Est. 1953. NO. 49 2005 Badger Chemist THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN –MADISON C H E M I S T R Y DEPARTMENT CONTENTS From the Chair . 1 Current Chemistry News . 2 Our Awards . 9 New Badger Chemists. 11 Other Notable News. 13 Institute for Chemical Education . 16 The ACS Chemluminary Celebration. 18 Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy. 20 Journal of Chemical Education. 23 This ‘n’ That . 25 Chemistry Department Support . 27 Donors to Department Funds. 31 In Memoriam. 34 2005 BADGER CHEMIST Matthew Sanders Editor Est. 1953 NO. 49 Designed by the Instructional Media Development Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison Linda Endlich 2005 Art Direction Katie Drapp & Candice Heberer Production Assistance From the Chair January 2006 Dear Badger Chemists, I am now well into my second year as Chair of the Chemistry Department. I am grateful for the strong support the Department has received from the College of Letters and Science, and for the support I have received from my colleagues in the Department. As a result my eighteen months as Chair have been rewarding (and stimulating and busy!). The Badger Chemist, under the exceptional editorship of our Executive Director, Matt Sanders, is a wonderful vehicle for communicating our activities to alumni and friends. This issue of the Badger Chemist highlights our activities of the 2004-05 academic year, and indeed, there were many! On the teaching front, we continue to make significant efforts to excel. These efforts include training TAs in the fall, mentoring new faculty, and securing federal funding for research in education. Some of our successes were celebrated at our annual Teaching Awards Ceremony in January 2005, at which we presented Outstanding TA awards to six graduate students, and the James W. Taylor Excellence in Teaching Award to Rodney Schreiner. In addition, faculty members Marty Zanni and Clark Landis received university-wide teaching awards. I am continually proud of the very substantial outreach and service activities in our Department. Many of the former are organized and implemented by our own Wisconsin Institute for Scientific Literacy (WISL), directed by Bassam Shakhashiri, and Institute for Chemical Education (ICE), directed by John Moore. In the service arena, John Moore, Laura Kiessling, and Bob McMahon serve as editors of the Journal of Chemical Education, ACS Chemical Biology, and the Journal of Organic Chemistry, respectively. In addition, Fleming Crim has been Chair of the ACS Committee on Professional Training, and Chuck Casey has been ACS President. Our research enterprise is thriving, as evidenced by the near-record number of graduate students in our program, and the excellent success rates of obtaining federal grants. Last year we were fortunate to have hired three outstanding new assistant professors, Tehshik Yoon, Joshua Coon, and Frank Keutsch, in the areas of synthetic organic, bio-analytical mass spectrometry, and environmental/atmospheric chemistry, respectively. We are also fortunate to be able to make offers again this year, and will do so shortly in the areas of inorganic, materials, and organic chemistry. These are difficult financial times for the University of Wisconsin, as we are still trying to recover from recent budget cuts. As a result we as a Department must rely more and more on our own resources. This issue of the Badger Chemist lists various trust funds and departmental accounts set up and maintained by the UW Foundation to which you can contribute if you are so inclined. We are all truly grateful for your past and future generosity. The next few months promise to be stimulating and busy, as we put together faculty offers, and begin the graduate student recruiting process once again. We hope that your scientific pursuits continue to be rewarding. Keep in touch! Jim Skinner Chair, Department of Chemistry [email protected] BADGER CHEMIST Current Chemistry News ARRIVALS dynamics of water clusters. As a research joined the faculty associate in Jim Anderson’s group at Har- in July 2005 as a Josh Coon began his appointment as vard, he worked in atmospheric chemistry new assistant pro- an Assistant Professor of Chemistry this Au- developing and using high-altitude in situ fessor. His research gust. Josh did his undergraduate studies at aircraft instruments for studies of chemistry interests span or- Central Michi- and transport in the lower stratosphere. ganic synthesis, gan University His research group in Madison is focused reaction discovery, (1994–1998, on questions related to climate change and and mechanistic Mt. Pleasant, tropospheric chemistry. The research is in analysis, but the MI) with a ma- part motivated by the question “What im- central focus of his jor in Chemistry pact will the existing industrialized nations, group is the devel- Tehshik Yoon and a minor in such as the US, and the rapidly growing opment of new catalysts that can control Anthropology. economies, such as China and India, have the relative and absolute stereochemistry Immediately fol- on tropospheric pollution chemistry and of small, highly functionalized organic lowing gradua- on regional and global climate?” The group molecules. This research is motivated not Josh Coon tion he moved is integrating state-of-the-art spectroscopic only by the need for new, more efficient, to Gainesville, Florida and attended gradu- methods into compact portable field more selective, and more environmentally ate school in the Department of Chemistry instrumentation for in situ measurement responsible methods for molecule construc- at the University of Florida (1998–2002, of atmospheric species. These measure- tion in pharmaceutical science, chemical bi- Willard Harrison). After finishing his ments will subsequently be incorporated ology, and materials science, but also by the Ph.D., he moved to Charlottesville, Vir- into models to desire to discover interesting new catalysts ginia and began working as an NIH-NRSA test and improve with fundamentally novel modes of activity. Post-Doctoral Fellow with Donald Hunt at our current un- the University of Virginia. In July of 2005 derstanding of an- Josh and his wife, Heather Coon, moved thropogenic and FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS to Madison. The Coon research group will natural emissions develop mass spectrometry-based technol- of greenhouse Helen Blackwell was awarded both ogy to characterize proteins, from a variety gases and tropo- an NSF CAREER Award and a Research of biological sources, on a global-scale. To spheric chemistry Corporation Cottrell Scholar Award in 2005 do this they are exploring reactions of gas- both in urban and Frank Keutsch for her research and teaching efforts in or- phase peptide/protein cations with small- remote areas. ganic chemistry and chemical biology. She molecule anions for rapid whole protein is using the awards to fund her expanding Matt Martin joined the ranks of the sequencing on a sub-second time-scale. research program in the area of bacterial Instrument Makers in May 2005. Matt is With automation, these reactions, followed communication pathways and to assist in a recent graduate of the 2-year Industrial by mass spectrometric analysis, have great her redevelopment of the Chemistry 346 Maintenance program at MATC. Prior to potential to allow rapid and direct charac- curriculum, the department’s intermediate that, he had been employed as a Senior terization of whole proteomes (the protein organic chemistry lab course. Engineering Technician at Planar Systems complement expressed by the genome of in Lake Mills, WI. an organism). Thomas Brunold finished in 5th place in the September 2004 Wisconsin Iron- Tehshik Yoon‘s graduate career was Frank Keutsch joined the faculty in more eventful than most. He began his man Competition held in Madison. This August 2005 as a new assistant profes- graduate education at Caltech under the event is one of the most grueling in the sor. He received his Diploma in chemistry mentorship of Erick Carreira, but when world – 2.4 miles of swimming, followed from the Technische Universität München, Carreira accepted a job at the ETH in Zürich by 112 miles of cycling, then a 26.2 mile Germany in 1997, under the supervision of two years later, Tehshik elected to move to run. Thomas finished in 9:12:29, beating Vladimir E. Bondybey, followed by a Ph.D. Berkeley, where he helped to start up David his performance from last year (when he in physical chemistry from the University MacMillan’s fledgling research group. Two finished 8th) by 20 minutes. He was the top of California at Berkeley in 2001, under the years after that, MacMillan was offered a local finisher. Thomas also won the Madi- direction of Richard J. Saykally (PhD ’77, position at Caltech, from which Tehshik son Marathon in May 2005, with a time of Woods). His graduate research focused on ultimately earned his Ph.D. After a postdoc 2 hours, 31 minutes, 17 seconds; he had the hydrogen-bond-breaking and tunneling with Eric Jacobsen at Harvard, Tehshik come in second the previous two years. 2 BADGER CHEMIST Robert Kirchdoerfer, an undergradu- featured 22 invited talks, including Nobel society at the chemistry-biology interface.” ate student working with Silvia Cavag- prize-winner John Polanyi. Bob was also Laura received the Tetrahedron Young nero, won a Hilldale Award this year, named the Irving Shain Chair of Chemistry. Investigator Award; the award was given in and a Kimberly-Clark Award for pursuing Bob organized the 2005 Physical Elec- Bordeaux France this past June. In Novem- undergraduate research. Tha Chia Thach tronics Conference here at Madison. This ber Laura traveled to Kyoto, Japan, to speak was awarded an NSF-REU fellowship Funds interdisciplinary conference was attended at RIKEN and in the Japanese Agricultural for pursuing undergraduate research in by 110 scientists with an interest in chem- and Biotechnology Meeting.