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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
Jessica Chung
Abelee Esparza
Katherine Larabee
William Parsons
Alan Rodrigues
Daniel Suess
Natalie Vokes
Jeffrey Wessler
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 2nd 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