UA Chemistry Department News-2006

December 2006

• Congratulations to chemistry students who received their degrees at the December Commencement Ceremonies.
  • PhD Degrees
    • William A. Adams - The Applications of SBA-15-Mesoporous Silica Thin Films Containing Photoactive Semiconductors and the Development of Ordered Crystalline Mesoporous Titania Thin Films
      Advisor: Dr. Martin Bakker
    • Violina A. Cocalia - Separations, Solvation, an d Coordination of Actinides in Ionic Liquids
      Advisor: Dr. Robin Rogers
    • Keith E. Gutowski - Computational Thermodynamic Studies of the Formation and Stability of Ionic Liquids and Actinide-Ligand Complexes
      Advisors: Dr. Robin Rogers and Dr. David Dixon
    • Gang Li - Synthesis and Characterization of Ceria-Based Electrolyte
      Advisor: Dr. Joseph Thrasher
  • MS Degrees
    • J. Andrew Reed
      Advisor: Dr. Michael Jennings
  • BS Degrees
    • Rachel Joy Summers - University Honors Program, ACS Certified Degree
• Dr. Kevin Redding has been named a College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Teaching Fellow. Dean Olin made the announcement at the College faculty meeting in December.
• The Chemistry Department is pleased to announce that Dr. Michael Bowman has accepted an offer to join the chemistry faculty at UA as an associate professor. Dr. Bowman's research interest focus on the application of EPR spectroscopic methods to problems in biochemistry and materials science. He is coming to UA from Pacific National Lab. He will officially join the faculty in January 2007.

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November 2006

• A paper from the Shaughnessy group entitled, "Water-Soluble Palladacycles as Precursors to Highly Recyclable Catalysts for the Suzuki Coupling of Aryl Bromides in Aqueous Solvents," was the second most accessed article in Organometallics in the third quarter of 2006. Authors on the paper were Dr. Rongcai Huang and Dr. Shaughnessy.
• Beth Western's dissertation entitled, "Palladium-Catalyzed Modification of Halonucleosides: Methodology Development and Mechanism Determination," was chosen by the College of Arts & Sciences as one of three dissertations to be nominated for the Graduate School's Outstanding Dissertation award. Dr. Western earned her PhD degree under the direction of Dr. Shaughnessy in 2005. Dr. Western also received the college's Outstanding Masters Thesis award in 2004.

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October 2006

• Graduate students Vincent Franco and Dominic Qualley have been awarded Graduate Council Fellowships for the 2006-2007 academic year. The Graduate Council Fellowship is UA's most prestigious and competitive graduate fellowship. Vincent works in Dr. Snowden's group on the development of new synthetic methodology. Dominic is a member of Dr. Woski's group, where he studies binding in oligonucleotides with non-natural bases. UA press release.

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September 2006

• The licensing agreement between BASF and UA for technology developed by Dr. Rogers group has received a Deal of Distinction Award from the Licensing Executives Society. The awards recognize the top licensing agreements in each of 6 industry sectors based on their distinctive structure or objective. UA press release.
• Jackson Switzer, a biochemistry major, was one of four UA students to be awarded the prestigious and highly competitive National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. Jackson is an undergraduate research in Dr. David Dixon's lab. This is the second year in a row that a chemistry major has been awarded one of these prestigious scholarships. Last year Jacob Batson was a winner of this award. UA Press release.

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August 2006

• The Department is pleased to welcome the new class of graduate students to UA.
  • Whitney Hough - The University of Alabama
  • Dionicio Martinez - UC-Santa Cruz
  • Amanda Mueller - Lambuth University (TN)
  • Kiera Reifschneider - Trinity Western University (BC, Canada)
  • Chris Redden - Jacksonville State (AL)
  • Jason Runyon - Kennesaw State University (GA)
  • Tsang-Hsiu Wang - National Cheng Kung University (Taiwan)
  • Yu-Hsiang "Andrew" Wang - National Chi-Nan University (Taiwan)
• Dr. Shane Street replaced Dr. Silas Blackstock as Director of Graduate Studies on August 16th. The Department thanks Dr. Blackstock for his service as DGS for the past four years and welcomes Dr. Street to the post.
• Congratulations to the department's August graduates who received degrees in the commencement ceremony on August 12th.
  • PhD
    • Andrei Honciuc: New Unimolecular Rectifiers and Through-Bond Electron Tunneling Probed by IETS
      Advisor: Dr. Robert Metzger
    • Cuiling Liu: Investigation of the Stabilities of PNA-DNA and DNA-DNA Complexes Containing Novel Aromatic Residues
      Advisor: Dr. Stephen Woski
    • Dontarie M. Stallings: Ligand-Dependent Chromium(III) Toxicity: Chromium Picolinate Causes Deleterious Effects During the Life Cycle of Drosophila melanogaster
      Advisor: Dr. John Vincent
  • MS
    • Edward L. Granger
    • M. Bradley Payne: Arylamino Radial Redox Arrays: Electron Transfera nd Scanning Probe Microscopy
      Advisor: Dr. Silas Blackstock
  • BS
    • D. Burke Brunson
    • Brantley R. Rutledge
    • Maggee R. Oliver - cum laude
• Students in the SURP program completed their summer research in early August. The program was concluded with presentations by each student on their summer research and a lunch at the UA faculty club. A UA press release describes the activities of the students.

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June 2006

• Two undergraduate researchers from Professor Arduengo's group are getting a majority of their summer research experience in foreign laboratories.  Both Joshua Dolphin and Keith Bentley have been undergraduate members of Professor Arduengo's group since Fall 2005.  The Arduengo group is the lead U.S. research group for a collaborative effort with laboratories in Japan under the JSPS-NSF "Core-to-Core" research program studying chemistry of the main-group elements.  Personnel exchange is a key feature of the Core-to-Core program and this Summer UA's Josh Dolphin is spending time in Hiroshima, Japan in the laboratories of Professor Yohsuke Yamamoto.  Josh has been documenting his experiences in his blog. On June 25, Keith Bentley left the U.S. for a summer research stay in the research group of Professor Rainer Streubel in Bonn, Germany.  Keith is also detailing his overseas adventure in his blog. This U.S./Germany exchange is sponsored by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service).  Professors Arduengo and Streubel continue to develop new collaborations and personnel exchanges in connection with their research.  In coming months Dr. Arduengo's lab at the Capstone will host visitors from overseas (Mr. Hideaki Yamamichi, Hiroshima, and Mr. Holger Helton, Bonn).
• The department is pleased to welcome a new group of students to the Summer Undergraduate Research Participation (SURP) program. Students in the program spend 10 weeks working with department faculty on individual research projects, as well as being involved in other educational and social activities. This summer's participants are:

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May 2006

• Dr. Si Blackstock has announced that he will step down as Director of Graduate Studies. Dr. Shane Street will assume the DGS title in August.
• Raluca Craciun took first place in the graduate student poster competition at the Southeast Theoretical Chemistry Association annual meeting at Emory University in Atlanta Georgia, May 19-20, 2006. Raluca is a graduate student in Dr. David Dixon's group.
• Chemistry major Aymara Albury broke her own school record in the shot put to win the SEC title with a throw of 56' 1.25". Aymara also won the SEC Indoor title in the shot put in February.
• Congratulations to our students who received degrees in the 175th Commencement in May. A total of 18 BS and 4 PhD degrees were awarded to department students.
  • PhD
    • Grant A. Broker: Crystal Engineering Studies of Some Nitrogen Containing Multifunctional Ligands
      Advisor: Dr. Robin Rogers
    • Zhong Li: Gas-Phase Dissociation and Reaction of Acidic Peptides by Mass Spectrometry
      Advisor: Dr. Carolyn Cassady
    • Lucas R. Moore: Ligand Design and Application Toward Palladium Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions
      Advisor: Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy
    • S. Justin P'Pool: Polar, Weakly Coordinating Ionic LIquids as Solvents for Fundamental Organometallic Reactions
      Advisor: Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy
  • BS
    • Alan M. Allgood - cum laude
    • Lauren N. Britt - cum laude
    • LaTorea D Brooks - University Honors Program
    • Lucas J. Bruner
    • Andrew T. Campbell
    • Fatima T. Carmichael
    • Jennifer E. Gremse - magna cum laude
    • Margaret M. Hendrix - summa cum laude
    • Whitney L. Hough - cum laude, ACS Certified Degree
    • J. Patrick Keenum - cum laude, University Honors Program, Computer-Based Honors Program
    • Timothy J. Kucharski - summa cum laude, University Honors Program, Computer-Based Honors Program
    • Samuel K. McElwee - cum laude
    • John G. Phillips - summa cum laude, University Honors Program, Computer-Based Honors Program
    • Terrence M. Pugh - magna cum laude
    • Brantley R. Rutledge
    • William A. Shaffer - summa cum laude, University Honors Program
    • Joshua T. Taylor - summa cum laude, University Honors Program
    • Rachel W. Thomas - cum laude, University Honors Program
• A paper co-authored by Dr. David Nikles entitled, "Covalently Linked Au Nanoparticles to a Viral Vector: Potential for Combined Photothermal and Gene Cancer Therapy," was highlighted by the nanotechnology industry web site Nanowerk. This paper describes a collaborative project between the Nikles group and the Gene Therapy Center at UAB to attach adenoviral vectors to gold nanoparticles. The viruses can be engineered to carry the gold nanoparticles to tumor cells. The nanoparticles can be heated with a laser, thus killing the surrounding tumor cells.
• A paper by Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy and coworkers entitled, "Di-t-butyl(ferrocenylmethyl)phosphine: air-stability, structural characterization, coordination chemistry, and application to palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions," was one of the top 25 most downloaded articles published by the Journal of Organometallic Chemistry in 2005. This article was the #7 most downloaded article for the first quarter of 2005. Another paper by the Shaughnessy group in collaboration with Dr. Robin Rogers entitled, "Palladium-Catalyzed Hydroesterification of Styrene Derivatives in the Presence of Ionic Liquids," was among the top 25 most downloaded articles in the third quarter of 2005.

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April 2006

• Research by Dr. Arduengo and Dr. Dixon on new hydrogen storage materials was highlighted in a story by NBC13 News in Birmingham. Arduengo and Dixon are part of a large nation-wide research project to develop practical materials to store hydrogen in automotive applications.
• Dr. John Vincent was elected president of the UA Faculty Senate for the 06-07 academic year. Dr. Vincent served as vice-president during the 05-06 academic year and was the secretary in the previous year.
• Senior Chemistry major Terrence Pugh was elected to the Alabama Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He was inducted on April 18th.
• Dr. David Dixon was named the 2006 outstanding Computer-Based Honors Program mentor. Dr. Dixon has mentored a large number of CBHP students in his short tenure at UA. CBHP students in the Dixon lab address a variety of chemistry problems using sophisticated computational modeling programs.
• A microreview entitled, "Beyond TPPTS: New Approaches to the Development of Efficient Palladium-Catalyzed Aqueous-Phase Cross-Coupling Reactions," by Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy was among the top 10 most accessed articles for March 2006.
• J. Patrick Keenum and Ryan House took 2nd and 3rd places respectively in the University of Alabama System-wide undergraduate research poster competition on April, 14th, 2006 for their CBHP projects in computational chemistry. Patrick is a senior chemistry major, while Ryan is a junior chemical engineering major. Both students work in the Dixon group.
• Timothy Kucharski won second prize for his poster entitled, "Designing Reversible Single-Crystal Transitions," in the Arts & Sciences Undergraduate Research/Creative Activities poster competition. Dr. Si Blackstock is Tim's faculty mentor. Overall, 17 posters were presented by undergraduate students working with eight different Chemistry Department faculty.
• Rick Smith, Manager of the Glassblowing Facility, hosted the 50th Southeastern Section of the American Scientific Glassblowing Society at Shelby Hall on April 6th-9th. About 40 people from as far away as New York and California attended the meeting, which was held at UA in large part to show off the modern glass blowing facility housed in Shelby Hall. This state of the art facility is being used as a model for facilities in a number of new science buildings around the country.
• Dr. Joe Thrasher announced a major gift to the department to establish the Anthony J. Arduengo, III Endowed Lecture series in Physical Organic Chemistry during the Honor's Day Convocation. The initial gift from an anonymous donor will endow the lectureship, which will bring world renowned researchers in physical organic chemistry to UA. The gift recognizes the significant contributions of Dr. Arduengo to the field of physical organic chemistry.
• Honor's Week: The Chemistry Department held its third annual Honor's Convocation on April 7th. A number of department students received awards at the department, college and university level.

• Several undergraduate students doing research with department faculty were among the 20 students who received Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research awards (UA press release). These awards recognize undergraduate students contributing to new knowledge through undergraduate research projects. The recipients with ties to chemistry were:
  • Jacob Batson: Jacob, a chemistry major, received the $4,800 H. Pettus Randall Jr. Scholarship for his work with Dr. Dixon on computational studies of hydrogen storage materials.
  • Bobbi Adams and Amanda French: Bobbi and Amanda are biology majors who were recognized for their work in Dr. Vincent's lab on the effect of chromium-based nutritional supplements on rats' body mass and insulin sensitivity.
  • Ryan House: Ryan, a chemical and biological engineering major, received the Randall award for his work using computational methods to understand metal-oxide-catalyzed transformations. This work was done under the direction of Dr. Dixon.
  • J. Patrick Keenum: Patrick, a chemistry major, used computational methods in Dr. Dixon's lab to study how silicates interact with radionucleides. This work is applicable to the clean up of nuclear weapons production sites and has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
  • Glen Kelly: Glen, a chemical and biological engineering major, also works with Dr. Dixon. His work has focused on computational studies of the activation of methane on metal oxide surfaces.
  • Timothy Kucharski: Tim,a senior chemistry major, has studied the co-crystallization of donor-acceptor molecules. This work was done under the direction of Dr. Blackstock.
  • Jackson Switzer: Jackson, a biochemistry major, was recognized for his work with Dr. Dixon on hydrogen storage materials.
• Dwayne Reed (Nikles), Jason Manning (Bakker) Grace Chotsuwan (Blackstock), and Lester Gray (Blackstock) have been awarded travel grants from the Graduate School to attend meetings during the fall 2005 semester.

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March 2006

• The department office staff celebrated Dr. Joe Thrasher's 50th birthday by decorating the chair's office, as well as most of Shelby Hall. Click here for a picture.
• Jason Spruell (BS, '05) has been awarded the prestigious NSF pre-doctoral fellowship. Jason is a first year graduate student at UCLA, where he is working under the direction of Dr. Fraser Stoddart. The pre-doctoral fellowship will provide Jason with a stipend, tuition remission, and funds for research and travel to scientific meetings.
• Caitlin Prickett took first place honors at the Alabama Academy of Science undergraduate chemistry poster competition for her poster entitled, "Palladium-Catalyzed Reactions for Nucleoside Modification." Caitlin is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute intern working with Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy.
• The Center for Green Manufacturing hosted a two-day workshop entitled, "Ionic Liquids: Background, State-of-the-Art, and Academic/Industrial Applications." Academic and industrial speakers heard talks by an international panel of specialists on the application of ionic liquids in research and industry. The meeting was organized by Dr. Robin Rogers. In addition to Dr. Rogers, other speakers from UA included Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy (Chemistry), Dr. Chris Brazel (Chem. and Bio. Eng.), and Dr Rick Swatloski (PhD, '05, 525 Solutions).
• The exclusive licensing agreement between BASF and UA on Dr. Robin Rogers' method for dissolving and processing cellulose was formalized on March 8th.
  • UA Press release
  • Previous announcement
• A contingent of scientists and administrators from Tohoku University in Japan visited UA and the Department of Chemistry as part of their science education tour, which also included stops at Stanford and MIT. Dr. Masaaki Yoshifuji, professor emeritus at Tohoku University and adjunct professor of chemistry at UA, was instrumental in bringing these distinguished guests to Alabama.
  • UA press release
  • Group photo of the visitors
• A paper entitled, "Characterization and comparison of hydrophilic and hydrophobic room temperature ionic liquids incorporating the imidazolium cation," from the Rogers' group was the 5th most accessed article in 2005 in Green Chemistry.

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February 2006

• Dr. Arunava Gupta and co-workers report an exceedingly rare example of superconductivity in a ferromagnetic material, chromium dioxide in the February 16th issue of Nature. It was generally believed that superconductivity and ferromagnetism are mutually exclusive properties, except under extreme conditions. This fundamental advance could find applications as high speed switches in computers.
  • Story in the Tuscaloosa News
• Research from the department has twice been cited recently in the Newscripts section of Chemical and Engineering News. In the February 6th issue, a paper by Dr. Robin Rogers and coworkers on the dissolution of bananas in ILs was highlighted. A presentation made by Dr. Joe Thrasher at Pacifichem in Hawaii was highlighted in the February 20th issue of Chemical and Engineering News. In a talk on the preparation of SF₅NO₂, Dr. Thrasher mentioned the possibility of using this compound to terraform Mars, which attracted the attention of Newscripts.
• Four Chemistry graduate students were awarded travel awards by the Graduate School to attend the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta in March. Those receiving awards were:
  • Lucas Moore - Dr. Shaughnessy
  • Justin P'Pool - Dr. Shaughnessy
  • Ryan Bennett - Dr. Vincent
  • Vishal Warke - Dr. Bakker

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January 2006

• On Friday January 20th, 2006 Dr. M. V. "Lakshmi" Lakshmikantham, Senior Research Scientist, Emerita, passed away. As she had wished, she passed away peacefully at her home in the company of her husband, "Jaji" Sadasivan, her son Raju and daughter-in-law, her cousin from Huntsville, and a former student. Dr. Lydia Saris-Mecklenburg, who was visiting from Florida. Her daughter called from Chennai/Madras, where she lives with her husband and daughter Mira. The dynamic duo of Dr. Mike Cava and Lakshmi worked together for four decades, and contributed mightily to natural products synthesis, chalcogen chemistry (BEDT-TTF), and unimolecular rectifiers. Had she not gone to Australia and the United States in the 1960s, Lakshmi could have been a mighty Professor in India, but she was born probably twenty years too soon for that to happen. What India lost, synthetic organic chemistry world-wide has gained. Lakshmi published about 160 scientific papers by herself, and is a co-author of a large fraction of the 454 scientific papers that Mike has published. Dr. Lakshmi has left a huge gap in our hearts: she was gutsy, innovative, organized, with a heart of gold. We will miss her drive, her enthusiasm, her heart of gold, her humor, her culture, and her humanity. Lakshmi had an enduring faith in God: her Hindu beliefs were truly embracing, universal, "catholic" in the Greek sense that all faiths are one (kath'olos). In the best of Brahmin tradition, she believed in the beauty of the Nature that God created: she dealt with the chemistry of it. (Thanks to Robert Metzger for this tribute to Lakshmi).
• Jacob Batson and Kevin O'Halloran, participants in the 2005 SURP program, have been awarded travel grants by the NSF to attend the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta in March. Jacob worked with Dr. Vincent and Kevin worked with Dr. Shaughnessy.

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