University of Michigan hemistry C N E W S L E T T E R Letter from the Chair It is a great pleasure for me to send my greetings and to take this opportunity to Contents highlight the activities of the Department this past year-my first year as Chair of the Department. Faculty and graduate student recruiting continued to be major priorities, Letter from the Chair ................... 1 and I am pleased to report that the Department once again had tremendous success on both fronts. Spotlight Profiles ........................... 2 My colleagues and I are very proud that we hired three of the most outstanding New Faculty .................................. 4 candidates in the nation this year. In February, Dr. Kristina (Kicki) Hakansson Carnegie, CSIE, Future Faculty ... 6 accepted our offer to join the Department as Assistant Professor of Analytical Chemistry. Kicki received her Ph. D. from Uppsala University in the laboratory of Faculty News .................................. 7 Professor Per Hakansson and has been a postdoctoral associate with Prof. Alan Graduate Program News ............ 7 Marshall of the Ion Cyclotron Resonance Program at the National High Magnet Field Graduate Awards ...................... 7 Laboratory at Florida St. University. Her research program at Michigan will focus on the development of electron capture dissociation techniques in Fourier transform ion Doctoral Degrees .................... 11 cyclotron resonance spectroscopy. She will apply these powerful new mass spectros- Undergraduate Program News 13 copy methods to important biological problems including protein structure determina- tion. As part of her startup package, the College, Department and Life Sciences Undergraduate Awards.......... 14 Institute have provided funds to purchase a FT-ICR Mass Spectrometer, which will be Undergraduate Degrees ........ 18 the first such instrument on the Michigan campus. Kicki will begin her career at Michigan on September 1. Gifts ................................................ 19 In March, we received the exciting news that Dr. Melanie Sanford would join our Alumni News ................................ 20 faculty on July 1. Melanie completed her Ph. D. at the California Institute of In Memoriam ................................ 21 Technology under the mentorship of Professor Robert Grubbs, and she subsequently Faculty Listing .............................. 22 performed postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Professor Jay Groves at Princeton. Melanie’s research will focus on problems in organometallic chemistry, catalysis and Survey ............................................ 25 asymmetric synthesis at the interface between organic and inorganic chemistry. Alumni Reply Shortly after arriving in Ann Arbor this summer, Melanie was named the recipient of Form ............ inside back cover the highly prestigious Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award-only ten such awards are made nationally each year. Melanie is now the third of our new hires in three years to receive this award (Marc Johnson and John Wolfe received Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Awards in 2001 and 2002, respectively). Our third hire this year is Dr. Ioan Andricioaei, who received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry and Biophysics from Boston University under the direction of Professor John Straub. Ioan completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard University 2003 with Professor Martin Karplus this past summer. Ioan’s research interests are at the intersection of physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry, and biophysics, and he will Regents of the University of Michigan: be a superb addition to our growing theoretical chemistry effort in the Department. David A. Brandon, Laurence B. Deitch, Olivia P. Maynard, Ioan was hired jointly with the Bioinformatics Program in the Medical School, and his Rebecca McGowan, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andrew C. Richner, S. Martin Taylor, Katherine E. White, Mary Sue research space will be housed in the Life Sciences Institute buildings once those Coleman, ex officio. Mary Sue Coleman, president. facilities are completed later in the year. Other developments on the faculty front include Professor Anna Mapp’s decision The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/ affirmative action employer. to consolidate her appointment to a 100% FTE position in Chemistry effective 2003 U-M DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY September 1. We are delighted that Anna by the large number of companies who signed to train students at the undergradu- chose to increase her effort in Chemistry! visit the department each fall on recruit- ate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels who In January of this past year, Professor ing visits. aspire to careers as future faculty mem- bers. Members of the CSIE program have Will Pearson took a leave of absence to I am very pleased that the Department made enormous contributions in the de- pursue business opportunities with Berry continues to receive recognition for its velopment of an innovative first year “stu- and Associates. We wish Will tremen- leadership in curriculum and educational dio chemistry” course, which was piloted dous success in these new ventures. Pro- reform, as well as in establishing a cli- this past fall. Brian Coppola comments fessor Billy Joe Evans announced his re- mate and Departmental culture that en- on these programs in a subsequent section tirement effective July 1. On behalf of the courages and supports diversity. Note- of this newsletter. entire Department, let me take this oppor- worthy accomplishments on these fronts tunity to thank BJ for his efforts on so this past year include the awarding of an The Department has made enormous many fronts during the period that he was ADVANCE grant to the Department-the strides towards accomplishing its goal of a member of our faculty, and to wish him only such award at Michigan-to support becoming one of the top Chemistry De- health, happiness and success in this next our efforts to increase and expand oppor- partments in the nation. The most recent phase of his career. Additional faculty tunities for career development and reten- US News and World Report ranking of news is provided elsewhere in the News- tion of women scientists. No doubt our Chemistry Departments listed Michigan letter. efforts in the ADVANCE program con- as 21st in the nation, and our analytical The Department continues to have tre- tributed to the fact that the entering first and organic groups as 11th and 12th, re- mendous success in recruiting outstand- year class of graduate students this year is spectively. We anticipate that our stand- ing graduate students. The first year class 67% women! Also noteworthy is that the ing in the community will continue to that entered the Department this month Department was selected to participate in rise, in view of the tremendous success numbers 43 students-we intentionally the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate- that we have had in recruiting outstanding sought a smaller class this year, after a we are one of only seven chemistry de- faculty members and students to the pro- record 65 students entered the program partments in the nation to receive this gram. last year. We now have 280 graduate distinction. The goals and objectives of I am most grateful for your continued students in the program-a remarkable in- the Carnegie Initiative are summarized by support of the Department. I look forward crease from the ca. 180 graduate students Brian Coppola elsewhere in this Newslet- to reporting on additional activities and in the Department 5-6 years ago. The ter. Finally, the Department continues its accomplishments in future newsletters! quality of our graduate students is re- efforts to broaden and strengthen our flected in the large number of fellowships “Chemical Sciences at the Interface of that our students have received (listed Education” (CSIE) program, which is de- Sincerely, elsewhere in this Newsletter), as well as William R. Roush, Chair The Department of Chemistry Newsletter Spotlight Profiles Graduate is published once a year by the Depart- ment of Chemistry at the University of Students and Undergraduates Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 Graduate Students Megan McGuigan Printed on Recycled Paper Megan McGuigan is a graduate student in the laboratory of Professor Richard Sacks. Her work focuses on the development of selectivity enhancement methods for high- speed GC separations. The optimization of GC separations using selectivity enhance- ment techniques involves many variables, which often are varied on a trial and error Chair: William Roush basis. A spreadsheet model has been developed as part of her project that uses a series Editor: Tim Wade of standard equations to calculate the solute band position as a function of time at 1 cm Publication: Agnes Soderbeck Alumni News: Robert Kuczkowski intervals over the course of the separation. Using this model, accurate predictions of retention times have been made with errors <2%. This model is used to optimize methods using pressure tuning, pressure pulse modulation, stop flow operation, high- speed temperature programming, thermal tuning and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography. She has coauthored several papers in analytical chemistry journals and presented her research at national and international conferences on World Wide Web Address: analytical chemistry and chromatography. http://www.umich.edu/~michchem Megan received one of the Rackham School of Graduate Studies Outstanding E-mail: [email protected] Graduate Student Instructor