CHEMISTRY
DEPARTMENT
2005-06 has been a busy year for the Chemistry Department. We had 28
senior majors, a very impressive number for an undergraduate chemistry
department, with 11 completing independent thesis projects. A number of our
students had the opportunity to present their work at national meetings,
including Pacifichem in Honolulu (December 2005) and the National Meeting of the
American Chemical Society in Atlanta (March 2006). A major accomplishment for
the year was the completion of an external review of the department this year.
Professor Andrew Bocarsly (Princeton University), Professor John Simon ’79
(Duke University), Professor John Snyder (Boston University), and Professor
Judith Voet (Swarthmore College) visited the department on April 9-11, meeting
with the various faculty, staff and students in the department. They were
clearly impressed with the department, the dedication of our faculty, the
caliber of our students and research efforts. We look forward to receiving
their final report very soon.
Members of the Chemistry Department at the Pacifichem Conference in
Honolulu in January 2006. Back row (l to r): Tom Smith, Brian Saar ’05,
Jay Thoman, and Dan Suess ’07. Front row (l to r): Emily Balskus
’01, Ashleigh Theberge ’06, Wen-Hsin Kuo ’06, Jen Green
(post-doc, Smith lab), Geoff O' Donoghue ’06.
We also welcomed a new faculty member, Dr. Faraj Hasanayn from the American
University of Beirut as a new inorganic chemist; he taught Inorganic and
Organometallic Chemistry (CHEM 335) in his first semester and
Instrumental Methods of Analysis (CHEM 364) in the spring term.
He’s gotten settled in the department, having supervised his first thesis
student and presented a Science Lunch talk in the fall semester; and we’re
happy to have him with us. A longtime staff member Michele Migdal resigned in
December; Michele was a highly valued and important member of our departmental
family, and though we’ll all miss her, we’re grateful to have worked
with her for so long. We’ve been extremely fortunate in hiring Maria
Recco to fill that position. Maria will begin her work with us on July 1, 2006,
and brings with her much relevant experience from her work in various biology
research labs here at Williams. We’re eager to have her start, and look
forward to welcoming her. We’ve also hired Marc Richard as a one-year
visiting faculty member. Marc will be coming to us from MIT, and will teach
introductory chemistry and materials chemistry for us in 2006-07.
We are particularly proud of our students and their accomplishments. Each
year, individual students are recognized with departmental awards. In the class
of 2006, the John Sabin Adriance prize went to Hang (Grace) Song for her
outstanding work throughout her chemistry career. The James F. Skinner prize
was awarded to Wen-Hsin Kuo and Ashleigh Theberge for their distinguished
achievement in chemistry and their future promise as researchers. The Leverett
Mears prize went to Sharon Owusu-Darko in recognition of both her abilities
chemistry and future in medicine, and the American Chemical Society Connecticut
Valley Section Award was presented to Christopher Thom for sustained scholastic
excellence. We are also very pleased to note other national awards that our
senior majors have received this year: Andrew Lee was awarded a Fulbright
Fellowship to study treatment of dialysis patients in Singapore, Mary Beth
Anzovino was awarded the American Institute of Chemists Student Award for
outstanding scholastic achievement and also received the Second Place Poster
Award, Undergraduate Research in Polymer Science at the National Meeting of the
American Chemical Society.
Over the course of the academic year, a number of awards were presented to
chemistry students for outstanding scholarship. Ezra Burch ’09, Jesse
Greenberg ’09 and Nancy Haff ’08 received the CRC Awards as the
outstanding students in CHEM 151, CHEM 153, and CHEM 155 respectively. Sarah
Fink ’08 and Christopher Lust ’08 were recognized for their
achievements in organic chemistry with the Polymer Chemistry Award and the
Harold H. Warren Prize respectively. Daniel Suess ’07 was awarded a
Goldwater Fellowship and the American Chemistry Society Analytical Division
Award, and Alan Rodrigues ’07 received a Truman Fellowship.
This year, two distinguished scientists were invited to campus to meet with
our students and present a seminar under the sponsorship of the Class of 1960
Scholars Program. Professor Gil Nathanson of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and Professor Stuart Rowan of Case Western University were the
1960 Scholar speakers this year. Nine students were selected by the faculty to
be Class of 1960 Scholars during 2006 and to participate in the seminar program.
This included 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
2006 are:
Class of 1960 Scholars in Chemistry
Aashish Adhikari
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Jessica Chung
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Abelee Esparza
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Katherine Larabee
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William Parsons
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Alan Rodrigues
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Daniel Suess
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Natalie Vokes
|
Jeffrey Wessler
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During the summer of 2006, 37 Williams College chemistry majors were
awarded research assistantships to work in the laboratories of departmental
faculty. We gratefully acknowledge support from the American Chemical Society
Petroleum Research Fund, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc., the College
Divisional Research Funding Committee, the J. Hodge Markgraf ’52 Summer
Research Fund, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science
Foundation, RPI NSEC, Research Corporation, Summer Science Program funds, and
the Wege-Markgraf Fund.
In 2005-06, Assistant Professor Dieter Bingemann enjoyed a very productive
assistant professor leave. After presenting recent single molecule results at
the Gordon Conference “Chemistry and Physics of Liquids” with summer
research student Ashleigh Theberge ’06, he spent the first half of his
sabbatical as a Class of 1941 Fellow in Bayreuth, Germany. Mostly famous for
its Wagner Festival and the variety of local beers, Bayreuth is also a center of
polymer and materials research. While there, Bingemann investigated the
dynamics of plasticizers (softeners added to polymers to modify their
properties,) as well as the glass transition of pure Plexiglas using two
dimensional and time-resolved solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance
spectroscopy in the laboratory of Professor E. Roessler.
Back at Williams, Bingemann applied this newfound insight to data taken in
his own laboratory by former thesis student Noah Capurso ’05. With a
newly developed correlation analysis, he showed that single molecule
spectroscopy allows one to follow the main relaxation at the glass transition in
unprecedented detail, individually observing fast and slow polymer domains at
the molecular level. This set the stage for work with summer research students
Jonathan Dahlberg ’09 and Aashish Adhikari ’07, who will continue as
a thesis student in the upcoming academic year.
Visiting Professor Raymond Chang team-taught Current Topics in
Chemistry (CHEM 155) in the fall with Professor Lee Park, the coordinator of
the course. The ninth edition of his general chemistry text was published in
March. Professor Chang continues to serve as an editor for The
Chemical Educator.
Assistant Professor Amy Gehring spent a sabbatical year pursuing research
in her laboratory at Williams. Gehring studies the biochemical basis for the
growth and development of Streptomyces bacteria. These soil bacteria
undergo a complex sporulation process and are important medically as prolific
producers of a wide variety of pharmaceutical compounds. Gehring is working to
understand the role of two regulatory proteins in the life cycle of the
bacteria. One protein influences both antibiotic production and the early
stages of the reproductive phase of the life cycle while the second protein is
required for the later stages of sporulation. With the College’s
acquisition of two new mass spectrometers that can be used for protein
identification, Gehring’s research is headed in particularly exciting new
directions. Using a proteomics approach, she is able to characterize on a large
scale the bacteria’s response, in terms of proteins produced, to the
activity of the regulatory proteins under study. Gehring has been joined in
this research by a number of Williams undergraduate students. During the summer
of 2005, Sarah Connell ’06, Noah Lindquist ’08, Joe Song ’08,
and Greg Tobkin ’08 worked as research assistants. Sharon Owusu-Darko
’06 and Nadria Gordon ’06 continued these projects as honors thesis
students during the 2005-06 academic year. They were joined in the lab by
research assistant Geri Ottaviano ’06. Gehring has received a $200,000
grant from the NIH to support the research in her lab for the next three
years.
Gehring presented the results of some of her
research in a poster entitled “Sigma Factor U Activity in
Streptomyces
coelicolor” at the 2
nd ASM Conference on Prokaryotic
Development in Vancouver, British Columbia in July 2005. In November, she
attended a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry training workshop at the company Bruker
Daltonics. She has also continued to participate in the wider scientific
community as a reviewer for the
Journal of Bacteriology,
Applied and
Environmental Microbiology,
Molecular Microbiology, and
Trends in
Microbiology.
In other happy news, Gehring welcomed the birth of her second daughter,
Grace, in April. Because of her maternity leave during the spring semester,
Gehring will complete her sabbatical during the fall semester of 2006. She
looks forward to returning to teaching in spring 2007.
During the summer of 2005, Assistant Professor Sarah Goh continued her
research on degradable polymers for use as self-assembling hydrogels in drug
delivery applications. Mary Beth Anzovino ’06 began her thesis research
on functionalized polyesters, looking to explore the effects of varying
functional groups on water solubility. Matt Baron ’08 continued
investigations into the synthesis of elastin peptide copolymers, and Geertje
Janssen, an exchange student from Leiden University in the Netherlands, started
a new project on carbohydrate-based polymers. Prof. Goh also worked with
William Parsons ’07, in conjunction with Lu Hong ’08 and Professor
Hodge Markgraf, investigating the substituent effects of benzhydrilium cations
on 1H and 13C NMR chemical shifts. This research laid the
foundation for a new laboratory project on free energy relationships for
Physical Organic Chemistry (CHEM 344) offered in the spring semester.
Surekha Gajria ’06 joined the Goh lab in the fall to begin her thesis
research on amphiphilic poly(ether-amide) copolymers.
In the fall, Professor Goh taught Organic Chemistry: Intermediate
Level (CHEM 251). She teamed up with Jenna MacIntire to teach Science
for Kids (CHEM 11) during Winter Study. In the spring, she took maternity
leave and welcomed her daughter Julia in April of 2006. Mary Beth served as the
lab representative for the National American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta
at the end of March. Highlighting her research, as well as the work of Matt
Baron and Kate Rutledge ’05, she participated in the Undergraduate Poster
Session of the Polymer Division and the Sci-Mix Session. Mary Beth was awarded
a prize for her poster.
Professor Goh assisted as a reviewer for two chemistry journals,
Analytical Chemistry and the Journal of the American Chemical
Society. She also serves as a member of the Proposal Study Panel for the
Molecular Foundry, a Department of Energy Nanoscale Science Research Center at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
In his first year at Williams, Assistant Professor Faraj Hasanayn taught
Inorganic/Organometallic Chemistry (CHEM 335) and Instrumental Methods
of Analysis (CHEM 364). With the help of Hang Grace Song ’06, the
department’s most valued ’06 student, Professor Hasanayn initiated a
research study to elucidate the mechanism of aldehyde decarbonylation by rhodium
reagents. As a summer researcher, Eduardo Lizarraga ’08 used his fine
laboratory skills to make important progress in this project, and he hopes to
conclude it before the summer ends.
Professor Lawrence J. Kaplan taught
Biochemistry I-Structure and Function of Biological Molecules (CHEM 321)
in the fall semester and
Biophysical Chemistry (CHEM 367) in the spring.
During the spring, he also supervised the research of Sara Ossi ’06 who
investigated a new method of profiling mitochondrial DNA. Kaplan continued as
chair of the Legal Studies Program and coordinated a number of activities in
that Program. He sponsored a Winter Study course,
The Law and the Literature
of the Environment: The Environment on Trial (LGST 13) taught by Philip R.
McKnight ’65. During the spring semester, he was part of a team that
taught the interdisciplinary course
Processes of Adjudication (LGST 101).
Kaplan taught the unit on evidence and the admissibility of scientific
evidence.
Kaplan continues to administer the Center for Workshops in the Chemical
Sciences (CWCS;
http://chemistry.gsu.edu/CWCS/) with his colleagues Professors
Emelita Breyer and Jerry Smith of Georgia State University and David Collard of
Georgia Institute of Technology. CWCS, established five years ago with a grant
from the National Science Foundation, sponsors many workshops including
Metals in Biology, Chemistry and Art, Environmental Chemistry, Material
Science and Nanotechnology, Molecular Genetics and Protein Structure and
Function, Biomolecular Crystallography, and Forensic Science. Grants from
the National Science Foundation totaling more than $3,460,000 have been awarded
for the continuation of the CWCS and its programs.
Kaplan taught a two weeklong workshop in forensic science during the summer
of 2005 at Williams (
http://www.williams.edu/Chemistry/lkaplan/cwcs.html). Angie
Chien ’06 assisted him as the Administrative Assistant and Laboratory
Instructor. The workshop provides an understanding of the application of
forensic science to all aspects of undergraduate chemistry instruction. Sixteen
participants from colleges and universities as well as community colleges became
criminalists for each of the two weeks. 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.
Kaplan gave the plenary lecture at the 2005 annual meeting of the Middle
Atlantic Association of Liberal Arts Chemistry Teachers at Widener University.
He was invited to consult with the members of the Chemistry Department at Rider
University as they develop the only New Jersey statewide-accredited forensic
science program. He taught a number of classes and gave a series of
presentations while at Rider University. He also reviewed grant proposals for
the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement Program of the National
Science Foundation.
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 Bioinformatics, Genomics, and
Proteomics Program, and Director of the Summer Science Program for Students from
backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the sciences.
Professor Lovett continued his research on the mechanism of ComK-mediated
regulation of the recA gene in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis
supported by a $330,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. He also
continued the characterization of the B. subtilis SOS DNA repair system,
an ongoing project in the lab for the past 20 years. During the past four
years, Lovett and Williams students have discovered more than 33 genes involved
in this DNA repair system. Last summer, he and his research students cloned all
of the genes and began purifying and characterizing the corresponding proteins.
The summer students, working as full time research assistants, included
Christopher Thom ’06, Branden Mirach ’07, Thomas Koperniak
’07, Devon Schweppe, ’07, Elizabeth Spraggins ’07, Marie
Christine Andre ’08, Daniel Jamorabo ’08, and Tammy Kim ’09.
During the academic year, Professor Lovett directed Christopher Thom ’06
as a senior honor student characterizing the acetylation of the
chromatin-associated HBsu protein by the DNA damage inducible YqjY protein in
B. subtilis.
Last summer, Professor Lovett taught the Chemistry lecture component of the
Williams College Summer Science Program. Together with Professor David
Richardson, he also supervised the sixth year of science camp for elementary
school students and teachers.
During the past year, Professor Lovett published two papers on the
characterization of the B. subtilis SOS system with 24 Williams College
students as coauthors. He served as a reviewer for the Journal of
Bacteriology and as a consultant for the Sherman Fairchild
Foundation’s Scientific Equipment Grant Program.
Professor emeritus J. Hodge Markgraf taught Physical Organic Chemistry
(CHEM 344) during spring semester and taught Organic Chemistry (CHEM 201-202)
both semesters at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. Last
summer, Lu Hong ’08 prepared a series of 5-phenyl-1,3,4-oxathiazol-2-ones
for a study of substituent effects on NMR chemical shifts and assisted a
collaborative project with Professor Goh on diaryl cations. Tyler Gray
’07 elucidated the mechanism of 3-phenylisoxazole formation via
1,3-dipolar cycloaddition, and Steve Action ’06 pioneered a novel,
three-step preparative route to murrayafoline, a pharmacologically-active
carbazole alkaloid. In summer 2006, Ryan Gerrity ’07 will continue the
murrayafoline project, and Noah Lindquist ’08 will start a synthesis of
new heterocyclic ring-E analogs of another series of useful carbazoles.
Professor Lee Park completed her fourth year as chair of the Chemistry
Department. In the fall, she once again team-taught Current Topics in
Chemistry (CHEM 155) with Raymond Chang to a group of approximately 25
students. In the spring, she taught Foundations of Physical and Inorganic
Chemistry (CHEM 256) for the first time to a group of approximately 50
students.
Park continued her work developing molecular wires based on low molecular
weight liquid crystalline molecules. During the summer of 2005 Rachel Selinsky
’06, Andrew Lee ’06, Jessica Chung ’07, and Oloruntosin
Adeyanju ’08 were all involved in on-going projects. Andrew, Jessica, and
Tosin all worked on synthetic routes to new liquid crystalline materials, while
Rachel worked on optimizing techniques for obtaining regular porous anodized
alumina samples. Rachel continued her work as an independent study student
during the academic year, and will begin graduate work at the University of
Wisconsin in the fall of 2006. The summer of 2006 promises to be equally busy
and productive, with five new students (Zachary Brewer ’07, Zoia Alexanian
’08, Liz Upton ’08, Sunmi Yang ’08, and Jordan Landers
’09) ready to pick up where former students left off. Park’s work
continues to be carried out in collaboration with Chang Ryu at RPI as well as
Darren Hamilton at Mt. Holyoke College. Her research has been supported since
2000 through via NSF RUI grants, as well as through funds provided by the RPI
NSEC site grant.
Park has also kept busy with other professional activities continuing to
serve as a reviewer for a variety of professional organizations, including NSF,
ACS-PRF, Research Corporation, Inorganic Chemistry, and textbook publisher
Benjamin Cummings, and as an external evaluator for several other institutions.
During the 2005-06 academic year, Professor Enrique Peacock-López
taught Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section (CHEM 153) and Physical
Chemistry: Thermodynamics (CHEM 366). In these courses,
Peacock-López extended the use of MATHEMATICA to solve problems in
Physical Chemistry. In CHEM 366, he included an introduction to numerical
calculations in thermodynamics.
Professor Peacock-López, Ms. Gisela Demant, and instructors Scott
Burdick (Mount Greylock Regional High School; 22 students) and Timothy Hermann
(Hoosac Valley High School: 32 students) organized and taught Chemistry labs at
Williams College. Due to the large number of high school students taking
chemistry this year, Professor Sarah Goh, Dr. Jennifer Green, and Dr.
Christopher Goh helped with running the experiments. The AP and honors
chemistry students came five times during the year to perform some of the labs
from the Williams Introductory Chemistry Lab Program. This outreach chemistry
effort has been supported in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and
Williams College.
Professor Peacock-López extended his research in complex dynamical
chemical and biochemical mechanisms to include chemical self-replication. In
collaboration with honors student Kate Beutel ’06, he studied complex
dynamics and pattern formation in a generalized model of chemical
self-replication.
In collaboration with honors student Kashif Akhtar ’06, Professor
Peacock-Lopez studied spatial pattern formation in an extended Lotka-Volterra
model that includes paring.
Finally, he has served as reviewer for the National Science Foundation,
the Journal of Physical Chemistry, and The Chemical Educator.
In 2005-06, Professor David Richardson pursued another full year of
teaching and research. On the research front, he supervised the work of several
students throughout the year. In the summer of 2005, Analia Sorribas ’06,
a long time member of the Richardson lab, began her yearlong senior honors
research working on a collaboration between Professor Richardson and Professor
Hank Art on the isolation of allelopathic agents from “hay-scented
fern,” a plant that grows widely in Hopkins Forest. Much of this work
also involved the efforts of two work-study students: Nick Reynolds ’08
and Samantha Barbaro ’09. In the spring semester, independent study
student Emily Wasserman ’06 worked on another collaborative project
between Professor Richardson and Professor Dan Lynch’s lab involving the
development of a simple, efficient, and sensitive method for the identification
and quantification of ceramide samples isolated from plant or animal cell
membranes. Finally, Professor Richardson measured 15N chemical
shifts using 2D-NMR techniques in a joint project with Professor Hodge Markgraf
and with Professor Mark Schofield of Haverford College. Professor Richardson
also continued his supervision and maintenance of the department’s 500 MHz
nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, and he served as a reviewer for The
Chemical Educator.
Professor Richardson’s teaching responsibilities for the year
included Toxicology and Cancer (CHEM 341) and Organic Chemistry:
Intermediate Level-Special Laboratory Section (CHEM 255) in the fall
semester, and Organic Chemistry: Introductory Level (CHEM 156) in the
spring semester. CHEM 156 had its largest enrollment ever, drawing 126
students. In the month of July, he taught the chemistry laboratory portion of
the Williams College Summer Science Program for traditionally underrepresented
groups in the sciences and, together with Professor Chip Lovett, hosted the
department’s Summer Science Camp program for local fourth and fifth
graders. Professor Richardson also served as chair of the Olmsted Committee and
served on the Faculty Interview Panel.
Dr. Anne Skinner participated in four conferences this year related to her
work on dating archaeological materials with electron spin resonance (ESR). In
July, at the Pan-African Archaeology meeting in Botswana, she discussed the
dating of a South African site, Plovers Lake, work completed with the help of
Catherine Mercado ’06. Later that month, at a symposium on ESR dating,
she presented work on the use of tooth dentine that arose from collaboration
with Dr. Joel Blickstein, who was a Mellon Fellow at Williams, in the spring of
2005. Another presentation covered the site of Attirampakkam in India, where
she had taken a group of Williams students for WSP in 2004. This spring, she
participated in an archaeological chemistry symposium at the American Chemical
Society National Meeting, discussing new materials for ESR dating. Then in May,
she presented dates from Szelleta Cave in Hungary at an Archaeometry symposium,
showing that overlap between Neanderthals and homo sapiens was unlikely
in that region. Arthur Okwesili ’04 assisted in that project.
Professor Tom Smith spent his eighth year at Williams pursuing his research
in organic synthesis and methods development under an NSF Research at
Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) grant, “Asymmetric Synthesis of
Pyran-Based Natural Products.” Senior honors students Ashleigh Theberge
‘06 and Wen-Hsin Kuo ’06 helped to complete a four-year long project
on the asymmetric total synthesis of hennoxazole A, an antiviral natural product
isolated from a marine sponge. Postdoctoral associate Jennifer Green also made
significant strides toward the synthesis of the myxobacterial natural product,
Jerangolid D. In December, the entire Smith Lab traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii to
participate in Pacifichem 2005, the Fifth International Chemical Congress of
Pacific Basin Societies. The chemistry was inspiring—and the beachfront
rental house was rejuvenating!
In the classroom this fall, Professor Smith taught Synthetic Organic
Chemistry (CHEM 342). In the spring semester, Professor Smith taught
Fighting Disease: The Evolution and Operation of Human Medicine (CHEM
111). This course provided an introduction to concepts in medicinal chemistry,
biochemistry, and pharmacology. The final poster session in Science Court was,
again, the high point of the course. Professor Smith will spend the entire
2006-07 academic year engaging his research interests at the University of
Hawaii, Manoa.
Professor Jay Thoman taught Physical Chemistry: Structure and
Dynamics (CHEM 361), Glass and Glassblowing (CHEM 16),
Introduction to Environmental Science (ENVI 102), and Quantum
Chemistry and Molecular Spectroscopy (CHEM 368). Thoman was excited to
teach CHEM 368 in a tutorial-like fashion, as it was his first experience
leading a tutorial. After seven straight years of full-time teaching, he looks
forward to a sabbatical leave. During his leave, he plans to work with Raymond
Chang on the second edition of his physical chemistry textbook.
Thanks to the hard work of Brian Saar ’05, Geoff O’Donoghue
’06, and Sarah Wiley ’09, Thoman’s research program on the
spectroscopy and dynamics of hydrofluorocarbon molecules continued at a rapid
pace. They built and implemented new equipment for measuring
temperature-dependent pulsed photoacoustic spectroscopy, and used the apparatus
to study intermolecular forces in pentafluoroethane. With National Center for
Supercomputing Applications support, they performed ab initio and density
functional theory calculations to help interpret the spectra.
CHEMISTRY COLLOQUIA
Professor Zhenan Bao, Stanford University
“Organic Materials for Flexible Electronics”
Professor Jeff
Byers, Middlebury College
“Organic Synthesis with Radical Organometallics”
Professor
Sean Decatur, Mount Holyoke College
“Probing Amyloid Structure, Assembly, and Inhibition via
Isotope-edited Infrared Spectroscopy”
Professor Tim Jamison,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Catalytic, Multicomponent Reactions and Cascades in Total
Synthesis”
Dr. Casey Londergan ’97, University of
Pennsylvania
“Two-dimensional Infrared Spectroscopy: Getting COSY with
Biomolecules”
Professor Gavin MacBeath, Harvard University
“A Wiring Diagram for Tyrosine Kinase-Mediated Signaling Using
Protein Microarrays”
Professor Scott Miller, Boston College
“A Biomimetic Approach to Asymmetric Organic
Synthesis”
Professor Gil Nathanson, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Class of 1960 Scholars Program
“Surfactants in the Stratosphere: How Soapy Aerosols Influence Ozone
Depletion”
Professor Stuart Rowan, Case Western University, Class of
1960 Scholars Program
“Supramolecular Polymerizations: From Dynamic Chemistry to Dynamic
Materials”
Professor Barry Selinsky, Villanova University, Charles
Compton Lectureship
“When Good Drugs Go Bad: Studies on the Inhibition of Prostaglandin
Synthase I (COX I)”
Professor Kevin Shea, Smith College
“New Applications of Cobalt-Alkyne Complexes in Organic
Synthesis”
Professor John W. Thoman, Jr., Williams College, Science
Lunch
“Weak Bonds”
OFF-CAMPUS COLLOQUIA
Dieter Bingemann, Noah Capurso ’05, Ashleigh Theberge ’06, and
Benjamin Rudick ’08
“Heterogeneous Dynamics in Glasses Probes with Single Molecule
Spectroscopy”
Gordon Research Conference, Holderness, NH, July
2005
Lawrence J. Kaplan
“Forensic Science: Where Chemistry and Crime Collide”
Middle
Atlantic Association of Liberal Arts Chemistry Teachers, Widener
University
Chester, PA, October 2005
“Chemistry and Crime: From Sherlock Holmes to Modern Forensic
Science
“Old Wine in New Flasks: Modern Forensic Science Takes a New
Look at Historical Cases”
Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, April
2006
Enrique Peacock-López and Edward A. McGehee ’05
“Complex Dynamics in a Modified Lotka-Volterra Model”
Gordon
Research Conference: Nonlinear Science, Colby College, Tilton, ME, July
2005
Enrique Peacock-López
“Complex Dynamics in Chemical
Self-replication”
Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN,
October 2005
Anne R. Skinner
“Electron Spin Resonance Dating of the MSA Site, Plovers Lake, South
Africa”
Pan-African Archaeology Association Meeting, Gabarone,
Botswana, July 2005
“Using Dentine as Well as Enamel in ESR Dating”
“ESR
Analyses at the Paleolithic Site, Attirampakkam, India: Clues to U Uptake,
Watertable Migration, Reworking, and Paleoenvironmental
Change”
11th International Conference on Luminescence and
Electron Spin Resonance Dating,
Cologne, Germany, July 2005
“Expanding the Range of Electron Spin Resonance
Dating”
American Chemical Society National Meeting, Atlanta, GA, March
2006
“New Dates from the Upper Paleolithic/Middle Paleolithic Transition
in Central Europe”
International Archaeometry Symposium, Quebec City,
Canada, May 2006
Thomas Smith
“Kava, the Pacific Elixir: The Asymmetric Synthesis of Kavain and
Other Pyran-Based Natural Products”
Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT,
October 2005
“Oxazole and Pyran-Based Natural Products: The Asymmetric Total
Synthesis of Hennoxazole A”
231st American Chemical Society
National Meeting, Atlanta, GA, March 2006
“Synthesis of Hennoxazole A and Other Pyran-Based Natural
Products”
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, May 2006.
Thomas
Smith, Wen-Hsin Kuo ’06, Jennifer Green, Ashleigh Theberge ’06, and
Daniel Suess ’07
“Toward the Asymmetric Synthesis of Hennoxazole
A”
Pacifichem, Honolulu, HI, December 2005
John W. Thoman, Jr.
“Exciting Molecules: Spectroscopy and Dynamics of
Hydrofluorocarbons”
Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, September 2005
“Heavy Metal, Fish, and the Environment”
Ohio Northern
University, Ada, OH, March 2006
John W. Thoman, Jr. and Brian G. Saar
’05
“Vibrational Overtone Spectroscopy of
Hydrofluorocarbons”
Pacifichem, Honolulu, HI, December 2005
POSTGRADUATE PLANS OF CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT
MAJORS
Stephen Acton
|
Work as a professional firefighter
|
Ophelia Adipa
|
M.D., Jefferson Medical College
|
Mary Beth Anzovino
|
Ph.D. in chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
|
Kathleen Beutel
|
Teaching chemistry and math, Teach for America, Chicago, IL
|
James Brittin
|
M.D., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
|
Joanna Demakis
|
Work as a paralegal, Lankler, Siffert & Wohl LLP, New York, NY
|
Surekha Gajria
|
Ph.D. in chemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara
|
Nadria Gordon
|
M.D., Emory University School of Medicine
|
Drees Griffin Jr
|
Hospital Operations Intern at Marymount Hospital, Garfield Heights,
OH
|
Kimberley Heard
|
Work as an analyst, Cornerstone Research, Washington, DC
|
Creston Herold
|
Work in the physics industry, then to graduate school
|
Wen-Hsin Kuo
|
Ph.D. in chemistry, Harvard University
|
Andrew Lee
|
Fulbright Scholarship to study treatment of dialysis patients in
Singapore
|
Eva Lewin
|
Unknown
|
Jennifer Linnan
|
Columbia Publishing Course, New York, NY, then work in publishing
|
Nicholas Maselli
|
Work at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston, MA, then to graduate
school
|
Catherine Mercado
|
Unknown
|
Geoffrey O'Donoghue
|
Work in a laboratory for the chemistry industry
|
Sharon Owusu-Darko
|
M.D., Harvard Medical School
|
Mikella Robinson
|
Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Germany, then to graduate
school
|
Samuel Sawan
|
Unknown
|
Rachel Selinsky
|
Ph.D. in chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
|
Hang Song
|
Ph.D. in chemistry, California Institute of Technology
|
Analia Sorribas
|
Ph.D. in chemistry, University of Hawaii at Manoa
|
John Symanski
|
Work in research at Massachusetts General Hospital, then to medical
school
|
Ashleigh Theberge
|
Ph.D. in chemistry, Herschel Smith Fellowship at University of Cambridge,
UK
|
Christopher Thom
|
Work at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, then an M.D/Ph.D.
program
|
Emily B. Wasserman
|
Williams in Africa Postgraduate Fellowship to work in the Mothers’
Programme, Cape Town, South Africa
|