U CHEM
A
Chemistry
Chemistry Department News
Department
News
Buchtel College
Department of Chemistry
May 2010
Volume 2, issue 1
Dr. Daniel Smith Retires After 34 Years
Special points of
interest:
• Dan Smith, Professor Emeritus
• Knight Lecture
• Spring 2010
Graduates
• Service Awards
• Research News
Inside this issue:
24th Knight Lecture 2
by Dr. El-Sayed
Fall UG and Grad
Degrees
3
Service Awards and 4
Spring Picnic
Research News
Dr. Daniel J. Smith, Professor of Chemistry in the Biochemistry division of the Department of Chemistry, retired
on May 30 after 34 years of
service. Dan joined the department in 1977 as the first
Biochemistry faculty member.
He came from UCLA where
he was first a post-doctoral
researcher in the laboratory of
Professor P. D. Boyer and
then an Adjunct Assistant
Professor. He had obtained
his PhD from the University of
California at Berkeley, working with Professor George
Kenyon, and his BS in Chemistry from The University of
Wisconsin at Stevens Point.
In between his undergraduate
degree and his PhD, he spent
two years in the US Army,
serving in Viet Nam.
When Dan came to Akron,
NEOUCOM had just formed
and Dan was hired to prepare
the pre-medical students for
the rigors of medical school.
In his career he created
courses in Biochemistry, Nu-
tritional Biochemistry, Enzymology, Advanced Metabolism, and Biology of Wound
Repair, to mention a few. He
was a joint faculty member at
NEOUCOM, in Biomedical
Engineering and Faculty Research Associate in the Institute of Polymer Science.
During his long career, Dan
mentored more than 34 PhD
students, 13 MS students and
many undergraduate researchers. He and his students were responsible for
more than 75 publications, 38
patents awarded or pending,
and more than 50 government and industrial research
grants. He was recognized
for his research and teaching
through awards from Northern
Ohio Live magazine,
NorTech, and Ohio magazine.
His patents earned him a
place on the Research Foundation’s Wall of Fame.
Early in his career, Dan focused on enzymology. Later,
he became interested in the
biological mechanisms of
wound healing. He studied
the effect that quadrol had on
wound healing acceleration
which later turned into an
interest in the biochemistry of
NO and its effect on wound
healing. He developed methods for electrospinning biocompatible polymers that
allowed production of NO as
wound dressings.
Because Dan’s range of biochemical interest was very
broad, he pursued his interests drawing on different areas of chemistry and engineering. As the founding
member of the Biochemistry
division of the department, he
helped build a foundation
leading to the establishment
of the BS in Biochemistry.
Dan will be remembered for
his contributions to the department through his teaching
and research expertise. We
wish him a happy and healthy
retirement as Professor of
Chemistry Emeritus.
5
Faculty and Alumni 5
News
Left: Dan with his new cane. Right: Dan with his daughter Ashley
Page 2
Volume 2, issue 1
24th Knight Lecture Given by Professor Mostafa A. El-Sayed
On April 12 and 14, Dr. M. ElSayed delivered a pair of lectures for the 24th annual
Knight Lecture. Dr. El-Sayed
(E), the Julius Brown and Regent’s Professor at Georgia
Institute of Technology, is one
of the most preeminent physical chemists in the world. His
many awards include the Alexander van Humbolt Senior
Fellowship, as well as Sloan
and Gugenheim Fellowships.
His early work was in the area
of molecular photophysics,
where he made many fundamental contributions to the
theory of radiative and nonradiative energy transfer processes. His recent work has
focused on the optical and
photothermal properties of
nanoparticles, nanocatalysis,
nanomedicine, and nanobiology. The lectures he delivered were “What is the Hype
about Nanotechnology,” and
“Confining Resonant Photons
to the Nano-gold Length
Scale: New Properties and
Applications in Materials Science, Nano-biology, and Cancer Nano-medicine.”
The annual Knight Lecture
Awards Banquet was held on
April 12 attended by alumn Dr.
Henry Stevens (H).
Graduate students receiving
awards were (G): Anna
Pischera—The Wilson NMR
Award, Xiaohong Li—The
Department NMR Award, Joanna Beres, David Bowers,
and Anthony Schultz—
Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistants, Madalis Casiano-Maldonado, Amanda
Knapp, Zin-Min Tun and Sylvester Twagirayezu—Stevens
Chemistry Fellowships.
Undergraduates receiving
awards were: Patrick Wagers Faculty Award (B), Shayna
Robinson– Cassidy Scholarship, Rakesh Patel—The John
Franklin Coleman Scholarship,
Kristen Reams—The Exxon
Scholarship (I), Marlena, Abra-
ham, Josh Davidson, Anna
Ganios, David Meranda, and
Brittany Riordan—Emmanuel
and Rose Gurin Scholarships
(F), Hiya Qayyum, Harrison
Scholarship, Jennifer Knapp—
Lancaster Scholarship, Derek
Scavuzzo, Rita Kramer, Morgan Sipka, and Noah Stalcup—Lubrizol Scholarships,
Mateen Haque—Merck Index
Award, Natalie Dahmen, Willis
Lecorchik, Anthony Miller,
Parth Patel, Nicholas
Popczun, and Katie Stimpler—
Muehlstein Scholarships (A),
Francesca DeSantos, Kortney
Kersten, Jillian Parker, and
Michael Workman—McClellan
Scholarships (C), Louis Britton—Murphy Scholarship,
Christopher Elkins– Petro-Tex
Scholarship, Lucas McDonald
– Robinson Scholarship,
Renee Reisinger, Simmons
Scholarship, Angela Dimos,
Hangfeng Hu, and Hillary
Ray—Stratka Scholarships for
Women (D), and Christine
Tsimpris– SACP Award.
Congratulations to all
awardees, and thank you for
all the hard work you put forth
this year.
Page 3
Volume 2, issue 1
Spring 2010 Graduates
This spring semester, 11
undergraduates earned
bachelors degrees in
chemistry. The new chemistry alumni:
David M. Besse, BS
Chemistry with Polymer
Option, will be attending
graduate school at Duke;
Ryan Cantasey, BS Biochemistry, will attend
graduate school at
CWRU ; Megan Cesta, BS
Biochemistry, will be attending Medical School;
Kaitlin Glover, BS Biochemistry, will be attending
Dentistry School, Penny
Gray, BA Chemistry, will
be working at Goodyear;
Lucas Grossman, BS
Chemistry; Jacqueline
Klayko, BA Chemistry;
Brittany Petrosky, BS
Biochemistry, will attend
Pharmacy School; Christina Tsimpris, BS Chemistry; Patrick Wagers, BS
Chemistry, will be attending graduate school at UA;
Colin Wright, BS Chemistry Polymer Option, will be
attending graduate school
in Polymer Science at UA.
Congratulations to all.
Upper: Megan Cesta and Kaitlin Glover. Above, left to right:
Lucas Grossman, Brittany Petrosky, Christina Tsimpris. Left:
Colin Wright.
Graduate Students Earn Degrees Spring ‘10
One new PhD alum and one
MS alum received degrees
at the 2010 Spring Commencement. We congratulate both for their hard work
and thank them for their
contributions to the department.
Nilufer Solak,
PhD: “Structural Characterization and Quantitative
Analysis by Interfacing Liquid
Chrmoatography and/or Ion
Mobility Separation with MultiDimensional Mass Spectrometry.”
Dayanand B. Katakdond,
MS: “Synthetic Development
of an Non-invastive Glucose
Sensing Technique.”
Left: Nilufer Solak. Right: Dayand Katakdond
Page 4
Volume 2, issue 1
Staff and Faculty recognized for University Service
On Thursday, April 8, the University recognized the outstanding service of faculty and
staff at the annual Service
Awards Ceremony. The
awards are presented based
on years of service. In the
Chemistry Department, the
following were recognized: 5
years of service – Dr. Yi
Pang, Lester and Catherine
Coleman Associate Professor
of Chemistry ; 10 years of
service - Dr. Takashige Fujiwara, post-doctoral researcher collaborating with
Dr. Ed Lim Goodyear Professor of Chemistry, Mrs. Jean
Garcia, Department secretary,
and Dr. Chris Ziegler, Associate Professor of Chemistry; 20
years of service – Dr. Claire
Tessier, Professor of Chemistry and Dr. Wiley Youngs,
Distinguished Professor of
Chemistry; 35 years of service - Mrs Phyllis Hughley,
secretary to Dr. Ed Lim.
We want to add our appreciation to that expressed by the
University for all the excellent
work these individuals have
contributed to the Department
of Chemistry.
End of Semester Picnic Highlights
The annual end-of-semester
picnic was held outside Knight
Chemical Lab on Thursday,
April 29. The weather was
beautiful and set the background for the end of a perfect
semester.
Here are some pictures from
the picnic:
Top (l to r): Jean Garcia, Phyllis Hughley. Bottom (l to r) Chris
Ziegler, and Claire Tessier
Page 5
Volume 2, issue 1
Grants, Contracts and Patents News
The faculty continue to receive research support from national funding
agencies.
Grants
Jun Hu, Austen BioInnovation Institute, “Invent a liquid crystal film for
contact lenses that can be used to
noninvasively monitor blood-sugar
levels of diabetic patients,” $100,000.
$62,000.
Yi Pang, AFOSR, “Separation of
Armchair SWNTs by Using Polymer
Conformation-Guided Assemble,”
$330,000.
Peter Rinaldi, NSF, “GOALI: Advanced NMR Studies of Fluoropolymers,” $10,000.
Matt Espe and David Modarelli,
AFOSR, “Hybrid Solid-State Photovoltaic Materials and Devices,”
Faculty and Alumni News
Chris Ziegler had two papers selected for the cover of journals. The
journals were Chemical Communications and Journal of Porphyrins and
Phthalocyanines
Orlando, FL. He was also recognized as “best reviewer” for the
Journal of the American Society for
Mass Spectrometry at the Society’s
58th Annual Conference in Salt Lake
City, UT
Chrys Wesdemiotis had his research featured in Chemical & Engineering News 2010, 88(13), 35-37
(based on invited lecture presented
at the 2010 PittCon Conference in
David Perry was awarded the Glen
H. Brown Distinguished Service
Award presented by the Akron Section of the American Chemical Society for 2010.