Hemistry N E W S L E T T E R
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University of Michigan Chemistry N E W S L E T T E R Letter from the Chair I am pleased to send greetings and to fullerene, was a very engaging keynote Contents highlight the activities of the Chemistry speaker for this event. Before his talk, the Department this past year. The Depart- Department was awarded a 2006 Citation Letter from the Chair ........................ 1 ment is continuing to make enormous for Chemical Breakthroughs from the Di- New Faculty ..................................... 3 strides towards accomplishing its goal of vision of the History of Chemistry of the becoming one of the top Chemistry De- American Chemical Society in recognition Faculty News.................................... 4 partments in the nation. The most recent of work by Moses Gomberg. Additionally, I 150th Birthday ...................................4 US News and World Report ranking of have enjoyed meeting departmental alumni Graduate Program News Chemistry Departments listed Michigan and alumnae as well as prospective faculty as 16th in the nation; the analytical cluster candidates at the University of Michigan Graduate Awards .......................... 7 was ranked 9th, biochemistry 13th, organic reception that is held at every American Graduate Degrees........................ 10 th th 13 , and inorganic 15 . These are the Chemical Society National meeting. Please GS Council News .........................12 highest rankings for these clusters in many plan on attending this reception at the next years. We anticipate that our standing in ACS meeting. Undergraduate Program News the community will continue to rise, in REU Program ...............................12 Over the past year the department has view of the tremendous success that we recruited Dr. Anne McNeil, an outstand- Undergraduate Awards ................ 14 have had in recruiting outstanding faculty ing assistant professor, and Dr. Charles members and graduate students to the pro- Undergraduate Degrees .............. 15 Brooks, Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert gram. You will see accolades to the faculty Gifts ................................................. 16 Professor. Dr. Anne McNeil received her and students throughout this newsletter. Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry Alumni News ..................................17 Additionally, the ongoing support of the and Chemical Biology at Cornell Uni- Chemistry Department by the alumni and In Memoriam ..................................18 versity working with Professor David B. alumnae provides a tremendous boost to Collum where she received both a Teaching President’s Challenge ..................... 19 our efforts to enhance our research and Excellence Award and the Tunis Wentik Faculty Listing .................................22 teaching missions. award. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Alumni Reply The Chemistry Department is interested the laboratory of Professor Timothy M. Form ................. inside back cover in continuing to strengthen contacts with Swager in the Chemistry Department at alumni and alumnae. To this end, we or- the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- ganized an alumni event this past spring ogy where she was awarded the L’Oreal to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the USA Fellowship for Women in Science. establishment of a Chemistry laboratory Dr. McNeil’s training is at the interface of 2007 at the University of Michigan. Professor physical organic and materials chemistry. Harold Kroto, awarded the 1996 Nobel In her postdoctoral research she developed Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of novel conjugated polymers with arene The Regents of the University of Michigan: Julia Donovan Darlow, Laurence B. Deitch, Olivia P. Maynard, Rebecca McGowan, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andrew C. Richner, S. Martin Taylor, Katherine E. White, Mary Sue Coleman, ex President’s Challenge for Graduate Fellowship Support offi cio. Mary Sue Coleman, president. The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affi rmative see pg 19 action employer. 2007 U-M DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY sandwich structures that have promise as faculty at Carnegie Mellon University and is having a large scientifi c impact. potential fl uorescent sensors and in other in 1985 where he rose through the ranks Professor Sension is also a dedicated optoelectronic applications. At the Uni- to become professor in 1994. That same educator who has distinguished herself versity of Michigan she plans to continue year, he moved his research group to the by her curricular work and her work on a studying organic materials, including a famous Scripps Research Institute in La textbook for the computational chemistry novel gel amplifi cation mechanism with Jolla, California. Professor Brooks has lab course. Finally, Professor Sension potential applications in sensing, devel- made outstanding contributions to the has contributed enormous service to the oping new catalysts for effi cient polymer development of a most commonly used Chemistry Department, the University synthesis, and a nanoparticle based organic simulation program, CHARMM. He has of Michigan and the Chemical Physics solar cell. Her proposed research has ap- over 290 publications and is also co-author community nationally, including serv- plications that interface with the Michigan with M. Karplus and B. M. Pettitt of the ing on the Division of Chemical Physics Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute which well-known book Proteins: A Theoretical Executive Committee of the American contributed funds to help recruit Dr. Mc- Perspective on Dynamics, Structure and Physical Society, organizing symposia for Neil to the University of Michigan. Dr. Thermodynamics. Over his distinguished the International Laser Science confer- McNeil is an important addition to the career, he has received numerous awards, ence and the American Physical Society Department’s research effort in materials including being elected Fellow of the and serving as an Associate Editor of the and organic chemistry. American Association for the Advance- Virtual Journal of Ultrafast Science and ment of Science, receipt of the 1997 Com- a Member of the Advisory Board of the We are very pleased to announce that puterworld Smithsonian Institute Award, Journal of Physical Chemistry. Professor Charles Brooks has decided and being appointed Senior Fellow at the to move to the University of Michigan The Department’s educational activities San Diego Supercomputer Center, also in starting January 1, 2008, as the Parke- continue to thrive. Overall, the numbers of 1997. He is the North American Editor for Davis/Warner-Lambert Professor of majors in chemistry and biochemistry is the Journal of Computational Chemistry, Chemistry and Professor of Biophysics. holding strong, as evidenced elsewhere in is a member of numerous editorial boards Professor Brooks is one of the world’s this newsletter, by degrees awarded. The and serves as Director of the Center for leaders in computational molecular bio- College has recently approved our request the Development of Multi-Scale Model- physics and is a pioneer in the area of to institute fi ve minors to accompany our ing Tools for Structural Biology, an NIH computational studies of protein folding concentration programs in chemistry and National Research Resource which will and dynamics. Professor Brooks received biochemistry, specifi cally in the areas of be moving with him to the University his doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry chemistry, biochemistry, chemical phys- of Michigan. Recruitment of Professor from Purdue University. From there, he ics, chemical measurement science and Brooks to Michigan is a big step forward in did postdoctoral work with Professor polymer chemistry. The minors are not our ongoing efforts to build a world-class Martin Karplus at Harvard, focusing on open to students already concentrating in theoretical chemistry group. theoretical and computational biophysics. chemistry or biochemistry. This responds Following that, he joined the chemistry In the past year two faculty members to a growing interest among undergradu- from the Chemistry Department have been ates to pursue cross-disciplinary and promoted from Associate Professor with interdisciplinary areas. Professor Neil Department of Chemistry tenure to Professor with tenure: E. Neil G. Marsh has developed a new, one-semester Marsh and Roseanne Sension. Professor biochemistry laboratory course that we Newsletter Marsh has gained both national and interna- hope to integrate fully into the department is published once a year by the Department tional recognition in the area of mechanistic within the year. of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, enzymology as well as branching out into Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 Interest in international experiences is a new research area, protein design, which increasing, and science students want to is an important, emerging discipline of be a part of this. The response to our pilot Chemical Biology. He is an outstanding program for undergraduate research ex- and creative researcher, a dedicated mentor change with Peking University (PKU) has and teacher and an important contributor been extremely good, and we are seeking Printed on Recycled Paper to the excellence of the Chemistry Depart- funding to increase the size of the group ment. Professor Marsh served as co-Chair of students that can be supported. Because of the Bioorganic Gordon Conference and there are chemistry courses at PKU that Chair: Carol A. Fierke was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society are taught completely in English, Profes- Editor: Robert Kuczkowski,