Medical School Seminars

Next week the Biology-Chemistry Club is sponsoring two talks.  The first will be given by Dr. Kevin Schmidt, an optometrist and Associate Director of Recruitment at the IU School of Optometry.  The second will be given by Dr. Peter Paximadis, a radiation oncologist from the Lakeland Care Network. He will discuss what it takes to enter the medical field and be successful there - and may even discuss a few example medical cases. The seminars are scheduled for Tuesday, March 19, in Northside Hall 125 (4:00 for optometry / 6:00 for oncology). Everyone is welcome. Click HERE for a link to Dr. Paximadis's video introduction.

Academic Centers for Excellence STEM Fair

This Friday the Academic Centers for Excellence hosted a STEM fair from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm at the fourth floor of the Schurz Library. An assortment of pizza, brownies, cookies, and drinks created a relaxed atmosphere that allowed faculty and tutors to easily talk to students about their classes, study strategies, majors, research, internships, graduate school preparation, and career options. STEM is an acronym for "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics" which is well represented with the biology, biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, informatics, physics, and mathematics majors offered within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Three students won backpacks full of school supplies from a random drawing and both students and professors participated in an origami training session toward the end of the event. The fourth floor of the library usually isn't this "fun", but it is very resourceful throughout the week with tutors for many classes. In addition to tutoring, ACE offers other services to students. Please visit their website for more information. Thanks to Savannah McCaslin for the pictures!

Medical School Open House

Next Friday (March 8) the South Bend Campus of the IU School of Medicine is sponsoring an open house in conjunction with the IU South Bend Pre-Health Professions and Biology-Chemistry Clubs. You'll hear from the Director of Medical Education, meet current medical students, take a tour of the facility, and more!  The event will be held at the Raclin-Carmichael Hall Auditorium (1234 N Notre Dame Ave.).  Please RSVP through THIS LINK or the QR code below.

 

Professor Shahir Rizk is named a 2019 Cottrell Scholar

Congratulations are in order to Professor Shahir Rizk! It was recently announced that he received the Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. The award is given to outstanding, early career scientists who are “recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills”. This award recognizes pre-tenure chemistry, physics or astronomy professors who support an innovative research program while addressing educational needs in their institutes. Rizk’s proposal included both a research and teaching component. For his research, he proposed the development of nanostructures that can assemble in response to a biological signal, while the teaching component featured his approaches to promote science communication and introduce science majors to careers in science. 

Rizk is one of two dozen researchers from across the country who received this year’s award. He is the first faculty member from IU South Bend to be selected as a Cottrell Scholar and is one of eight IU faculty to have received the award since its inception in 1994. The award will support Rizk’s research in engineering protein-based nanostructures and will help him further develop his teaching approaches to introduce students to current issues in science policy and to build connections within the community by communicating science to a diverse audience. 

Almuna Returns to Address Graduating Students

Our graduating chemistry and biochemistry seniors will soon be submitting reports and giving presentations over recent scientific research of their choice. To help prepare them with the presentation experience and to offer perspective about life after graduation, Professor Rizk invited alumna Hannah MacLeod to talk to them today. MacLeod is a 2017 biochemistry IU South Bend graduate and 2016 winner of the George V. Nazaroff Scholarship. She spoke to our senior seminar class about her job at Lebermuth where she started out as a quality control analyst but is now a regulatory specialist. MacLeod discussed her transition from schooling to work, how she got her job, what she does on the job, and even gave tips on writing a resume and cover letter for a job application.

Publication in the Journal of Chemical Education

Theoretical chemist Matt Marmorino published a letter in the Journal of Chemical Education this month concerning the tendency of a pair of electrons to get close or stay distant from each other. This short note concerns merely the angular correlation of an electron pair for the singlet (spin paired) and triplet (same spin) states of an atom like carbon with two electrons in its p-subshell. Although behavior was covered in a previous article in the journal, Marmorino expanded the analysis in order to provide a slightly more general and simpler description of the electron behavior. You can view the article HERE from our university subscription. Marmorino was very excited to work on this short project because he was able to generate some interesting pictures - which is not something he typically does in his routine computational attack of eigenvalue problems.

 

 

End of semester club activities

The Biology-Chemistry Club ended the Fall semester with an outreach event followed by a party. On Saturday (Dec 8), the weekend before final exams, club members met at the LaSalle branch of the public library for two hours to make slime and snow with children and their families to get them ready for the winter break and holidays. Once final exams were over on Thursday (Dec 13) evening, the club held a party at Langlab with free pizza and scientific trivia games as students rejoiced in their triumphs over the first semester of classes for the 2018-2019 academic year. We wish them all a restful break and an even better Spring semester in 2019.