Awards and Graduates 2012

Another year has passed and once again we see the transition of students into alumni. Our department awarded 4 Chemistry degrees, 4 Biochemistry degrees, and several Chemistry minors.  While some of our graduates will seek employment, others are off to graduate schools such as Miami University [of Ohio] and Georgia Tech.

Several students, not all graduates, were recognized for outstanding performances, first at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Honors Night event, and then later with just the faculty and students of the department (pictured below).  These students are:

Zeider Excellence in Biochemistry Scholarship
   Ashley Compton
Chemical Rubber Company Chemistry Achievement Award
   Valerie Warrell

Joseph H. Ross Seminar Award

   Denisse Hernandez (graduating)

Student Excellence Award in Chemistry
   Adam Grandison (graduating)

Student Excellence Award in Biochemistry
   Mitchell Moseng (graduating)

Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry
   Roxanne Sirhan

Making Soap with Kathryn Haas

      

By teaching the inorganic chemistry lecture and lab to upperclassmen and the organic chemistry lecture to underclassmen, Professor Kathryn Haas rescued our department this semester from the absence of Professors Doug McMillen and Bill Feighery.  She closed the semester with a soap-making event for the organic chemistry students which was such a success that there was a request to make this an annual event. Soap was made in papers cups by mixing olive olive and a sodium hydroxide solution and then scented with essential oils. Haas's appointment at IU South Bend was only for this semester, but she will continue teaching and researching in the area as a tenure-track professor at Saint Mary's College. Her extraordinary efforts and energy this semester are a sure sign that her career will go far, even though she will remain close.  Thank you, and good luck, Professor Haas.

Chemistry Student Receives SMART Grant

Chemistry major Rachel Warrell showed her chemical prowess as a freshman when she won the 2010 Chemical Rubber Company Chemistry Achievement Award.  She continues to excel in her all her endeavors and continues to research with organic chemist Professor McMillen this summer.  

It was just announced that Rachel has been awarded a SMART (Student Mentor Academic Research Team) grant for their two projects this summer.  The first project concerns the activation of elemental iodine for the oxidation of alcohols.  The second project is to extend the N-iodosuccinimide - potassium carbonate oxidation (currently limited to alcohols) to compounds such as aldehydes, ketones, and esters.  Congratulations Rachel - and good luck!

2012 Undergraduate Research Conference

      

This year there were three poster presentations by students in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.  Biochemistry major Ashley Compton (pictured right) presented Arsenite Oxidase Genes from Alcaligenes faecalis to E. coli: Gateway Cloning which described her 2011 summer work under Professor Gretchen Anderson under a SMART grant awarded by the university.  Also involved in this project was biochemistry student Mitchell Moseng and Biology Professor Kirk Mecklenburg.  Ashley won an honorable mention for her presentation.

Students Joshua Strychalski, Ryan Lubelski, and Aaron Gill from Anderson's C486 biochemistry laboratory course  summarized experiments that began as part of the course, but continued into the following semester. Their poster was titled Restoring Normal Function to Mutated Isocitrate Dehydrogenase.

Last, but not least, was the poster Electrochemical Analysis of Estrogenic Phenolic Compounds presented by biochemistry major Roxanne Sirhan (pictured left) who has researched, and published, with Professor Grace Muna.  The particular work she presented was done in collaboration with fellow students Bonnie Jaskowski, Adam Kaylor, and Craig Kelley.  All of these students made wonderful presentations and we are proud of their work. 

Professor Grace Muna Receives Research Grant

Professor Grace Muna has just been awarded an internal Faculty Research Grant for this summer. Steroidal hormones are environment pollutants that disrupt the endocrine system.  Muna's research combines nanochemistry with electrochemistry using nickel deposited on a carbon electrode to develop an analytical technique for the detection and quantification of steroidal contaminants.  

Muna will also be training students to help her with this research, giving them a chance to learn new skills and master techniques to solve real-world problems in a setting more realistic than our standard laboratory classes.  As they will be analyzing water from the Saint Joseph river, don't fish there until they report their findings!  

Chemistry-Physics Interdisciplinary Research

For several years, Professor Feighery and chemistry students have been working with physics professor, Ilan Levine, in the search for WIMPs - weakly interacting massive particles - that are hypothesized to be a component of the mysterious and  hypothetical dark matter.  Most recently Josh Benkhe (2011 chemistry graduate) and Adam Grandison (chemistry senior) were acknowledged for their technical support in an article just accepted, and soon to be published, in the Journal of Physics B.  

Tina Shepherd (2008 chemistry graduate) and Cynthia Muthusi (2006 chemistry graduate) have also contributed.  While Levine and his group of physicists have taught our students much that we could not, the exchange of knowledge has been two-way.    The physicists have come to depend on our students in certain areas of the research, such as operating and maintaining the GC-MS.  The following is a list of articles to which our students have contributed.  Josh Benkhe is also associated with another paper that is in preparation.

2012   Benkhe and Grandison, Physics Letters B, accepted

2011   Benkhe, New Journal of Physics, 13, 043006

2011   Benkhe and Shepherd, Physical Review Letters, 106, 021303 

2009   Shepherd, Physics Letters B, 682, 185-192 

2008   Shepherd, New Journal of Physics, 10, 103017

2005   Muthusi and Feighery, Physics Letters B, 624, 186-194

2005   Feighery, Physics Research A, 555, 184-204

Faculty Milestone Service

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry relies heavily on its adjunct faculty to teach many of our high-enrollment service courses. Their continued service and quality teaching is vital to our department. On Thursday, April 19, three of our adjunct faculty will be honored for their milestone service in the annual Associate Faculty Reception. This event will take place at 4:00 in the Alumni Room of the Administration Building.

Clark Hartford (M.S. University of Notre Dame, 1967) and Pete McCasland (Ph.D. University of Notre Dame, 1971) have been teaching with us for a full decade. Rita Harnish (M.S. University of Maine, 1983) has taught for five years, often at our Elkhart campus. Thank you for your dedication to IU South Bend.