Diverse, Multi-Disciplinary Collaboratives Key to Successful
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DECEMBER 2014 CHEM news DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY NEWSLETTER Inside this issue… Diverse, multi-disciplinary collaboratives key to If today’s researchers Instrumentation 3 are going to successfully Facility successful research tackle some of society’s most complex and 10National Historic important human Chemical Landmark health, energy and Celebration environmental problems, they need to draw on diverse expertise by Student Honors 12 collaborating with other university researchers Long-Time Employees and leading industrial 16 partners. Professor Erin Carlson explains her research during the departmental tours for the National Historic Chemical Landmark celebration in September. Promotions 18 Researchers in the Department of Chemistry Critical to the success of the centers is the unique have recently been extraordinarily successful in collegial and highly collaborative culture and obtaining national funding for such collabora- climate fostered in the College of Science & Faculty & Staff Honors tions through the establishment of major research Engineering (CSE), which supports and facilitates 20 centers. departments working and growing together. “Some of the very best science is done when Over the past two years, Department of Chemistry Donors researchers with diverse backgrounds and perspec- researchers have received more than $63 million 22 tives work together to tackle the most challenging from the Department of Energy (DOE) and problems,” said Professor William Tolman, chair National Science Foundation (NSF) for major re- of the Department of Chemistry. search centers that involve University of Minnesota continued on page 6 message from the CHAIR CHEM news Building upon our history DECEMBER 2014 We stand on the shoulders of others DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY CHAIR in our work, dreams, and aspirations, William Tolman and sometimes it’s important to EDITOR Eileen Harvala recognize this in a way that is both Department of Chemistry fitting and inspirational. College of Science & Engineering Chair William Tolman University of Minnesota Smith Hall In an exciting special event this fall, the the central science as well as the outstanding per- 207 Pleasant St. S.E. American Chemical Society and the University formance of our instructors. Notably, last year, Minneapolis, MN 55455 of Minnesota recognized the contributions of approximately 6,800 students in 138 undergrad- The Department of Chemistry is dedicated to Izaak Maurits “Piet” Kolthoff to the field of ana- uate majors enrolled in 17 chemistry labora- providing a world-class education through its classroom and laboratory teaching; and creating lytical chemistry as a National Historic Chemical tory courses in 111 individual sections. These new scientific knowledge through research aimed Landmark, and the centennial of Smith Hall, students came from across a wide swath of the at solving some of society’s most important human which was erected in 1913, and named after Lee University, including the College of Liberal Arts health, energy, and environmental problems. Irvin Smith. Huge crowds enjoyed the festivities, (35 percent), College of Science & Engineering This publication is available in alternative formats upon request. Direct requests to Eileen Harvala which included tours of the department, a sym- (26 percent), College of Biological Sciences (18 at 612-624-0831 or [email protected]. posium by distinguished scientists from widely percent), and College of Food, Agricultural and The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity disparate backgrounds, and a memorable per- Natural Resource Sciences (10 percent), with the educator and employer. The University’s mission, sonal recollection of Piet by Professor Pete Carr. remaining distributed in smaller numbers from carried out on multiple campuses and throughout the state, is threefold: research and discovery, These events reinforced the notion that through eight other colleges. teaching and learning, and outreach and recognition and understanding of our shared public service. Recognizing the significance of the experiential history, we best position ourselves to shape the learning that occurs in our laboratory courses © 2014 Regents of the University of Minnesota. future of our society through scientific research All rights reserved. and the need to improve the quality of our and educating the leaders of tomorrow. facilities, the Board of Regents approved the As you will see in this issue of our annual establishment of a Teaching Laboratory Building newsletter, the future of the Department of in the latest six-year capital plan. This will Chemistry is looking ever brighter. A paradigm allow us to modernize and relocate the current shift in the way that research is organized and teaching laboratories to the new building as well funded is underway, in which multi-investigator as provide much needed renovation and critical teams funded through large center grants work safety improvements to research laboratories Stay in Touch to solve challenging, multi-faceted problems. and associated facilities in 100-year-old Smith The uniquely collaborative environment at the Hall. In addition, we will be able to increase Visit our website at University of Minnesota has been key to the re- our number of faculty in order to teach the very www.chem.umn.edu cent establishment of several such centers, which large and growing number of undergraduate have secured an astounding amount of federal students enrolling in our courses and to lead our funding (more than $60 million). In addition, cutting-edge research efforts. We look forward improvements to our instrumentation infra- with great excitement to these major changes. Join our Facebook group structure are critical for research success, and As we embark on future efforts, we cannot help we are fortunate to have top-notch facilities led but be inspired by those who came before us. by outstanding scientists. The stories about our The legacy of predecessors Kolthoff and Smith new centers and our facilities in this issue paint a that we just celebrated is a superb foundation on Follow us at Twitter picture of exciting growth and dynamic activity. which to grow. Student enrollments in our classes have reached new highs, attesting to the role of chemistry as Join the Chemistry Department group on LinkedIn 2 CHEM news December 2014 LeClaire-Dow Instrumentation Facility critical to university researchers Nestled on the first floor of Kolthoff Hall is one of the most sophisticated, specialized instrumentation facilities on the University of Minnesota campus. The LeClaire-Dow Instrumentation their research groups use the facility, Facility houses the Mass Spectrometry and 50 researchers from other depart- Laboratory (MSL), the Nuclear Magnetic ments such as Biochemistry, Molecular Resonance (NMR) laboratory, and the X-Ray Biology and Biophysics, Food Science Crystallographic Laboratory (XCL). These and Nutrition, Biomedical Engineering, laboratories annually support hundreds of Chemical Engineering & Materials Victor Young Jr., Ph.D. researchers in the Department of Chemistry, Science, Medicinal Chemistry, across the university, and from other institu- Pharmaceutics, and Veterinary Medicine, and Victor Young Jr., Ph.D. tions and industries. Most of the equipment is the Medical School employ the facility for Education: Doctorate from Arizona state-of-the-art and some recent infrastructure analysis or research collaboration. State University, bachelor’s degree from grants will replace aging equipment. Working with Dalluge, these research collab- Spring Arbor College in Michigan orations have resulted in eight peer-reviewed Post-Doctoral Research: Arizona State articles published the past year. In addition, University more than 20 industrial clients use the instru- Each of these facilities are Employment: Development and mentation. directed by highly trained, Testing Engineer II for Chrysler Since Dalluge started with the department Corporation; Visiting Scientist at the doctorate-holding chemists in 2009, he has expanded the breadth of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Staff equipment and services provided by the MSL, who are specialists in their Crystallographer in the Department of making it one of the premier facilities of its Chemistry at Iowa State University; and fields. kind in the country. Its capabilities range from Research Associate, Senior Research classical chemical characterization techniques Associate and, since 1995, Director of to leading edge MS and 2D imaging and the X-Ray Crystallographic Laboratory advanced metabolite profiling. since 1995 Each of these facilities are directed by highly trained, doctorate-holding chemists who are The recent acquisition of two mass spectrome- Professional affiliations: American specialists in their fields. Joseph Dalluge is ters was made possible through grants awarded Crystallographic Association, and director of the MSL, Letitia Yao is director of in 2013. The first is an Applied Biosystems- Neutron Scattering Society of America the NMR lab, and Victor Young Jr. is director Sciex 5800 MALDI-TOF/TOF mass Publications/Presentations/Patents: of the XCL. spectrometer funded by a National Science More than 40 presentations and 257 Foundation Major Research Instrumentation publications, workshops for local Mass Spectrometry Laboratory grant awarded to Professor Michael Bowser, university and college faculty members principal investigator, and Dalluge, co-prin- and their students to introduce them to The Mass Spectrometry Laboratory is highly cipal investigator.