Chemistry

“UF’s Department of Chemistry, along with the Center for Catalysis, will be hosting Molecular Mania 2015 at the Oaks mall this Saturday, October 31st, from 10am-3pm in the plaza in front of Dillard’s. At this annual event, 40+ graduate student volunteers use 20+ interactive demonstrations to help convey science themes to the youth of the community, in a slightly Halloween-esque manner.”

“Congratulations to the UF Chemistry Club, formally known as the UF SAACS (Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society) Chapter, for being recognized with a Commendable (“Silver”) Student Chapter Award on the basis of their 2014-2015 activities. Leadership for the year was offered by the following elected officers: McKenzie Coughlin (President), Nick Lee (Vice President), Lauren McCarthy (Secretary), Niva Tran (co-Treasurer), Rodrigo Forster (co-Treasurer), Latoy White (Historian), Brad Ganoe (Technology Director), Phil Martin (Outreach Coordinator), and Chris Webster (OutreachCoordinator). Prof. Ronald Castellano and Prof. Leslie Murray are the Club’s faculty advisors.”

“Graduate student Ha Nguyen recently won the American Chemical Society POLY Graduate Student Video Award, announced at the 250th ACS National Meeting in Boston, sponsored by the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry. The award is designed to prepare young chemists to present their research in a three-minute video/movie format and interact with a broad range of audiences, including non-technical people. Ha received her award at the POLY/PMSE Awards Reception, held Wednesday August 19th, 2015, in Boston.”

“The W. M. Jones Award for Originality and Creativity was endowed by Emeritus Professor William (“Bill”) M. Jones and each year acknowledges an original research proposal idea of a graduate student in the Organic, Inorganic, or Biochemistry Division. The award is judged based on three criteria: originality and impact of the scientific idea, quality and clarity of a short written document, and quality and format of an oral presentation/defense. Past winners can be found on a website devoted to the W. M. Jones Award:�http://old.chem.ufl.edu/research/organicwmjonesaward.shtml.”

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 Eastman Chemical Summer Fellowships

“We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2015 Procter & Gamble Awards for excellence in graduate research. These awards are made annually to recognize excellence in research among our upper level graduate students. This year, seven students were chosen by the selections committee. Congratulations to Bryan Tucker, Jackie Esquiaqui, Patricia Bachler, Liqin Zhang, Xinxing Zhang, Ha Nguyen and Stella Gonsales. Each will receive an honorarium of $500, generously provided by P&G and will have their names placed on the departmental plaque.”

“Please join us in congratulating Jackie Esquiaqui and Liqin Zhang, the 2015-2016 Ruegamer Fellowship recipients. Jackie is a Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Prof. Gail Fanucci. Her project involves studying dynamics and conformational changes in the RNA glycine riboswitch using site-directed spin labeling and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. Liqin’s research, in the laboratories of Prof. Weihong Tan, involves incorporating artificial genetic nucleotides into synthetic oligonucleotides in the laboratory evolution process to deliver functional nucleic acids including aptamers and aptzymes, and developing their biomedical applications.”

“Two fourth-year graduate students in the Organic Division have been selected for participation in the 2015 Graduate Research Symposium hosted by the American Chemical Society’s Division of Organic Chemistry. They will join about 50 other graduate students chosen from across the United States. The students will present their research at the symposium, held July 23-26, 2015, at St. Edward’s University, Austin, TX. They will meet with leaders from academia, industry, various funding agencies, and publishers at the event. Please read about each our honored students below.”

“Professor Stephen A. Miller (UF), Professor Seth M. Cohen (University of California at San Diego), and coworkers Ha Nguyen (UF) and Zhenjie Zhang (UCSD) have mingled their research expertise to discover and characterize�polyMOFs. Professor Miller’s research group focuses on polymerization chemistry, especially biorenewable polymers. Professor Cohen is an accomplished researcher in the field of Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs). The collaboration involved the seemingly bad idea of using floppy polymers to replace the small, molecular connectors usually employed to make highly organized MOFs. Instead of a mess, the researchers could tune the annealing conditions to yield highly organized Metal Organic Frameworks with an orderly arrangement of polymers running through them.”