Chemistry

“Graduate students Marie Correia , Sarah Goforth, and Gary Guillet have been selected to participate in the second biennial CENTC Summer School. The Center for Enabling New Technologies Through Catalysis (CENTC) will provide 80 graduates students, postdocs, and faculty from PUIs with travel and accommodations to attend their summer school in catalysis at the University of Washington this month. The program’s four-day schedule features seminars by prominent researchers from academia, industry, and national laboratories. Additionally, participants will contribute to discussions concerning funding, outreach, and career opportunities.”

“Yan Chen, a graduation student of Chemistry in Dr. Weihong Tan’s research group, has been awarded the 2010 Association for Academic Women (AAW) Emerging Scholar Award and Madelyn Lockhart Dissertation Fellowship Award. Yan is one of only two graduate students to receive this prestigious award from the University of Florida in 2010. The recipients will each receive a $2,000 award from the UF President’s Office to support their final stage of PhD studies. Yan expects to complete her PhD in the Department of Chemistry in the UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in August 2010. Identified as one of the best overall graduate students in the department, Yan Chen focuses on instrumentation development and nanomaterial engineering for live cell measurements. She is the first author of five major publications completed while a graduate student. Following graduation, she will continue her research in a post-doctoral position.”

“W. David Wei, Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the 2010 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. Professor Wei is one of only 32 junior faculty members to receive this award in 2010. The recipients will each receive $5,000 in “seed money” for the 2010-2011 academic year to further their research during the early stages of their careers. Each recipient’s institution also matches the ORAU award with an additional $5,000, making the total prize worth $10,000 for each winner. Professor Wei has received this award for his research into the novel electronic and optical properties of plasmonically active nanomaterials and their implications for solar energy conversion. In an upcoming manuscript, Wei’s research group will describe a quantitative characterization of surface plasmon-enhanced electromagnetic fields on a single Ag nanostructure.”

“Matt Andrus has been named as recipient of the 2010 Eastman Summer Fellowship sponsored by Eastman Chemical Company. Matt received his B.S. in Chemistry from Siena College in 2004 and joined our Ph.D. program in the 2009 class. His research, under the direction of Prof. Talham, involves the nanochemistry of coordination polymers. Most recently, this has included a study of the controlled deposition of Prussian blue analogues, a class of molecular magnets, on functionalized surfaces.”

“2010 is the inaugural year for the Cade Prize for Innovation. The award is named after the University of Florida Professor of Medicine Dr. J. Robert Cade, who was the lead inventor of the sports drink Gatorade. The winning project will be chosen from over 100 applications across the State of Florida and will receive a $50,000 prize, in addition to one year of free office space at the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center (GTEC).”

“Pamela Cohn and Jongwoo Park, both graduate students in the Organic Division, have been selected for participation in the inaugural Graduate Research Symposium hosted by the American Chemical Society’s Division of Organic Chemistry. Between 50 and 75 fourth year organic graduate students were selected from across the United States to present their research at the conference, where they will also meet with leaders from academia, industry, various funding agencies, and publishers.”

The William and Arlene Ruegamer Biochemistry Fellows for 2010-2011 are Natasha Pirman and Jeffrey Carter. Natasha received her BS in chemistry from Lee University in 2005 and is studying intrinsically disordered proteins using site-directed spin-labeling electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. Jeffrey graduated from Virginia Tech in 2006 and is studying the physical and structural characteristics that allow GM2 activator protein to bind and extract its lipid substrate. Both students are working under the direction of Prof. Gail Fanucci.

“Leslie Murray received B.A. degrees in Chemistry and Biology from Swarthmore College. Subsequently, he pursued a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry under the direction of Stephen Lippard at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied dioxygen activation at the diiron active site in toluene/o-xylene monooxygenase. His post-doctoral research under Jeffrey Long at the University of California, Berkeley has focused on the synthesis and design of metal-organic frameworks for gas storage/separation applications. His independent research at the University of Florida will focus on transporting the biological mechanisms/principles to small molecule reactivity and materials chemistry.”

“Katye Poole, a graduate student in the inorganic division, was awarded a NSF GRFP fellowship which provides three years of support. Katye received B.S. degrees in chemistry and psychology from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis in 2008, where she worked with Dr. Ted O’Brien on computational inorganic chemistry, including a collaboration with Dr. George Christou. In 2008 she joined the Christou group at UF and added synthetic inorganic chemistry to her research repertoire, as well as expanded the computational work she began with Dr. O’Brien.”

“Professor Kenneth Merz received the 2010 ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research at the official Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, March 23, 2010, held in conjunction with the 239th ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, CA. This award recognizes the advances he has made in the use of quantum mechanics to solve biological and drug discovery problems. This highly prestigious international award sponsored by the ACS is given to an individual “without regard to age or nationality for outstanding achievement in the use of computers in research, development, or education in the chemical and biological sciences.”