry and Molecular Spectroscopy, the advanced quantum mechanics class. During the spring, she taught ENVI 102, Introduction to Environmental Science, together with Professor Manuel Morales from Biology and Professor Heather Stoll from Geosciences. Among other things, the class studied Eph’s Pond to determine its environmental health (pretty good–almost OK to swim in) and to recommend remediation that would improve the water quality and health of the wetlands.
During Winter Study, Professor Koehler and Professor Kaplan taught CHEM 011, Science for Kids. In this program, 20 Williams College students prepared two-hour workshops on science topics ranging from forensics to food to physics to electricity and magnetism. At the end of January, 120 kids came to participate in the workshops with their parents.
Professor Charles Lovett continued to serve as Director of the Science Center, Chair of the Science Executive Committee, Chair of the Divisional Research Funding Committee, Chair of the Science Technology Committee and Director of the Summer Science Program for Minority Students.
Professor Lovett continued his research on the regulation of DNA repair in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis supported by a $375,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Last summer Williams College students Eli Groban ’02, Carol Lynn Higgins ’02, Marsha Lynch ’03, Georgina Calderon ’04, and Christina Villegas ’04 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 fourteenth year as research technician in the Lovett lab. Last summer Professor Lovett also co-directed with Professor Steve Swoap the research of Merck Scholar Alison Stewart ’03. Professor Lovett was awarded a $330,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support a new research project in his lab on the mechanism of ComK-mediated regulation of the recA gene in the bacteriumBacillus subtilis. During the academic year, Professor Lovett directed Eli Groban ’02, Carol Lynn Higgins ’02, and Tracey Jackson ’02 as senior honor students working on the ComK project. Professor Lovett also directed two students, Joel Schmid ’02 and Michael Leparc ’05, in a Winter Study research project aimed at characterizing LexA repressor mutants.
In the fall semester, Professor Lovett taught CHEM 321, Biochemistry I–Structure and Function of Biological Molecules, and in the spring semester taught both CHEM 310, Enzyme Mechanisms, and CHEM 115, AIDS: The Disease and Search for a Cure.
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 also supervised the fourth year of Summer Science Camp for elementary school students and teachers. During the past year Professor Lovett served as a reviewer for Molecular Microbiology, theJournal 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 was appointed as a Visiting Professor for the spring semester; he taught a tutorial CHEM 312T,Heterocyclic Chemistry. He supervised the honors thesis of Peter J. Webb ’02 throughout the year. The focus of their research was the synthesis of pharmacologically-active alkaloids known as benzocanthinones; two new routes to these compounds were achieved. This summer three students will continue the project on canthinone alkaloids and will develop new preparative methods for quinone compounds that are active against the parasite which causes Chagas’ disease. Professor Markgraf served as a reviewer for theJournal of Organic Chemistry, Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Education, Tetrahedron, and the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society.
In the fall semester, Professor Lee Park taught Chemistry 153, Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section, (the advanced introductory course in the revised departmental curriculum) and CHEM/PHYS 318, Materials Science: The Chemistry and Physics of Materials. During the spring semester, she was on leave, and did not have any formal teaching responsibilities.
During the summer of 2001, Park and three research students–Carrie Jones ’02, Susan Fulmer ’02, and Laurel Hensley ’03–worked on synthesizing ligands for use with novel metallomesogenic structures, focusing on two families of bipyridyl-based ligands. Carrie continued her research project as a thesis student. Susan and Laurel both continued their work as one-semester independent study projects. Carrie and Susan were able to prepare metallomesogenic derivatives of Pt(bipy)X2 complexes, characterizing them by Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Polarized Microscopy; they succeeded in preparing examples of columnar liquid crystalline materials, which are promising candidates for use as one-dimensional conductors. Laurel continued work on a series of Fe(bipy)X2 compounds, and began synthesizing a new family of ligands for another Pt(II) based series. She and her students traveled to Chicago in August 2001 to present their work at the American Chemical Society National Meeting. Park’s research was supported this year by the second year of a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation.
In the summer of 2002, Park will have two students, Steve Scroggins ’04 and Teddy McGehee ’05 who will be the first students to participate in the institutional collaboration that has been established to take advantage of the new nanotechnology center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Steve and Teddy will work with Prof. Park in collaboration with Professors Chang Ryu and Yvonne Akpalu of RPI in developing new methods to characterizing liquid crystalline phases using high temperature atomic force microscopy and high intensity x-ray methods.
Park continued her professional activities on a number of other fronts as well, serving as a reviewer and panelist for the NSF (Divisions of Chemistry and Materials Research), and as a reviewer for the ACS, Research Corporation, and Benjamin Cummings Publishers.
Professor Peacock-López taught CHEM 301, Physical Chemistry: Thermodynamics, and CHEM 302, Physical Chemistry: Structure and Dynamics, where he has increased the use of MATHEMATICA and other software packages as a tool to solve time-consuming numerical and symbolic calculations in physical chemistry. Also during the 2001-02 academic year, Professor Peacock and Mount Greylock Regional High School’s Advanced Placement Chemistry Instructor, Scott Burdick, organized and taught an AP lab experience at Williams College. The AP Chemistry students came four times during the year to perform some of the experiments from the Williams introductory chemistry lab program. Finally, he offered the Winter Study course CHEM 013, The Popular Culture of Football (Soccer) Around the World.
Professor Enrique Peacock-López continued his research currently supported by a $155,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The present work both continues and expands his models in the area of chemical and biochemical reactions, in solution and on surfaces. Recently, temporal and spatial pattern formation in biological systems has become an interesting and challenging problem in theoretical biophysical chemistry. The Peacock-López group has been studying the molecular basis of different physiological mechanisms and has proposed several dynamic models to explain observed temporal and chaotic oscillation in the concentrations of relevant metabolites. In general, the study of the dynamical properties of metabolite concentrations in cascade reaction mechanisms is an important area of research, which will lead to an understanding of the response to initial macromolecule-surface protein.
Professor Enrique Peacock-López’s work includes self-replicating structures and their implication on triple-stranded DNA, prion kinetics, the complement’s nonlinear kinetics in the immune system, coupled oscillators as a model of pulsitile secretion and regulation of pituitary hormones. Also considered is glucose metabolism in liver cells, in which switching between glycolysis and gluconeogenesis is regulated, in part, by the phosphorylation/dephosphorylation of a bifunctional enzyme. Finally, his group has been studying reaction-diffusion equations associated with their proposed models.
Professor Peacock-López also has served as reviewer for the National Science Foundation, and The Chemical Educator.
At long last, Professor David Richardson completed his fourth and final year as department chair during 2001-02. This was another busy year in the Chemistry Department as it began the process of transitioning into its new curricular structure after many years of planning and discussion. On the research front, Professor Richardson supervised the work of several students throughout the year. During the summer of 2001, Tracey Jackson ’02 began her year- long senior honors research working on a collaborative project between Professor Richardson and Professor Chip Lovett’s labs. Tracey’s project involved early stages in the synthesis and use of an iron-centered probe (Fe-BABE) for the targeted footprinting analysis of binding interactions between the DNA regulation protein known as ComK and the alpha subunit of the carboxy-terminal domain (CTD) of RNA polymerase. Professor Richardson also supervised the research of three other students: Peta-Gaye Burnett ’03, Joel Schmid ’03 and Prosper Nwankpa ’04. Peta-Gaye continued Professor Richardson’s work directed at the isolation and characterization of the toxic components from plants used in the manufacture of poison-tipped darts in Southeastern Asia. Joel’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. In addition to assisting Joel on the allelopathy project, Prosper investigated the synthesis of new complexes to be used in the Department’s Ford Course. During Winter Study Period, Professor Richardson supervised the research of two students in the Department’s offering CHEM 023, Introduction to Research in Organic Chemistry, Vicky Bock ’04 and Karen Thome ’04. Vicky and Karen worked on verification of synthetic methods that will be published as articles in the chemistry journal Organic Syntheses. Vicky’s project was directed at the synthesis of a new difluorocarbene precursor, while Karen investigated conditions for the electrophilic bromination of isoquinoline and substituted-isoquinoline systems. Professor Richardson served as a reviewer for the Journal of Organic Chemistry and as an external tenure reviewer for Trinity College.
Professor Richardson’s teaching responsibilities for the year included CHEM 201, Introductory Organic Chemistry, in the fall semester. In the spring semester, he taught the first installment of CHEM 156, Organic Chemistry: Introductory Level. This course is part of the Department’s new curricular structure and it represents the first time that introductory organic chemistry has been offered at the first year student level. In the month of July he taught the Chemistry laboratory portion of the Williams College Summer Science Program for Minority Students and, together with Professor Chip Lovett, he hosted the Department’s Summer Science Camp program for local 4th and 5th graders. Professor Richardson served on the Science Technology Committee, on the Science Executive Committee, and as chair of the Olmsted Committee.
Assistant Professor Mark Schofield continued his research on the development and synthesis of metalloenzyme mimics. During the summer of 2001, David Chung ’01 prepared several nickel macrocycles to serve as functional models for the active site of methylcoenzyme M reductase, an enzyme found inArchaea that is responsible for the production of over a billion tons of methane per year. Following leads developed in the summer, David carried out his thesis work in the Schofield lab where he used a combination of electrochemical, computational, and reactivity studies to evaluate the suitability of these models. Carolyn S. Adams ’02 also joined the Schofield lab this year, working on the synthesis of sterically-hindered aminedithiolate ligands as models for copper, nickel and zinc metalloenzyme active sites.
During the fall semester Professor Schofield taught CHEM 305, Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry, and team-taught (with Professor Chang) a new course, CHEM 155, Current Topics in Chemistry. During the spring semester, Professor Schofield began his assistant professor leave.
In addition to his on-campus activities, Professor Schofield continued his professional activities outside Williamstown. In the fall, he presented his work at the 10th International Conference on Biological Inorganic Chemistry, Florence, Italy. In the spring, he attended the American Chemical Society National Meeting in Orlando, a National Science Foundation workshop on Metals in Biology in Logan, Utah, and he gave a research talk at Washington University in St. Louis.
While Dr. Anne Skinner’s teaching was, as usual, centered on the introductory laboratory program, both the numbers of the courses taught and the content were very different. In the fall, CHEM 151, Concepts of Chemistry, added an environmental analysis lab that allowed students to determine the characteristics of local water samples, both from obvious sources such as the Green River and less obvious, such as their roommate’s fishbowl! In the spring, she taught sections of the first semester organic course, now called CHEM 156, Organic Chemistry: Introductory Level.
Dr. Skinner’s research uses electron spin resonance (ESR) to date fossils. In the summer of 2001, she had two Williams students, LaShawn Mays ’03 and A. C. Okwesili ’04 in her lab, along with Williamstown high school student Emily Hogeland. Students also participated in her research during January as part of Winter Study.
In October 2001, Dr. Skinner was a keynote speaker at International Symposium on ESR Dosimetry and Dating at Osaka University, Japan. Her talk covered her recent investigations on the limits of ESR as a dating method. Naturally she has been attempting, and with some success, to widen those limits so that ESR dating will be more useful to archaeologists and paleontologists. Among those contributing to this presentation was Alan Velander ’02, who spent an earlier summer in her lab.
In August 2001, Dr. Skinner excavated archaeological material at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The site is believed to be one of the earliest Late Stone Age sites in Africa, and of considerable interest to those who believe that many cultural developments occurred first in Africa and then spread to the rest of the world through migration. The results of that trip will be presented in late June at the 10th International Symposium on Luminescence and Electron Spin Resonance Dosimetry. Preliminary results were discussed in February at the Annual Archaeometry Workshop at the University of Buffalo.
Dr. Skinner also attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, where some of her data were included in a presentation on Gladysvale, a paleoanthropological site in South Africa.
Dr. Skinner continues as News and Features Editor of the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly.
Tom Smith spent this Assistant Professor leave year working full-time on his research projects in organic synthesis and methods development along with two senior honors students, Emily Balskus ’02 and Alan Velander ’02. In April, the whole Smith group journeyed to Orlando, Florida to present two posters at the American Chemical Society National Meeting.
Alan continued a 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. Alan’s work has led to the first asymmetric synthesis of (+)-kavain and a three-step synthesis of (+)-dihydrokavain. After Williams, Alan will attend medical school.
Emily pursued two different projects. Last summer she investigated a ring-closing metathesis approach to the cytotoxic marine natural product, octalactin A. During the academic year, she began work on the asymmetric total synthesis of hennoxazole A, an antiviral natural product isolated from a marine sponge. Hennoxazole A has been shown to be highly active against the herpes simplex virus. Emily has demonstrated the viability of a proposed key fragment coupling and has made significant progress toward the total synthesis of this interesting natural product. After Williams, Emily will pursue a M.Phil. degree at Cambridge University as a Churchill Fellow working with Organic Chemistry Professor Steven Ley. Following this one-year program, Emily will attend graduate school in organic chemistry at Harvard.
Professor Smith also began a project, himself, toward the asymmetric total synthesis of jerangolid D, an antifungal natural product isolated from myxobacteria. The methods developed for kavalactone synthesis were extended to the assembly of both the δ-lactone and cis-dihydropyran portions of this molecule. After a productive year in the lab, Professor Smith looks forward to teaching CHEM 111, Fighting Disease: The Evolution and Operation of Human Medicines, and CHEM 156, Organic Chemistry: Introductory Level, next year.
Working with Adam Steeves ’02 Professor Jay Thoman, continued research on the behavior of chlorofluorocarbon substitute molecules with chemically significant amounts of energy. Working during summer 2001 and on a senior thesis project, Adam measured the vibrational overtone spectroscopy of a series of hydrofluorocarbons, concentrating on the fire-suppressant molecule 1,1,1,2,3,3,3-heptafluoropropane. While most of the measurements were made using long-path (up to 20m) absorption, Adam also implemented a laser-based technique known as cavity ringdown spectroscopy, which provides an equivalent path length of kilometers. Cavity ringdown spectroscopy now works much more straightforwardly in Thoman’s lab, thanks to the acquisition of a new Nd:YAG-pumped dye laser system in May 2002.
In the fall semester, Thoman taught the first offering of CHEM 151,Concepts of Chemistry. With approximately 100 students, CHEM 151 is the introductory course of the new chemistry curriculum. Anne Skinner and Jenna MacIntire joined Thoman in teaching a full laboratory program to accompany the lectures. In one new laboratory exercise, students examined local waters of their own choosing for pH, acid neutralizing capacity, conductivity, and nitrate ion concentration. During Winter Study, Thoman sponsored Brain Saar ’05 in CHEM 024, Introduction to Physical Chemistry Research. Brian continued in Thoman’s lab as a work-study student, working with Adam Steeves to probe highly excited hydrofluorocarbons. In the spring, Thoman taught CHEM 304, Instrumental Methods of Analysis. With guidance from Smith College Professor Kate Queeney ’92 (who was in CHEM 304 the last time Thoman taught the course), a new lab was brought to the course in which FTIR is used to measure the surface coverage of bromobenzene on silica gel. Thanks to Professor Lee Park’s purchase of a new fluorometer, Thoman was able to reintroduce a laboratory exercise using fluorescence to determine the amount of quinine in commercial tonic water. With help from environmental analysis technician Sandy Brown and a new ion chromatograph, an HPLC lab was also re-introduced to CHEM 304.

CHEMISTRY COLLOQUIA
Professor Linnea Avallone, University of Colorado
“Adventures in the Arctic: Applications of Physical Chemistry to Understanding What Depletes Tropospheric Ozone”
Professor Virginia Cornish, Columbia University
“A Generic Activity Screen for Protein Evolution and Proteomics”
Professor David Evans, Harvard University, Class of 1960 Scholars Program
“Building Molecules That Do Things: Asymmetric Synthesis with Chiral Metal Complexes”
Dr. Stephen Hale, Phylos, Inc.
“Darwinian Evolution on the Microliter Scale: Exploiting Molecular Diversity”
Professor Tamara Hendrickson, Johns Hopkins University
“Discovery of an Essential but Paradoxical Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetase”
Professor Yvette Jackson, University of West Indies, Charles Compton Lectureship
“The Hetero-Diels Alder Reaction and Its Application in the Synthesis of Some Pyridoacridine Alkaloids”
Professor Thomas Katz, Columbia University, Class of 1960 Scholars Program
“Synthesis and Properties of Helicenes”
Professor John Koh, University of Delaware
“Ligand-Receptor Engineering: New Gene Regulators, New Strategies to ‘Rescue’ Genetic Mutations with Organic Chemistry”
Professor Raima Larter, University of Indiana, Purdue University at Indianapolis
“Understanding Complexity in Biophysics and Biochemistry”
Professor Karin Mursier-Forsyth, University of Minnesota
“Protein-Facilitated Nucleic Acid Rearrangements in HIV: Potential Avenues for New Therapeutic Targets”
Professor Lee Park, Williams College
“Building Blocks for Nanotechnology: How to Design a Molecular Wire”
“Building Blocks for Nanotechnology: How to Design aBetter Molecular Wire”
Professor Enrique Peacock-López, Williams College
“Demonstration across Disciplines”
Professor Terry Sheppard, Northwestern University, sponsored by Organic Syntheses, Inc.
“Chemical Insights into DNA Damage and Site-Specific DNA Modification”
Professor Erik Sorensen, The Scripps Research Institute, sponsored by Organic Syntheses, Inc.
“Emulating Nature’s Efficiency in the Synthesis of Bioactive Natural Products”
Professor John Tully, Yale University, Class of 1960 Scholars Program
“Rates and Pathways of Energy Flow at Surfaces”

OFF-CAMPUS COLLOQUIA
Lawrence J. Kaplan, Emelita Breyer, David Collard, Jerry Smith
“Workshops for Teaching Faculty: The Center for Workshops in the Chemical Science (CWCS)”
“CWCS: A National Experiment in Chemical Education”
223rd American Chemical Society National Meeting, Orlando, FL
Lee Y. Park
“A Metallomesogenic Approach to One-Dimensional Materials”
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Enrique Peacock-López
“Competitive Self-replicating Structures”
Gordon Research Conference: Nonlinear Science, Mt. Holyoke College
Mark H. Schofield
“Kinetics, Mechanism and Thermodynamics of Nickel-Carbon Bond Dissociation: Modeling
Methylcoenzyme M Reductase”
Washington University, St. Louis
Mark H. Schofield, David Y. Chung ’02, and Jack Halpern
“Kinetics and Mechanism of Decomposition of Nickel Benzyl Complexes and Determination of Nickel-Benzyl Bond Dissociation Energies”
10th International Conference on Biological Inorganic Chemistry, Florence, Italy
Anne R. Skinner
“Dating the Naisiusiu Beds, Olduvai Gorge, by Electron Spin Resonance (ESR)”
“Developing ESR Dating for Sharks’ Teeth: Towards a New Geochronological Method for Sedimentological and Paleontological Analysis”
“Specific Sorption of Uranium in Modern and Fossil Dentine”
“U Uptake in Enamel and Dentine: The Fossil Evidence”
10th International Symposium on Luminescence and Electron Spin Resonance Dosimetry, Reno, NV
“New Clues to Limits on ESR Dating”
International Symposium on ESR Dosimetry and Dating, Osaka University, Japan
“Preliminary Ages for the Naisiusiu Beds, Olduvai Gorge, Using Electron Spin Resonance (ESR)”
Archaeometry Workshop, SUNY-Buffalo
Thomas E. Smith and Emily P. Balskus ’02
“Ring-Closing Metathesis Approach to the Octalactins”
223rd American Chemical Society National Meeting, Orlando, FL
Thomas E. Smith, Alan J. Velander ’02, Mabel Djang ’01
“Versatile Asymmetric Synthesis of the Kavalactones: The First Synthesis of (+)-Kavain”
223rd American Chemical Society National Meeting, Orlando, FL
John W. Thoman, Jr., Adam H. Steeves ’02, and Brian G. Saar ’05
“Vibrational Overtone Spectroscopy of Hydrofluorocarbons”
57th International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy, Ohio State University

POSTGRADUATE PLANS OF DEPARTMENT MAJORS
Carolyn Adams
Undecided
Jonathan Alexander
Biochemist, Whitehead Institute for Human Genome Research, Cambridge, MA
Emily Balskus
M.Phil. in Chemistry, University of Cambridge; Ph.D. in Chemistry, Harvard University
Benjamin Chaffee
Undecided
David Chung
M.D./Ph.D., Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Susan Fulmer
Undecided
Bryce Gillespie
M.D., University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Christopher Goggin
Attending Law School
Erin Graham
Undecided
Eli Groban
Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco
Karl Hein
M.Mus. in Choral Conducting, Portland State University
Carol Lynn Higgins
Chemistry Teacher at The Hun School of Princeton, Princeton, NJ
Nicholas Hiza
Undecided
Travis Hobart
M.D., Tufts University
Tracey Jackson
Ph.D. in Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute
Milos Janicek
D.M.D., University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine
Carrie Jones
Undecided
Hiroyuki Komura
Work for one year then to graduate school
Kristen LeChevet
Undecided
Jamin Morrison
Work at architecture firm in Japan for one year then graduate school in architecture
Alix Partnow
Apply to Veterinary School, D.V.M.
Adam Steeves
Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joseph Stember
Ph.D. in Chemical Physics, University of Florida
Xiao Tan
Ph.D. in Genetics, Cambridge University
John Thomison, III
M.D., University of Tennessee, Memphis
Danielle Torin
Work at the New England Aquarium then apply to Veterinary School, D.V.M.
Alan Velander
Undecided
Peter Webb
Research Associate, Arena Pharmaceuticals, San Diego, CA
Willie Wu
Applying to graduate school