O Chemistry, O Chemistry, Your Beakers Bright Delight Us

How do our students relieve stress during final exam week? By getting in the Christmas spirit as only a chemist could!

Instructor John Koellner passes away

On October 19 Instructor John Koellner passed away after 43 years at IU South Bend. Koellner was a valued member of our department and often taught multiple sections of the fall and spring semesters of the freshman chemistry laboratory classes C125 and C126. His passing was quite sudden after resigning from teaching at the start of this semester. Please visit the South Bend Tribune for Koellner's obituary and this blog for a recent profile. We miss you Koellner!

Student club helps local ACS section win award

The Biology-Chemistry Club at IU South Bend has organized and participated in many events over the past several years. In 2011 the club ran a science outreach program during National Chemistry Week (NCW) at the River Park Library aimed at showcasing science to children. Last year they repeated the event (click here for the story) with support from the Saint Joseph Valley Local Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Earlier this month the Saint Joseph Valley Local Section won the Outstanding Community Involvement in NCW award (click here for formal announcement) - one of five national awards. Justifying the award were (1) a presentation for 16 local schools, (2) a two-day "Science Spectacular" event, and (3) our students' outreach at the library. Congratulations to the Saint Joseph Valley Local Section and to the Biology-Chemistry Club for their efforts.

For 2013 National Chemistry Week falls on October 20-26. The theme is "Energy: Now and Forever" and naturally focuses on the application of chemistry to the goal sustainable energy. This year the Biology-Chemistry Club will work with a new student organization to continue their tradition. The River Park event is open to the public from 11:00 AM - 1:30 PM.

Professor Anderson Wins Teaching Award - Again!

In his first newsletter to the campus, new chancellor Terry Allison announced the winners of the 2013 IU Trustee's Teaching Awards, and Professor Gretchen Anderson was one of the recipients. Anderson's list of teaching awards is impressive (see her webpage) and is topped with the Herman Frederic Lieber Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence.

Anderson continually looks for innovation and alternatives in the classroom. Last year she experimented with a flipped classroom approach in her own biochemistry lecture and also arranged for video-conferencing with IU Bloomington so that our physical chemistry students could "sit in" on lectures down state while our own physical chemist was on sabbatical. Each fall her laboratory course in biochemistry deviates from a set of pre-planned experiments and simulates undergraduate research.

This isn't the first time that Anderson has won a Trustee's Teaching Award - and it surely won't be the last. Congratulations and thank you for being more than just a scientist who teaches, but rather a sincere and dedicated educator.

Nobel prize-winner comes to South Bend

Biologist Eric Wieschaus shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two others "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development" [NobelPrize.org]. Wieschaus was born in South Bend and we celebrate his return to our city and visit to our campus. Please mark your calendar for this exciting and rare event.  For more information about the speaker and the Bender Scholar in Residence Lecture program please visit the IU South Bend News Room.

Students return from summer REUs

Biochemistry major Ashley Compton and chemistry major Rachel Warrell just completed their first off-campus REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates).  Both have had extensive research experience on-campus but this was their first experience researching elsewhere giving them several opportunities, three of which are:

    (1)  A very LARGE line on their resumes and graduate school applications
    (2)  Exposure to large research institutes with graduate programs
    (3)  Summer income

If you are interested in a summer REU please contact a chemistry or biochemistry professor as soon as possible. These programs are very competitive so good grades and on-campus research experience are recommended.

A Tale of Two Sabbaticals

It was near this time last year when physical chemist Matt Marmorino (above left) began his Fall semester sabbatical to continue research in bounding the energies and other observables as well as learn some new material regarding quantum field theory in the hopes to extend his work to the relativistic realm. The first fruits of his work are just now appearing after first a semester of the work itself and then a semester of scientific review in the publication process. His manuscript in the Journal of Mathematical Chemistry compares two standard methods to find the lower bound of a system's ground-state energy and merges them into a single method to combine their advantages.

This Fall organic chemist Doug McMillen (above right) begins his research sabbatical. For the past several years McMillen has been filling voids in administration leaving him with less time for teaching and research. In Summer 2012 he resumed research by investigating new methods of oxidizing alcohols and other partially oxidized functional groups.  He plans to use his year-long sabbatical to complete and publish that work and start new work using elemental iodine to oxidize alcohols.  He also aims to develop collaborations and to prepare a research grant to support investigations of metal-catalyzed asymmetric oxidation of alkenes. We wish you a fruitful year, Professor McMillen.