Chemistry in New Zealand April 2009 New Zealand Institute of Chemistry NZIC News supporting chemical sciences April News NEWS Senate of the University of London. NZIC News from Council New Zealand Canterbury and Otago He has chaired the Steering Commit- The first royalties from NZIC’s part- graduate, Em. Prof. Robin Clark, tee of the International Conferences on nership in the journal Physical Chem- CNZM, FRS. Hon. FRSNZ, who has Raman Spectroscopy. He visited vari- istry Chemical Physics were received been at University College London for ous centres, including the Chemistry by the Secretariat just before last many years, was the inaugural recipi- and the MacDiarmid Institute in Wel- Christmas for the 2008 year; five NZ- ent of the biennial Franklin-Lavoisier lington in February. authored manuscripts appeared. Ap- Prize of the Maison de la Chimie proved Branch grants for 2009 are: (Paris) and the Chemical Heritage NZIC AWARDS Auckland $2000, Waikato $3000, Foundation (Philadelphia). The prize Nominations for the following Manawatu $3000, Wellington $3600, was presented in late January in Paris, Canterbury $3000, Otago $3000, 2009 awards are now sought: where he addressed a special meeting Chem. Educ. Group $4000. Members of the Maison on Spectroscopy in Art Easterfield Award, will have noticed from their recent an- and Science. The name of the award is nual accounts that subscriptions for taken from Benjamin Franklin (Amer- Fonterra Prize for Applied and In- 2009 remain unchanged; please make ican statesman, inventor and scientist) dustrial Chemistry, early payment. and Antoine Lavoisier (French scien- Maurice Wilkins Prize for Chemical Council has been concerned about tist regarded as the father of modern Research, chemistry). moves of the New Zealand Innovation ABA Books Denis Hogan Chemical Centre in Auckland to use the acro- Education Award. nym NZIC and the potential confusion that this would create. Discussions are The closing date with the NZIC Sec- taking place and alternatives for the retariat is 30 June 2009. Details and Auckland Centre have been offered, method of nomination/application can e.g. NZCI. be found at: www.nzic.org.nz Dr Jan Wikaira has negotiated with NZIC Membership Radio NZ to broadcast casual chem- istry conversations of five minute’s Council congratulates Dr Jadranka duration. Thus, there is a need for Travas-Sejdic of the Auckland Branch chemistry communicators to become who was elected to Fellowship at the involved, as well as ideas for these and February Council meeting. longer sessions which promote chem- New Members: istry innovation. Contact Jan at: jan. [email protected] Rinaldo Azzara, Devon Britow, Ber- Robin’s research is in inorganic chem- nard C. Kimble, Johannes Reynisson, The Waikato Branch has accepted istry and spectroscopy; more recently Vijayalekshmi Sarojini and Ken Tay- Council’s invitation to host the 2010/11 on metal-metal bonded complexes, lor join the Auckland Branch; Kate conference. The organizing committee mixed-valence chemistry, infrared, Ra- Palmano to Manawatu and Aidan G. will be convened by Michèle Prinsep man and resonance Raman spectros- Young to Wellington; Nigel I. Joyce, and a 2011 date is likely. copy, matrix isolation spectroscopy, Andre Lamarque, Shazia Zaman, spectroelectrochemistry, and pigment and Neroli Ayling join the Canterbury New Zealand is Different studies mainly by Raman microscopy. Branch; and Joseph Lane and Ja- Following the article by Brian Easton This has led to the publication of more cob Shepherd have joined the Otago in The Listener (2009, Jan 24-30, 54), than 500 scientific papers, 3 books, Branch. which was effectively a review of and 36 edited books. Robin has held NZIC’s book New Zealand is Differ- visiting professorships in 11 countries New Student Members: ent, Council is keen to follow up the and has lectured at over 350 universi- Louise Stubbing (AKL), David I. renewed interest this has created. It ties and institutions in 36 countries Weller (WEL) Humphrey Feltham, has adopted production of Volume 2 throughout the world. He has served Samuel Lind and Syahidah A. Mu- as a project for the 2011 International on many national committees, includ- hammad (OTA). Year of Chemistry; chapter authors are ing the councils of the Royal Society, sought – contact the Secretariat. the Royal Institution of Great Britain, University College, London, and the 45 Chemistry in New Zealand April 2009 Chemical Education Specialist Dr. Johannes Reynisson has joined us Professor, Alison Downard has been Group from Iceland via the UK. Dr. Reynis- awarded $15,000 funding from the The NZIC Chemical Education Spe- son holds a joint appointment between Dumont d’Urville NZ/France S & T cialist Group, under the guardianship Chemistry and the Auckland Bioengi- Support Programme. This will allow of Dr Suzanne Boniface (Wellington), neering Institute as a lecturer of com- Alison and PhD student Andrew Gross now actively seeks those NZIC mem- putational chemistry and molecular to visit the Université Josef Fourier bers with interests in chemical educa- modelling. (Grenoble) to establish a collaborative tion to join the group. Please send your project with Jean-Claude Moutet and Prof Ekkehardt Hahn (Munster) gave Pierre Labbe, entitled Electrochemi- name and e-mail details to the NZIC a wonderful chemical demonstration Office: [email protected] In addi- cal quartz crystal microbalance with lecture entitled Natural Chemistry - dissipation monitoring as a new tool tion, chemistry educators who are not Reactions with Air, Mineral Water and members of the Institute may also join for studying nanostructured carbon Orange Juice last December. His lec- surfaces. Researchers from the French the specialist group and we encourage ture was sponsored by the NZ-German members to use their influence with team will also make visits to UC. Other Science Circle. Dr Don Eigler vis- promotions were Owen Curnow and their teacher colleagues to get them to ited on February 17 and spoke on The join. Paul Kruger to Associate Professor and Small Frontier focussing on the appli- Jan Wikaira to Senior Lecturer. Paul cation of Scanning Tunnelling Micro- BRANCH NEWS Kruger, featured on Nature’s chem- scopes to manipulate small structures, istry blog, The Sceptical Chymist, as AUCKLAND which he first demonstrated at IBM part of a short interview feature called with the case of individual xenon at- Reactions: (see: http://blogs.nature. The Branch AGM was held on De- oms in 1989. com/thescepticalchymist/2008/11/re- cember 9 last, a little later than usual. actions_paul_kruger.html). The speaker, Prof Andrew Waterhouse PhD student Andrew Dalebrook won (UC-Davis) was recently appointed a best poster award at the IC08 RACI/ Honorary Professor with the Universi- NZIC Inorganic Chemistry Confer- ty’s Wine Science programme and he ence in Christchurch for Syntheses addressed us on Understanding wine and reactions of iridabenzenes with oxidation. sulfur functions. Winners of the De- partment’s 2nd-year PhD student poster The Branch had two meetings in the competition last December were Cary same week of February. Firstly on Feb Lam (1st), Raoul Peltier (2nd) and Da- 18, Prof Julie MacPherson (Warwick, nae Larsen (3rd). UK), a leading expert in applications of miniature electrodes, gave a very CANTERBURY interesting talk on High resolution electrochemical imaging: building Michael Edmonds (CPIT) is the new electrodes into atomic force micros- Chairperson of the Canterbury Branch copy (AFM) tips. Then on Feb 20, Prof with Paul Kruger as Secretary and Bill Martin Banwell gave his RSC-RACI- Swallow as Treasurer. NZIC Australasian Lecturer entitled Prof Peter Steel University of Canterbury A little bit of strain can be good for Recent student successes include Jan- you: gem-dihalogenocyclopropanes as Prof Peter Steel was the recipient of Yves Ruzicka and Thomas Lechte who building blocks for chemical synthesis. the 2008 University Research Medal, have won UC Doctoral Scholarships. Both talks were very well attended, UC’s highest recognition of outstand- Francine Smith was awarded the 2009 and the audiences were complemen- ing research. Over the last 20 years Environment Canterbury Resource tary as well as complimentary. Peter has made seminal contributions Management Postgraduate Scholar- in several areas of chemistry includ- University of Auckland- Chemistry ship for research on cyanobacteria. ing organic chemistry, co-ordination Supervisor Sally Gaw has received a The Chemistry Department celebrated chemistry, organometallic chemis- grant of $10,000 from the Brian Mason 125 years on 16 December 2008. A try, and X-ray crystallography. In the Trust and the work is being undertaken large number of former staff returned past decade he has been a pioneer of in collaboration with Faradina Meri- to mark the event. metallosupramolecular chemistry. The can, a PhD student in Biology and a 2008 Applied Biosystems Award, the large, cross-disciplinary supervisory Two staff members, Jadranka Travas- premier prize of the NZ Society of group. Claire Marshall, also working Sejdik and Paul Kilmartin, were pro- Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, with Sally, won the 2009 Sadie Bal- moted to A/Prof, while Laura Nicolau was awarded to Emily Parker at the kind Scholarship from the Federation and David Barker were promoted to NZIC joint conference last December of Graduate Women. Phil Emnet, a Senior Lecturer positions. Dr. Cather (see separate report). She was also suc- UC University Prize awardee, and Kat Simpson has been