Miami University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Newsletter December 2007

A Note from the Chair

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

The past year marked another year of major changes and great accomplishments by the department and our faculty and students. As described later in this letter, Drs. Scott Hartley and Hong Wang joined our department this fall as assistant professors. Dr. Heeyoung Tai, who had been serving the department as a visiting assistant professor, was appointed as a lecturer, and two major laboratory renovations were completed. Laboratory space on the third floor was renovated for Scott to accommodate his research program in nanotechnology. More impressive was the year-long conversion of the basement and first floor of Brill Science Library into a high field magnetic resonance laboratory and research space for Mike Kennedy and his group. On November 14 the University celebrated the opening of Mike Kennedy’s structural biology facility. In addition to the ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate the facility, we had a full day of symposium speakers that came from around the country to share in our “Big Day”. We concluded the event with a banquet at the Oxford Community Arts Center.

We had another great class of incoming Chemistry and Biochemistry majors, and our current majors continue to distinguish themselves with large numbers of scholarships and recognition. Our incoming class included two Harrison Scholars and twenty-two students who were accepted into the Honors Program. The accomplishments of some of our returning students can be found later in this letter. This fall the department was fortunate to receive a grant from the NSF to award scholarships to recruit new Chemistry and Biochemistry majors, so I expect that I’ll have even more good news to report in the future.

The Department had the opportunity to host another group of prominent chemists and biochemists as part of our seminar series. It was a great pleasure to welcome Dr. James Gord back to the department as a College of Arts and Science Alumni Speaker. Jim, who received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1986, is currently a Principle Research Chemist with the Combustion Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Directorate. In addition to meeting with our faculty and students, Jim presented two seminars on his work using lasers to probe the chemistry that occurs in propulsion systems. Professor Richard Zare, Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University, was our 2007 Ritter Lecturer. Dr. Zare presented two seminars “Learning How to Innovate” and “Thermal Lensing as an Analysis Detection System” and spent two days interacting with our students and faculty.

I would like to thank those of you who have generously contributed to the department over the past year. You have donated money, given your time to speak to our students, and helped recruit potential students to attend Miami. Your monetary donations helped provide undergraduate and graduate scholarships to support our best students, supported our seminar program, and allowed me to provide funds for our students to present the results of their work at scientific conferences. Your contributions are helping to improve our program. Thank you from all of us within the Department.

If you are interested in supporting the department’s efforts to enhance educational and research opportunities for the next generation of chemists and biochemists, please contact Evan Lichtenstein or Renee Sauerland in the Foundation Office at 513-529-1263 or 513-529-6054, or send your contributions, made out to Miami University, to the following address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, c/o Evan Lichtenstein, Miami University, Division of University Advancement, 725 E. Chestnut Street, Oxford, OH 45056.

Best Wishes and Happy Holidays!

Chris Makaroff
Professor and Chair

Faculty News
Jim Cox, Gil Pacey, and Shouzhong Zou were part of a consortium that was awarded a $28M Ohio Third Frontier Wright Center for Innovation Grant to establish the Institute for Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology (IDCAST). Gil and Shouzhong were also co-PIs on an NSF grant for a new high-resolution TEM.
	Scott Hartley joined the faculty as assistant professor this fall. Scott received his Ph.D. at Queen’s University and was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois prior to joining our department. Scott’s research involves using the tools of organic synthesis, physical organic chemistry, and materials science to design, construct, and study relatively large (nanoscale) organic molecules for applications in supramolecular and molecular electronics. He is particularly interested in materials that assemble into functional bulk and solution-phase nanostructures through pi-stacking, including new liquid crystalline phases and solution-phase nanowires.
	Hong Wang joined the faculty as assistant professor this fall. Hong received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from The University of California, Davis, and was a postdoctoral research associate at Stanford University and then The Scripps Research Institute before she joined our department. Her interests lie at the interface of organic, inorganic, and biological chemistry. Hong’s research involves application-directed molecule design and synthesis, including the development of catalysts for important organic and biologically relevant reactions. Projects in her lab include: Peptide-based asymmetric catalysis, the generation of porphyrin-based supramolecules for solar energy conversion, and the development of inhibitors of the Hepatitis C virus protease as potential therapeutic agents. Hong and Scott are both currently teaching organic chemistry classes.
	Stacey Lowery Bretz was awarded a $1.3M grant from the NSF to support doctoral students in Chemical Education Research (CER). The project will help prepare CER scholars and will provide opportunities for partnering between Miami and K-12 teachers to design chemistry classrooms and labs.
	Gary Lorigan was awarded a $1.4M grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop new spectroscopic methods for probing the structure of membrane proteins. Gary was also the PI on an NSF funded grant along with Mike Crowder, Mike Kennedy, Joe Zhou, and Chris Makaroff to purchase a pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer to study membrane and protein structures.
	Joe Zhou was tenured and promoted to associate professor last year. Joe was recently awarded a $1.4M grant from the Department of Energy to develop new hydrogen storage materials. This was one of only six projects funded by the DOE as part of President Bush’s Hydrogen Storage Initiative.