News for Alumni and Friends August 2007 - Department of Chemistry

Around the department …
Professor Robert Quandt and his wife
Michelle welcomed Elizabeth Stephanie
Quandt into the world on Tuesday, May 1,
2007 at 12:21 pm. Elizabeth weighed 7
pounds 7 ounces and was 20 inches long.
Professor Cheryl Stevenson (above photo)
was honored at the National Meeting of the
American Chemical Society in Chicago in
March. She was the 2007 recipient of the
prestigious ACS National Award for Research
at an Undergraduate Institution.
Professor Jon Friesen has been busier than
ever. He was appointed Associate Chair of
the Department last winter, adding to his
administrative duties as Director of the
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Program (2006-8). That and research are
more than enough to keep busy over the
summer, but Jon also took on teaching duties
so the department could offer Chemistry
242, Basic Biochemistry, during the summer.
News for Alumni and Friends
August 2007
Activities in the department and around
campus in August include a lot of
preparation for the fall semester. The
Alamo II is loaded with new books, while
the Department of Chemistry is being
“loaded” with new students. We are
delighted to see that the degree programs
in chemistry and in biochemistry/
molecular biology (BMB) are attracting
strong interest and a lot of attention from
students. We do not yet have numbers
available for fall 2007 enrollments, but it
looks like the trend of the last few years
will continue. Enrollment of freshmen
chemistry majors jumped in 2005-6 by
over 25% and jumped more than that in
2006-7. Also, the number of BMB majors
is now about triple what it was just three
years ago. This is encouraging because
the trends reflect value seen in our
programs and in the opportunities that
come with having a degree from the ISU
Department of Chemistry.
This is the second issue of our alumni
newsletter with a new format and
objective. We want to give alumni and
friends a brief but more frequent update
on chemistry at ISU and direct everyone
to full information that is available on the
web (www.che.ilstu.edu).

Alumni Updates
Shelli Hamilton (BS 1993; MS 1995)
received a Ph.D. in Anatomy and Physiology
in 2001 from the University of Texas Health
Science Center at San Antonio and followed
that with a D.M.D in 2005 from Tufts
University School of Dental Medicine. She
reports having just completed a Residency in
Advanced Education in General Dentistry at
the Veterans Affairs Health Center, Togus,
Maine. She recently accepted a full-time staff
dentist position with the Veterans Affairs
Health Center in Togus starting August,
2007.
Matt Kiesewetter (BS 2005) is co-author of a
Communication in Angewandte Chemie
chosen by the journal’s editors as a “Hot
Paper.” Titled “A Distinctive Organocatalytic
Approach to Complex Macromolecular
Architectures,” the paper describes research
that is part of Matt’s Ph.D. thesis work with
Professor Robert Waymouth at Stanford
University.
Please send us your news and updates. We
will be glad to hear from you. Send news
items to Kelley Thomas (klthoma@ilstu.edu)
or send it by regular mail to Kelley at the
department’s main address. Please indicate
if we can include anything you send in a
future issue of our “News for Alumni and
Friends.” Also, please let us know if we can
send future issues of this newsletter to you
at your e-mail address in place of mailing
you a hardcopy. We’ll save a few trees if we
can!
Keeping pace with
Lisa Szczepura
Professor Lisa Szczepura’s work at ISU
embodies the spirit of scholarly advancement
coupled with teaching and mentoring. A
successful inorganic chemistry researcher and
an NSF CAREER Awardee, she is also a
dedicated instructor who has been innovative in
enhancing the opportunities and outcomes for
our students. Her energetic pace keeps the
students on the move. Here is what Lisa has to
say about a special program she initiated at ISU.
Through funding from the National Science
Foundation CAREER award, I have been able to
develop an exciting initiative, the Enrichment
Workshop Program, to enhance the participation
of students from underrepresented groups in the
sciences. Incoming minority freshman registered
in CHE140 are selected to participate in the
program based on their ACT scores and highschool
GPA. Most are chemistry, biology or BMB
majors, but all science majors are eligible.
Participating in the workshop involves meeting
once or twice weekly for an hour, typically in the
evenings, and attendance is mandatory. Pizza on
special evenings helps foster fellowship among
the participants. I organize and run the program,
and workshop activities focus on exposing
students to various research opportunities and
enhancing their experience in general chemistry
(Chem 140 and 141). The program has high
expectations of the participants and those who
do not meet those expectations are asked to
leave. The students in the program are also
members of LS-AMP (Louis Stokes-Alliance for
Minority Participation) which provides a variety
of services to underrepresented students in
science, technology, and math disciplines.
I strongly encourage Workshop
participants to gain research experience.
It has been shown that students
conducting undergraduate research have
a higher success rate in college. A notable
example is Heather Bowen, a participant
in the first Workshop Program (2003-4)
and a double major (Chemistry and
BMB). She conducted research in my
laboratory since her sophomore year and
has been finishing a project involving
mixed-metal cluster complexes. It will
soon be submitted for publication. After
graduating in May 2007, Heather starts
optometry school at the Ohio State
University this fall. To date, over 25
students have participated in the
workshops and we are looking forward to
many more success stories. Increasing the
number of science graduates from underrepresented
groups helps generate a
diverse workforce capable of solving the
complex problems facing our world.
Heather Bowen (far left), participants (l. to
r.) of the 2006-7 Enrichment Workshop
Program, Nicole Munoz, Nick Gonzalez,
Kate Cassidy, Selina Elliott, Andrea Hale
& Jose Arceo. Professor Szczepura (rear).