Newsletter - Vol.2 No.2, June 2011

Grants

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $199,815 to the University of Maryland to support the project "Transforming Advanced Chemistry Laboratories to Prepare Students for Challenges in Nanotechnology, Energy and the Environment," under the direction of Daniel E. Falvey, Amy S. Mullin, Bonnie L. Dixon, and Neil V. Blough.   This award is effective April 1, 2011 and expires March 31, 2014.

Catherine Fenselau received a $67,000 supplement to her NIH grant GM21248, Acquisition of a nanoscale HPLC.

Awards/Honors

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, under Chair Michael P. Doyle, has received the 2011 NOBCChE Presidential Award for Outstanding Partner in Academia from the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers. Dr. Doyle accepted the award on behalf of the department at the Annual Meeting of NOBCChE in Houston, TX, April 22, 2011.

Herman Sintim has been presented with the 2011 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.  Dr. Sintim is the first University of Maryland recipient of the Teacher-Scholar Award since 1998. The award carries an unrestricted research grant of $75,000, which Dr. Sintim will use to Òinvestigate the use of small molecules to interrupt bacterial networks."

Lyle Isaacs and Da MA (graduate student in the Isaacs lab) with Volker Briken, Gaya Hettiarachchi, and Duc Nguyen won a Best Invention of 2011 Award from the University of Maryland Office of Technology Commercialization. Their invention entitled ÒMolecular Container to Enhance the Solubility of DrugsÓ won in the Life Sciences category.

Garegin Papoian received the Rice Family Fund Fellowship Award to participate in the program "Biological Frontiers of Polymer and Soft Matter Physics" organized by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, CA.

Congratulations to Bonnie Dixon who received the 2011 Outstanding Lecturer Award in the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences (CMNS). The award was presented at the CMNS Festival on April 29, in the Rotunda of the Mathematics Building.

Amy Mullin was chosen by the CMNS Board of Visitors to receive the CollegeÕs 2011 Creative Educator Award.  The award carries a $5,000 prize, and was presented to Dr. Mullin at the CMNS Festival on April 29. 

Millard Alexander was awarded this yearsÕ Robert Rowan Award. This Award was established in memory of the late Professor Robert Rowan III whose untimely death deprived our department of an outstanding young faculty member remembered for his tireless service to the good of the whole department. This award is presented annually to a member of the faculty or staff to honor that personÕs service for the benefit of the whole department.  The name of the honoree will join those on the Rowan Award plaques now exhibited in the East Foyer.  

Domonique O. Downing, a Ph.D. candidate w/ Bryan Eichhorn, was awarded a Dow Chemical Company Fellowship at the 2011 NOBCChE Annual Meeting, April 19-22, in Houston, Texas.  Domonique presented research on Òfabrication of intermetallic nanoparticles with advantageous catalytic propertiesÓ at the meeting. 

Graduate students Sanghee Nah (w/ John Fourkas), Daniel Gowetski (w/ Jason Kahn), Jia Wei (w/ Laurence Sita), and Andy Ballard (Chemical Physics w/ Christopher Jarzynski) have all been awarded the Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship for the 2011-2012 year.  This Fellowship provides a $10,000 stipend and tuition remission for one semester.

Jie Zhou, a graduate student w/ the Sintim group, was awarded a two year research fellowship by the American Heart Association to study c-di-GMP signaling in bacteria.

Congratulations to the recipients of the Graduate Assistant in the Area of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship for 2010-2011: Raffaele Perrotta (w/ Falvey group); Mara Dougherty (Mignerey group); Dominique Downing (w/ Eichhorn group); Maxim Ratnikov (w/ Doyle group); James Wittenberg (w/ Isaacs group).

Graduate student Kelli Golanoski was awarded 1st place in the Environmental Chemistry section of the 14th annual Environmental Chemistry Student Symposium at Pennsylvania State University for her oral presentation on "Mechanism of Phenol Photooxidation by Humic Substances". 

Andrew L. Chang, Chin-Hsiang (Patrick) Feng, Tana J. Luo, James A. McCarthy, Sharad Thaper (Chemistry and Biochemistry majors) are part of a senior Gemstone team, mentored by Jason Kahn, that has won a 2011 Library Award for Undergraduate Research, which carries a $1,000 prize.

The 2011 Beckman Scholars Award winners are Andrew Timmons (w/ David Fushman) Taarika Babu (w/ Zhihong Nie) and Michael Hsu (w/ John Fourkas). The Beckman Scholars Program supports research activities by exceptionally talented, full-time undergraduate students who are pursuing their studies at accredited four-year colleges and universities in the USA. The in-depth undergraduate research experiences and comprehensive faculty mentoring are unique in terms of program scope, content and level of scholarship award -$17,600 for two summers and one academic year.

Senior MengMeng Xu has been awarded the Circle of Excellence Scholarship by the Maryland Daily Record. Presented to one female college student in the state, the $3,000 award recognizes academic success, leadership in the community, and a commitment to mentoring. Xu was honored at a ceremony May 9th at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore.

Matthew Smarte, Chemistry major, has been awarded a Goldwater Scholarship by the trustees of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.  The scholarship will provide $7,500 per year (up to two years) for tuition, books and housing.

Graduate Student Awards

The Annual Chemistry and Biochemistry Graduate Student Awards ceremony took place this year on May 11. All the awardees and their mentors, friends, and classmates were invited as well the department faculty and staff.  Professor Kahn presented the awards for the first-year graduate fellowships, the Bailey Fellowships, the two Rollinson teaching awards, and the graduate research awards. The research award winners each gave brief presentations. Please read more about each award at www.chem.umd.edu/graduateprogram/awardsandfellowships

Carl L Rollinson Teaching Awards- Matthew Hurley, Fred Nytko III

G Forrest Woods Memorial Scholarship- Rennisha Wickham

William F Bailey Summer Research Fellowship- Joseph Cannon, Michael Stocker

First Year Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship- Meghan Burke, Eleanor   Gillette, Andrew Keane, Gretchen Peters, Maithili Saoji

Research of Excellence Awards- Jonathan Duay, Maria Del Mar Ingaramo, Jia Wei

Undergraduate Student Awards

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry held its annual reception to honor graduating seniors and departmental award winners on May 18 in the Chemistry Building Atrium. Faculty, staff, students, and family members gathered to celebrate the achievements of our very best students. Professor Doyle presented awards certificates to graduating seniors and other students who have excelled in Chemistry and Biochemistry in the classroom and in the laboratory. Several faculty and staff members were also recognized for their outstanding contributions to the well-being of the Department.  Read more about the individual awards at www.chem.umd.edu/undergraduatestudentawards

CRC Freshman Award – Alison Keim

Nathan Drake Award – Adam Kruszewski

Analytical Chemistry Award – Felicia Kulp

Inorganic Chemistry Award – Michael McLaughlin

Beckman Scholar Award – Taarika Babu, Michael Hsu, Andrew Timmons

Hypercube Award – Omer Ad

The Isidore and Annie Adler Chemistry Scholarship – Suzanne Abdelazim

Leidy Foundation Scholarships – Maria Ansar, Kwaben Nimarko, Hina Patel

Robert Battista Award for Undergraduate Research in Organic Chemistry – Matthew Hepler

Chemical Society of Washington Award – Matthew Smarte

Merck Index Award – Ankush Khullar, Matthew Smarte

American Institute of Chemists Award – Jeffery Gray, Mary Yanik

Greater Washington Institute of Chemists Award – John Jubar, Ilana Kelsey

Alpha Chi Sigma Award – Matthew Costales

Phi Lambda Upsilon - Abinet Aklilu, Aaron Aziz, Kanwarpal Bakshi, Andrew Chang, Alexander Gibbons, William Goff, George Hao, Gregory Iannuzzi, Hannah Jardine, John Jubar, Ilana Kelsey, Ankush Khullar, Tatyana Lyapustina, Daria Murosko, Allen Ng, Wendolyn Quintannila-Sandoval, Adin Schuchatowitz, Sharad Thaper, Mengmeng Xu, Mary Yanik, Diana Zhong

Library Award for Undergraduate Research - Andrew Chang, Maria Chang, Chin-Hsiang Feng, Jasjet Khural, Tana Luo, James McCarthy, Cory Mekelburg, Kelsey Nadig, Christine Perry, Ganesh Sriram, Sharad Thaper, Richard Urbanski, Pragun Vohra, Christian Weber, Justin Wong, Ho-Man Yeung

Phi Beta Kappa – Hannah Jardine, Ilana Kelsey, Tatyana Lyapustina, Adin Shuchatowitz, Kevin Tang, Mengmeng Xu 

Goldwater Scholarship – Matthew Smarte 

Graduating with Honors:  Marie Bergmeyer (w/ Jeffery Davis), Uneeb Qureshi (w/ Bryan Eichhorn)

Graduating with High Honors:  Ilana Kelsey (w/ Herman Sintim)

Annual Staff Accomplishment Awards 

Presented at the Departmental Award Ceremony on May 18.  These first time awards were established to recognize special efforts of staff members w/in the department; each award carries a $500 prize:

Ellen Guloy (Accounting Associate) – staff member w/ less than 10 years of service. Educated overseas with multiple bachelorÕs degrees, she joined the department in 2007, rising to Account Associate in early 2008.  She is responsible for processing requisitions and travel requests, and she reviews accounts and processes an increasingly complex variety of transactions.  Reviewers compliment her work, her customer service, her friendly and optimistic nature, and her ability to rapidly learn new operations.

Carol Diaz – (Program Management Specialist, UG Services) - staff member w/ over 10 years of services. ÒShe is the best resource the department has to cover the enormous demands of large undergraduate courses.Ó  ÒShe has an incredible ability to juggle the ÔneedsÕ and/or ÔdemandsÕ of an ever-increasing number of people involved in teaching the undergraduate courses.Ó  Or should it be for her flamboyant productions in holiday parties, the Halloween costumes and displays, or just making others happy?  Starting in 1979 she saw several generations of faculty, survived many department Chairs, coached more than a thousand graduate students, and put to rest several questionable practices.

Invited Presentations

Catherine Fenselau presented a lecture entitled ÒPrecision Proteomics to Drive Basic and Translational ResearchÓ at the Symposium organized to celebrate the opening of the Proteomics Center of Excellence at Northwestern University.

Michael Doyle was the Plenary Speaker for the 12^th Annual Mid-Hudson Undergraduate Research Symposium held at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, on April 15^th.  His topic was ÒThe Magic of DirhodiumÓ.

At the 3^rd Annual HBCU/MI Council of the Chairs at the NOBCChE National Meeting in Houston, Texas on April 20, Michael Doyle spoke about ÒÒChallenges to Research and Education in the Chemical Sciences in a Time of ChangeÓ.

Eugene Mazzola was a guest lecturer for an NMR class at Harvard University in March.  Dr. Mazzola also taught four NMR classes at Virginia Tech on May 16-17.

Christopher Jarzynski presented several lectures:  "Guiding the motion of artificial molecular machines", April 5, Q-bio seminar series, Los Alamos National Laboratory;
"Modeling Maxwell's demon: work, information, and the second law of thermodynamics", May 8, 105th Statistical Mechanics Conference, Rutgers University; "Irreversibility and the Second Law of Thermodynamics at the Nanoscale", May 10, Physics Department Colloquium, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Herman Sintim gave talks at Stanford, UC San Diego and UC Irvine in May on the inhibition of bacterial networks with small molecules.

Zhihong Nie presented a lecture entitled ÒLessons from polymers: controlled self-assembly of inorganic nanoparticlesÓ at the NanoLegos International Workshop at Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey on May 17.   

Paul Paukstelis gave a talk entitled ÒA rationally designed 3D DNA lattice with non-canonical base pairs: successes and surprisesÓ at the Foundations of Nanoscience: Self-assembled Architectures and Devices meeting in April in Snowbird, UT.

Svetla Baykoucheva presented a lecture entitled ÒUsing Campus Guides for leveraging Web 2.0 technologies and promoting the chemistry and life sciences information resourcesÓ at the 241st ACS National Meeting & Exposition in Anaheim, CA, March 27-31, 2011.

Graduate students Mark Nakasone, Kelli Golanoski, and Lynne Heighton, were selected to present abstracts at Graduate Research Interaction Day (GRID) on April 6. GRID is sponsored by the Graduate Student Government to provide an on-campus conference venue in which graduate students from all academic backgrounds share their research, obtain faculty and peer feedback, and hone their conference presentation skills.