Talk about Graduate School

The Biology-Chemistry Club has arranged for two speakers to discuss their experiences regarding graduate school. Kara Primmer, an IU South Bend adjunct faculty, represents the biologists, while Notre Dame graduate student, Kasey Clear, represents the chemists.  Kasey graduated as a chemistry major from our department in 2011 receiving a Student Excellence Award in Chemistry.


Kasey is now pursuing a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. Get a preview of Kasey Clear in this advertisement for Southwestern Michigan College, from which he received an associates degree (while in high school!) before transferring to IU South Bend.  The talk is at noon on Tuesday, April 10, in NS 036.  Juniors: Come to hear about the application process and what the interviews are like. Seniors: Come to hear what to expect immediately after summer vacation.

Retirement

Dr. Catherine Rakowski has been teaching for our department ever since she earned her Ph.D. from St. Louis University in 1971. This Spring semester will be her last as she has decided to retire.  In her forty years of service to IU South Bend she has taught chemistry to non-science majors, science majors, nursing majors - as well as biochemistry to upper-level chemistry majors.  

In recent years she is known best for teaching the C102 lecture which combines the fundamentals of organic chemistry and biochemistry for pre-nursing majors.   Rakowski enjoys encountering her previous students in the workforce and has met several of her pre-nursing students in later years. She is looking forward to using the time that retirement will offer to share with her new and growing grandchildren.  Without Rakowski, and other adjunct instructors like her, our department simply would not function.  Thank you for your years of excellent service!

Chemistry and Math Students Publish Together

Math major Doan Le and Chemistry majors Abdullah Almayouf and Tyler Krause finally see their work from last Summer appear in print as Optimization of the Temple Lower Bound in the 2012 April issue of the Journal of Mathematical Chemistry. This article reports their work on the first of two projects with Professor Marmorino.


The final part of their second project was finished by Marmorino late last year and has just been submitted for publication.  Congratulations on your work and your upcoming graduation.  Perhaps we'll see more of you at our campus's Undergraduate Research Conference next month.