The Carnegie Mellon Chemist CHEMISTRY ALUMNI NEWSLETTER •••• CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY January 1999 Chemistry Undergrads John A. Pople Awarded Richard M. Cyert Nobel Chemistry Prize 1998 Graduating Class We are The word that John Pople re- Richard M. Cyert made seminal pleased to report that twenty five ceived the 1998 Nobel Prize in contributions to the development of students received undergraduate Chemistry will surely have reached Carnegie Mellon as we know it today. degrees in Chemistry in the May most of our Alumni by now. As they These were remembered in a Memo- 1998 commencement. Eight of will know, the work cited by the Nobel rial Service on the campus on Nov. 9 these graduated with University Prize Committee was done while in McConomy Auditorium. Cyert Honors, and four received MCS John was a member of the CMU De- succumbed to a long illness on Oct. Honors. Seven were inducted into partment of Chemistry from 1964 7, at the age of 77. Speakers at the the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society through 1993. The Prize was shared service included President Jared L. and six into Phi Kappa Phi.The com- with Walter Kohn, who did part of the Cohon, daughter Martha Cyert, and mencement was the first for Presi- work cited while in the Department of current and past members of the fac- dent Cohon, and also the first in the Physics of CMU, before he joined ulty and administration who had setting of Gesling Stadium. Con- the University of California at Santa worked with Cyert. President Cohon struction of Purnell Center, the new Barbara in 1960. The Nobel Prize ci- remarked that "It is fair to say that no Fine Arts building on the 'Cut' next to tation states that "John Pople is re- single person had more to do with Warner Hall, and across from the Uni- warded for developing computational the development and rise of Carne- versity Center, made it impossible to methods making possible the theo- gie Mellon than Dr. Cyert" and that erect the tent used in recent com- retical study of molecules, their "the university's growth under Cyert mencements. Fortunately, the properties and how they act together was at a pace and at a level that's un- weather was good, and the event in chemical reactions." These meth- precedented in higher education." went off very well. The Departmental ods are based on the fundamental Cyert began his 50-year career at Diploma Presentation Exercise was laws of quantum mechanics as de- Carnegie Mellon in 1948 as an eco- held in the University Club in Oak- fined by, among others, the physicist nomics instructor. He eventually be- land, for the first time. This provided E. Schrödinger. A computer is fed came Professor of Economics and an elegant venue for the Exercise, with the particulars of a molecule or a Industrial Administration, Dean of and a great buffet luncheon for stu- chemical reaction and the output is a GSIA, and then, in 1972, the sixth dents and their guests following the description of the properties of that President of CMU, a position he held presentation of the diplomas. molecule or how a chemical reaction for 18 years until his "retirement" to Ten of the students plan to enter may take place. The result is often President Emeritus in 1990. As graduate school, including: UC Ber- used to illustrate or explain the might have been expected, Dick re- keley, UC Davis, USC, UCLA, Continued on p. 4 ☞ mained very active in consulting, Continued on p. 3 ☞ etc., after retirement, heading the Carnegie Bosch Institute. Carnegie Mellon Page 2 Department of Chemistry The Department Head's Column Faculty Profiles It is a great pleasure to address the Alumni on behalf of the faculty of This issue features profiles of two of the Department, and to inform you of some of the activities in the De- our long-time members: partment over the last year. First, I am pleased to say that in announc- ing my appointment last July, President Cohon and Dean Henry made Paul J. Karol it clear that the Department has the backing of the University to con- has been a member of the Chemistry tinue to build the Department along the directions in its Strategic Plan, Department faculty for nearly thirty and that the future of the Department is truly exciting, with a unique years. A former winner of the col- opportunity to continue to build on the tradition of excellence set forth lege's science teaching award, he cur- by our faculty, students, and alumni. The Department's Strategic Plan rently is committed to developing a provides for faculty recruiting to continue our areas of excellence, and multimedia approach to the first se- to expand into additional directions. It is strongly influenced by the mester introductory chemistry course. Strategic Plan for the University, and includes plans to develop addi- He also chaired a university task force tional interactions with other units of the University, both in MCS and on the broad issue of technology en- CIT, in ways to benefit both undergraduate and graduate programs. hanced learning for consideration in It has been an unbelievable year for the Department. John Pople, the university's strategic planning. who was here for 30 years, won the Nobel Prize (you will find more in- After returning from a year at the formation on John Pople in this edition), Krzysztof Matyjaszewski was Laboratory for Nuclear Physics of the installed as the Warner Professor of Chemistry, Terry Collins was rec- University of Padua in Legnaro, Italy, ognized for his work in Green Chemistry, the Graduate Program in he served as chair of the ACS Division Polymer Science received top-10 ranking from US News and World of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology Report, David Yaron's educational web site, Iridium, received a top10 and also served as chair of the Com- citation, and the R. K. Mellon Foundation made a $11 million grant to mission on Nuclear and Radiochemi- support the undergraduate laboratory project. Additional grants in- cal Techniques of IUPAC (Interna- clude $1.6 million for education programs in Chemistry and Biological tional Union of Pure and Applied Sciences from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, for a total of $4.3 Chemistry). Prof. Karol, a long- million since 1989, a five-year award for $650,000 for an undergraduate standing member of the ACS Commit- program in Computational Chemistry and Biology from Merck and Co. tee on Nomenclature, has been Inc., and a grant for outreach programs for K-12 students and teachers Continued on p. 6 ☞ given by a local anonymous foundation. The Center for Macromolecu- lar Engineering was founded by Kris Matyjaszewski has close to $2 mil- Robert F. Stewart lion of external funding and 11 corporate sponsors. The Department joined the Department in 1967 as As- hopes to secure funding for an Institute for Green Oxidation Chemistry sistant Professor of Chemistry after a centered around the work of Terry Collins. previous position as a Junior Fellow in Some of the other awards received by our faculty recently are sum- the Mellon Institute. His research has marized elsewhere in this edition. Also, many of our faculty are invited explored theoretical models of x-ray speakers at international conferences, organize international confer- and neutron scattering for the eluci- ences, and are on the editorial boards of prestigious chemistry journals; dation of electrostatic properties almost 1/3 of our faculty serve on editorial boards. based on accurate, relative cross- As you have read in the past editions, the Department has strength- section data from diffraction experi- ened its infrastructure through grants and help from the University. ments. Applications of these theories The Department expects to add up to 10 new faculty members. We can be carried out by a suite of com- currently have an offer to a senior theoretical chemist and have puter codes, most of which were de- searches for a polymer physical chemist at the senior level and a junior veloped here. The latest version, bioinorganic chemist. Next year we will search for an organic chemist. VALRAY98, has been distributed to The Department has the full support of the administration for such a several x-ray diffraction laboratories in vigorous hiring program. The Department's hiring is well-integrated into Europe on a trial basis. The properties the University Strategic Plan. The planning activity last fall was highly include electrical field gradients, elec- successful at bringing various Departments and Colleges together to trical force fields, electrostatic poten- learn about the broader CMU community, and promote research and tials, and mean thermal self-energies educational initiatives through cross-university connections. in a crystal. Both molecular and crys- talline features of the charge density Richard D. McCullough and Laplacian of the electron density Chemistry Faculty: G. D. Patterson Resident Emeriti can be extracted with these programs. B. A. Armitage P. J. Karol L. A. Peteanu A. A. Bothner-By In addition, all properties can be ap- G. C. Berry H. J. Kim S. W. Staley E. F. Casassa T. J. Collins M. Llinás R. F. Stewart A. A. Caretto Jr. praised with attendant standard devia- S. T. Graul K. Matyjaszewski K. H. Stump J. Dadok tions. Recently, inelastic, coherent M. P. Hendrich R. D. McCullough C. H. Van Dyke R. L. Kay M. Kaplan E. Münck D. Yaron T. P. Kohman neutron scattering data have been Continued on p. 6 ☞ Carnegie Mellon Page 3 Department of Chemistry Chemistry Undergrads large lecture classes. The Chemistry order to rectify this state of affairs, Continued from page 1 courses being offered are: G.C.