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   GRADUATE PROGRAM

GRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS FOR 2007-08

• Fellowship Award Winners
• Annual Chemistry Department Award Winners

FELLOWSHIP AWARD WINNERS

Leigh Boerner was awarded the Chester Davis Inorganic Fellowship.  Leigh completed her undergraduate studies at Indiana University, earning a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Chemistry in December 2003.  She decided to pursue her graduate degree at IU as well, and joined the lab of Dr. Jeff Zaleski in January 2004.  The project that Leigh is currently working on involves the synthesis and Bergman cyclization of porphyrinic enediynes, which can be used as photo-therapeutic agents for hypoxic environments.  She spends her spare time trying to figure out how to knit porphyrins into socks.

Xiaofan Yang was awarded the E. M. Kratz Fellowship.   Xiaofan received his B.S. from Peking University in China, where he majored in Chemistry and minored in Computer Science.  He was interested in linking lanthanides and transition metals to make heterometallic compounds. In fall 2003, he moved to Indiana University as a joint student with both Prof. Caulton and Prof. Baik.  His current research is focused on the rational catalyst design from both theoretical and experimental aspects, such as the mechanistic study of water oxidation catalysts and the synthesis of new metal-carbene complexes.

Uriah Kilgore was awared the Baxter Pharmaceutical Fellowship.  Uriah received his B.S. in Chemistry at Southeast Missouri State University in 2004. As an undergraduate at Southeast Missouri State, he conducted research involving the synthesis of organic non-linear optical materials.  Additionally, Uriah participated in summer research programs at the University of Alabama under the guidance of Prof. Anthony Arduengo III and Indiana University with Prof. Daniel Mindiola.  In fall 2004, Uriah began graduate studies at Indiana University selecting Prof. Daniel Mindiola as research advisor.  His current research involves the synthesis and reactivity of early transition-metal pincer complexes with special focus on the activation of small molecules by low-valent early metal fragments and construction of metal-ligand multiple bonds.

Stella Aniagyei was awarded the Richard Slagle Fellowship.  Stella joined the lab of Dr Bogdan Dragnea in the Fall of 2003 after receiving her B.S. in Chemistry from Bates College.  While at Bates, her research focused on synthesizing and characterizing soluble derivatives of beta-cyclodextrin, a torus-shaped compound with seven glucose units, in order to enhance nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies of inclusion complex formation. Research in the Dragnea group centers on understanding the mechanism of virus assembly from the constituent protein subunits using virus-like particles (VLPs).  VLPs are viruses in which the RNA core is removed and replaced with a nanoparticle. Currently, her work investigates the importance of the role of the nanoparticle scaffold in assembly as compared with protein-protein interactions via synthesis, characterization and elucidation of the VLP structures. A promising application of these VLPs is as building blocks for novel three-dimensional optical metamaterials.  

Martin Walsh was awarded the Chester Davis Organic Fellowship.  Martin is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, graduated in 2003 from the University of Louisville with a B. S. in chemistry, cum laude.  The following fall, he entered Indiana University as a graduate student in organic chemistry and joined the research group of David R. Williams.  Currently, he is a fourth year PhD candidate and is working toward the total synthesis of 4-hydroxydictyolactone, a marine diterpene that possesses both interesting structural features and promising biological activity.

Glen Ferguson was awarded the Kraft Fellowship.  Glen's career in higher education began with five years in the US Navy aboard an air craft carrier. After being honorably discharged, he enrolled at the University of Southern Indiana and studied biology for two years before transferring to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. At Marist he completed a BS Biology and Chemistry graduating Magnum Cum Laude. Currently, Glen is a PhD candidate at Indiana University working with Professor Krishnan Raghavachari. If the last few years they have worked on a number of exciting projects focusing on the reactivity of silicon surfaces, the vibrations of infinitely periodic systems modeled using small clusters and they plan to develop new methods to model the x-ray photoelectron spectra using electronic structure theory. The reactivity studies have concentrated on the patterning of bare silicon surface as well as radical chain reactions at defect sites on hydrogen terminated silicon surfaces. The work in on surface vibrations in collaboration with Yves Chabal at Rutgers has determined a new technique for determining infinite vibrations and assigned a formerly unknown peak in surface vibrational spectra.

James Cullen Klein was awarded the Chester Davis Organic Fellowship.  Cullen graduated cum laude with his B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from The Ohio State University in 2002.  In the same year he moved to Indiana University-Bloomington to pursue his Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. David R. Williams.  Cullen is currently investigating the use of highly diastereoselective Ireland-Claisen rearrangements and intramolecular Diels-Alder reactions leading toward the total synthesis of australifungin, a potent antifungal polyketide natural product.

Justin Riddle was awarded the Baxter Pharmaceutical Fellowship.  Justin received his B.S. degree from University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. As an undergraduate student he worked in the lab under Professor George Barany, and spent some time in the labs at 3M company in St. Paul. Justin started pursuing his Ph. D. in the fall of 2003 under Professor Dongwhan Lee, and is currently investigating a novel fluorescent receptor, that utilizes a unique energy transfer scheme for enhanced analyte detection. Justin also studied supramolecular aggregates with enhanced fluorescent emission upon aggregation, and shape adaptive biconcave structures with unique crystal-to-crystal transformations.

Tillmann Koepke was awarded the Chester Davis Inorganic Fellowship.  Tillmann began his chemistry studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany. After completion of his bachelor equivalent he visited IU as an exchange student for one academic year and transferred to the chemistry graduate program at IU in 2004 to work under the supervision of Professor Zaleski. His major research interest is focused on the synthesis of novel periphery modified porphyrinic molecules and their photochemical properties for potential use as in situ alkylating reagents for phototherapeutic applications within hypoxic environments. Tillmann has a three year working experience as laboratory technician with Pfizer Freiburg in Germany and is recipient of the 2006 William H. Nebergall Memorial Award.

Chris DuFort was awarded the Wiliam M. LeSuer Fellowship.  Chris graduated from Western Washington University with his B.S. in chemistry in 2004.  In that same year Chris moved to Bloomington to begin his PhD degree at Indiana University.  He is currently in the laboratory of Professor Bogdan Dragnea.  His current research is focused on developing virus-like particle inspired metamaterials and determining the rules through which control over their optical properties can be achieved. 

Beili Quan was awarded the Jack and Linda Gill Fellowship for the Spring Semester 2007.  Beili graduated from Fudan University, Shanghai P.R.China with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. She entered Indiana University at Bloomington majoring in Biological Science in the fall of 2003.  She currently works for Professor Richard DiMarchi in the research of Insulin Analoge activity.  She participated in the APS (American Peptide Society) meeting in June 2005 and was chosen to give an oral presentation in the Young Investigators' Mini Symposium. She also won the travel award for the meeting.

Michelle Kovarik was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2004-2008).  Michelle graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from Saint Louis University in 2004.  She started her graduate studies at IU in August 2004 in the laboratory of Professor Jacobson.  She has been working to fabricate nanometer-scale channels and pores using electron beam lithography and standard photolithography for use in chemical analysis.

Richard Lord was awarded the Merck Fellowship.  Richard received his B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from the University of Southern Indiana in 2005.  As an undergraduate, he worked on research projects ranging from Ni-based polymerization catalysts to Cr-based CO2 activation catalysts before finding his niche is computational chemistry.  Since the fall of 2005 he has been working towards a Ph.D. in physical inorganic chemistry with Prof. Mu-Hyun Baik studying spin-crossover coupled redox phenomena.  Correctly predicting the relative energies of the spin surfaces has proved extremely challenging for current computational methods, and he is working on developing a protocol to accurately predict the thermodynamics of these electron-transfer reactions.  Simultaneously, he is investigating the sluggish electron transfer kinetics of these redox couples using variable-temperature electrochemistry.

Sam Merenbloom was awarded the ACS Fellowship.  Sam received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2004.  His current research (Professor David E. Clemmer, research advisor) focuses on multidimensional ion mobility spectrometry (IMS-IMS) coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry.  His research interests include enhancing the peak capacity and throughput of IMS-IMS separations; using IMS-IMS to probe the structures of proteins in the gas phase, and coupling desorption electrospray ionization to IMS-IMS.  The main focus of his research is the construction of a circular drift tube for high resolution (~1000 or greater, where R = t/Δt for IMS separations) IMS analyses.  GlaxoSmithKline is funding his research.

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Other fellowship recipients were Brian Bohrer, Baxter Pharmaceutical Fellowship; Jonah Chang, Paget Fellowship; Maggie Lerch, Women In Science Fellowship; Kristy McNitt, Bernard Berk Fellowship; Jay Srinivasan, Eli Lilly Organic Fellowship

Research and University Graduate School Fellowships were awarded to: 

ANNUAL CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT

AWARD WINNERS

Chemistry Honors Banquet - April 2007

At this year's banquet, the following students were honored:

E. Campaigne C500 Award: Richard Lord (Baik group)

Wendell P. Metzner Memorial Award:  Jay Srinivasan (Johnston group)

William H. Nebergall Memorial Award:  Xuan Jiang (Lee group)

Felix Haurowitz Award:  Michelle Kovarick (Jacobson group)

 Henry R. Mahler Award:   Yinyin Li (Oakley group)

Jack Crandall Award:   Marty Walsh (Williams group)

David A. Rothrock Award:  Isaiah Sumner (Iyengar group)

Eli Lilly Analytical Award:  Sam Merenbloom (Clemmer group)

John H. and Dorothy McKenzie Award:  Pilsoo Kang (Novotny group)

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ASSOCIATE INSTRUCTOR AWARDEES

Left to Right: 

Matt Foley, Mike Webb and Nick Chow

Jonathan Meyers                                                 Ardian "Soca" Wibowo

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GAANN FELLOWSHIP AWARDEES

The Department of Chemistry has been selected by the U. S. Department of Education to participate in the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship Program.  This year, the fellowship was awarded to the following students:

Fall 2006 recipients

Recipients from left to right

Laura Sharon, Richard Lord, Nate Rawlinson, Nichole Stewart, Kristy McNitt, Emma Shansky

Allison Kukuch and Uriah Kilgore

Spring 2007 recipients

Recipients from left to right

Josh Maze, Nichole Stewart, Matt Foley, Liz Opsitnick, Kristy McNitt, Allison Kukuch and Emma Shansky

Not pictured:  Joe Pinchman