Chair’s Report

In the summer of 2011, the department as-sembled materials to submit to the Commit-tee on Professional Training of AmericanChemical Society for our periodic report,part of the process leading to program ap-proval and student certification by theACSfor the next five-year period. As many ofyou will have noted from materials pub-

lished in Chemical and Engineering News in recent years, theguidelines and expectations for this “accreditation” have evolvedconsiderably in recent years from checklists of courses and curric-ular requirements to a greater focus on skill building across the cur-riculum to ensure richer preparation for the post baccalaureateexperience, be it employment or a graduate or professional schooltrajectory. These skills include critical thinking and problem solv-ing, oral and written communication, teamwork, and understandingand practicing proper safety steps as well as conducting oneself inan ethical manner. Interestingly, these same considerations overlapextremely well with the newly enacted General Education Curricu-lum of the Columbian College here at GW, which include “en-hanced analytic skills in quantitative and scientific reasoning andcritical and creative thinking, along with a global and cross-culturalperspective, local/civic engagement, and effective communicationskills.

In reflecting upon the materials we put together, from copies ofcourse and laboratory syllabi to undergraduate research reports, wefound ourselves giving careful thought to our entire program, itsquality, the learning outcomes we were striving to achieve and thestandards and metrics that are used to determine whether we areachieving those goals. As I have often said to our Deans, the con-tent of most of our lecture courses is text-book driven, such that byselecting current mainstream texts we are generally both up to datewith content and comprehensive in our course coverage. But it isthe experiential learning opportunities in the laboratory where wehave the greater flexibility in content selection and undoubtedlyhave the opportunity to move more aggressively in working to

achieve the goals of the skill building we would like to see for ourstudents.

I am delighted to report that our self assessment has been very pos-itive, substantiating the views of our graduates that the programprovides a rigorous chemistry education. The results from seniorstaking the ACS comprehensive senior exam (without any prepara-tion) place our students in the upper quartile. Participation in under-graduate research, a particularly important component of ourprogram, continues to grow, while the reports and presentations byour students have become evermore dazzling in both form and con-tent. These documents reflect both a comprehensive underpinningof chemistry content and a demonstration of the skills in criticalthinking, communication, and teamwork we are striving to achievein our program. More of our majors are starting to engage in someresearch earlier in their program of study and staying for most of atleast one summer for a richer, in depth experience. We have in-deed been fortunate in having several endowed funds, includingthe A.D. Britt Scholarship, the Madeleine Reines Jacobs Under-graduate Fund, and the Charles R. and Elma M. Naeser MemorialChair’s Fund to provide that summer support, along with Univer-sity funding in the form of the competitive Luther Rice, GeorgeGamow, and OVPR Undergraduate Research Funds. Additionally,continual reinvestment in replacement and new instrumentation

Prof. King

Volume 29 | Page 1Department of Chemistry

The Theodore P. Perros Newsletter | Volume 29

DDeeppaarrttmmeenntt ooff

CChheemmiissttrryy

Alumni Madeleine Reines Jacobs and Nancy Jacksonwith Prof. King

With this edition, we have renamed the Newsletter as the Theodore P. Perros Newsletter in honor of Professor Emeritus Perros’srole in initiating this tabloid in 1980 along with Professor Robert Vincent and for his sustained financial support for our program

through the years.

Volume 29 | Page 3Department of Chemistry

Once again, we honor our undergraduate students who have excelled in research. It is one of the hallmarks of our program to provideour talented undergraduate majors with the opportunity to engage in a well-defined research project during some portion of their stud-ies. In addition to the potential to earn course credits, endowed funds in chemistry set up by the Britt family in memory of Prof. A.D.Britt, the Naeser family and friends in honor of Prof. Charles and Mrs. Elma Naeser, and alumna Madeleine Reines Jacobs providestipend support for our undergraduate students in the summer. During recent summers, we were delighted to host the following under-graduates on these funds:

A.D. BrittMegan Buonaiuto (2010), Katherine Baldwin (2010), Adam Kutnick (2010), Getachew Mengistu (2011),Julian Broad (2011), Daniel Foreman (2012), Yoo Jeong (2012), Tarek Mansour (2012), Alexander Yepikhin(2012)

Madeleine ReinesJacobs Julia Lister (2010, 2011), Kuanlin Wu (2012), Emma Edelstein (2012)

Charles & ElmaNaeser John St. Angelo (2010)

Scott Caplan Rice Scholar (2010) Stability of a 4-Iodo-isohistidine Model

Jeremy Barr Rice Scholar (2012) Investigations in Lipids and Plaque Diseases

Philip Cho Rice Scholar (2012)Supported Nanoparticles as Reusable Catalysts foran Important Reaction in the Pharmaceutical Indus-try – Alcohol Amine Couplings

Ilya Kavalerov Gamow Scholar (2010) Synthesis of Lanthanide Framework Materials forCO2 Storage

Erica Walters Gamow Scholar (2011) Ubiquitination of Mutated Midline-1 Proteins

Yoo Jeong Gamow Scholar (2012) Atmospheric Ultrahigh Frequency Air Plasma Jetfor Chemical Analysis of Volatile Compounds

Rahul Gupta Provost/OVPR UndergraduateResearch Fellowship (2012)

Characterization of Lipid Membrane Bilayer ElasticProperties

President Steven Knapp recognized distinguished student scholars atthe annual Academic Honors Dinner, including Chemistry major MeganBuonaiuto (back row, 2nd from left). She also received an OutstandingAcademic Achievement Award.

Undergraduate Research

These scholars were joined by other chemistry students who won funding from other University and College offices for Luther Rice andGeorge Gamow Research Awards:

through careful stewardship of our resources from the Education and Research Fund supported by our alumni assures a “modern and well-maintained infrastructure” to accomplish our goals and provide hands-on opportunities with the resources our graduates will find in gov-ernment or private sector employment or a first-tier graduate program.

The next stage of major improvement is transformation of the facilities, which are now showing significant aging since the 1987 reno-vation of the teaching and research labs in Corcoran Hall. Fortunately, as many of you know, this stage of renewal is now underway. InOctober of 2011, I am delighted to note, a ground-breaking ceremony was held for the new Science and Engineering Hall, a facilitymany had thought might never be realized. Members of the department have been heavily engaged along with the other science depart-

ments and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences colleagues for almost twoyears in benchmarking and building design and evaluating core needs. A seriesof meetings over some nine months and a number of iterations of design docu-ments have led to the specifications and layouts for some very thoughtful, for-ward-thinking teaching laboratory spaces. These spaces will reflect ourcommitment to a state of the art, flexible and striking infrastructure whereby wecan continue to provide a rigorous program with a “coherent chemistry curricu-lum that incorporates modern pedagogical approaches” in the experiential com-ponent of our curriculum.

Not only will the new Science and Engineering Hall prove transformative in ourteaching environments, but as we moved forward into the design stages for the re-search facilities, we have had great opportunities for growth in our graduate pro-gram and our research activities, which by the way also means more room forundergraduates in our research laboratories. Already we are experiencing growthin the size of the faculty thanks to anticipation of expanded facilities. As you willread in the following pages, we have added two faculty colleagues in the 2011-

12 academic year, and we have added more colleagues in the current acadmic year. These are very exciting and enervating times for yourdepartment and we hope that you will continue to play a substantial part in our future and our growth in size and reputation. Your ideasand support will make many of our dreams a reality. So by all means, please stay in touch. Let us know how we are doing, what youare doing and where you think we might do better. Also, stayed tuned as the George Washington University Science and Engineeri,ngHall becomes a reality. http://www.gwu.edu/scienceandengineeringhall/

Department of ChemistryPage 2 | Volume 29

Chair’s Report continued from page 1

view of future SEH site: July 6, 2012

William Atkins / The George Washington University

[left to right] Prof. Tossell, Anna Korovina,Emily Jackson

Prof. King at the department bocce ball tour-nament

In 2011-2012, the Chemistry Department welcomed Dr. Adelina Voutchkova-Kostal to the faculty. She joined us directly from theCenter for Green Chemistry at Yale University. Dr. Voutchkova received her Bachelors Degree in Chemistry and Biochemistryfrom Middlebury College in 2004 and then completed her Ph.D. with Professor Robert Crabtree at Yale University in 2009. Herdoctoral work resulted in seven papers in top-tier publications, one of which was an Editor’s Choice Article, as well as the Wolf-gang Prize for the Best Thesis of 2009 at Yale University. During this period she was supported at Yale on several competitive, namedfellowships. For her postdoctoral studies, Dr. Voutchkova joined the Center for Green Chemistry at Yale, working with ProfessorPaul Anastas. Professor Anastas was until recently on leave in the administration of President Obama as Assistant Administrator,Office of Research and Development in the EPA.

The Department was also delighted to welcome Professor Michael Massiah to GW as an Associate Professor in August. ProfessorMassiah had been serving as an Associate Research Professor with us during the previous year. He came to GW from a position asan Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK).Dr. Massiah did his doctorate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, with a subsequent postdoctoral appointment atSloan-Kettering in New York. After serving as a Research Associate at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, he joined the faculty atOklahoma State and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009. Professor Massiah has authored a substantial number of papersand reviews which have appeared in high impact publications and have an excellent citation record. He has been the holder of anumber of grants, one of which was a five-year NSF Career Award.

The Department is proud to welcome three more new professors this year: Hanning Chen, Scott Daly, and LaKeisha McClary. Findout more about these faculty members in the next issue.

Welcoming Faculty It’s been a great year for the Cahill group. Hard to believe 2011marks the eleventh year at GW! Funding continues to be strongfrom two DOE grants that support research into hydrothermal ura-nium chemistry as well as a new award from the Nuclear Regula-tory Commission (NRC). The latter is a curriculum developmentaward where Chris (along with colleagues in Physics) will developa series of modular courses targeting non-scientific professionalswithin the nuclear policy arena. The plan is to foster scientific lit-eracy surrounding all things nuclear for policy makers and othernon-technical individuals. This course rolls out in Fall 2012 andwill include significant hands-on laboratory components.

Group productivity has been excellent over the last year with someeight peer-reviewed publications. Current graduate students An-drew Kerr, Paula Cantos, Sonia Thangavelu, Robert ‘Gian’Surbella, and Nick Deifel are hard at work on a number of fronts.Andrew celebrated his first paper this past September with a solidcontribution to the ACS Journal Crystal Growth & Design. Nickhas been off campus for the past year or so as he has taken a dreamjob of Visiting Assistant Professor at Washington College. Nickwill defend this summer, yet could not pass up the opportunity to

gain experience at an undergrad institu-tion—a position he ultimately wants toland. Post-doc Michael Andrews enteredhis third year with the group and is bring-ing us in completely new directions withrespect to uranyl supramolecular chem-istry.

Recent alums Karah Knope and ClareRowland are at Argonne National Laband Northwestern University as a post-doc and graduate student(respectively). Both continue to fly the actinide flag. Prof. Danielde Lill is now an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic Universityand reports to be loving his first year on the job.

Chris has had a great year himself as well. He was promoted to fullProfessor in July and had a few enviable speaking invitations. Be-sides the Rare Earth Research Conference in Santa Fe this pastJune, Chris was the faculty speaker at the Columbian College Cel-ebration in May—an honor and moment he’ll never forget.

Prof. Cahill

Cahill Research Group

Over the past few years at GW, Professor Gillmor andher students have concentrated on research projectsinvestigating lipid headgroup interactions and tuningcell membrane behavior. The lab investigates cross-linking on lipid bilayer and the resulting lipid sorting.In collaboration with our colleagues in the GW math-ematics department (F. Baginski and X. Ren), theseefforts have resulted in a mathematical analysis thatlipids sort at curvature maxima, which gives us agreater understanding of lipid trafficking in the golgiand endoplasmic reticulum (Physica D Dec 1, 2011). On the experimental side,we pursue lipid behavior from headgroup cross-linking and have recently sub-mitted a paper on this topic. Cross-linking is a common membrane event andpart of cellular signal transduction. We are venturing into immunology and B-cells, which relies on immunoglobulin-antigen cross-linking at the B-cell surface

to activate the immune system. There are many open questions and we expect this area to be relevant to membrane and immunology re-searchers. In addition, we have begun collaborating with colleagues from George Mason University to investigate peptide interactionswith lipid bilayers. We expect to submit our first joint paper on lysing behavior before January 2012.

Of course, none of this is possible without the diligent work of both undergraduate and graduate students and without funding. In 2010,Katie Baldwin and Rahul Gupta both participated in the lab and contributed to these and other projects. Katie won the A. D. Britt Me-morial award to support her summer research in 2010 and graduated in May 2011. She is currently part of Amina Woods’s research groupat NIH. Rahul Gupta won the prestigious GW Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which provides funds for him through the summerof 2012. He will graduate in May 2012. Mike Kessler (4th year grad student) won the Benjamin D. Van Evera Memorial Prize in thespring of 2010 as the most effective graduate teaching assistant. He has made numerous presentations of his research in 2010 and 2011at local and national conferences. Robin Samuel (3rd year grad student) has recently been selected to present her research in a platformsession at the Biophysical Society Conference in February of 2012. We have received funding from the GW University FacilitatingFund and GW Research Enhancement Funds.

Prof. Gillmor

Gillmor Research Group

(left to right) Prof. Gillmor, Rahul Gupta, Mike Kessler, andRobin Samuel

Department of ChemistryPage 4 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry Volume 29 | Page 5

Goodbye party for Paula Binari, department secretary; Prof.Miller [left], Paula [right]

Prof. Ramaker lines up his shot.Welcome event at Upton Hill Regional Park

Chemistry Faculty, Spring 2012

The Dowd lab combines organic synthesis with medicinal and computational chemistries to develop small mol-ecule inhibitors of important biological processes. Projects in the lab currently center on Mycobacterium tu-berculosis and related organisms. Our research group is currently comprised of graduate students Emily Jackson(5th), Gail Clements (4th), and Carl Brothers (2nd), postdoctoral scientist Dr. Geraldine San Jose, and undergrad-uate student Michael Forman. This year we had the pleasure of hosting Julia Lister (GW undergraduate) andJohneice Pearson (high school student from School Without Walls). We are currently synthesizing and evalu-ating novel small molecules against two important mycobacterial enzymes, Dxr and the Mtb proteasome.

We have had a great year achieving several significant goals. Highlights from the last year include:Papers/Patents: Peer-reviewed articles describing our work are now starting to come out. Our first independent paper came out in Oc-tober 2011 in Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters. The first author was former undergraduate student Eugene Uh. We have alsosubmitted two additional papers—one, a peer-reviewed review with Emily Jackson as first author, and a second manuscript with our col-laborators at George Mason University. In addition, we have submitted a provisional patent on our work using Dxr inhibitors as antitu-berculosis agents. Meetings: Our work was accepted and presented at two significant meetings this year. Emily and Cindy traveled toBarga, Italy (just north of Pisa) to present posters at the Tuberculosis Drug DevelopmentGordon Research Conference. This biennial meeting is the most important in the field,and we were fortunate to be accepted. In August, Geraldine traveled to Denver, CO topresent her work at the most recent American Chemical Society meeting. Both meetingsgenerated a lot of new ideas, and we received great positive feedback!

Awards: In 2011, Cindy was awarded the prestigious Bender Teaching Award from GW.This is one of the University’s highest teaching honors and was awarded, in part, for heruse of technology in her undergraduate Organic Chemistry course. Our students have alsoreceived several honors this year. Gail Clements was awarded a fellowship from theARCS Foundation as well as an honorable mention for the Philips Amsterdam GraduateTeaching Award for Outstanding Teaching. Julia Lister (an undergraduate student in thegroup 2010-2011) was awarded a Madeleine Jacobs Fellowship from the Department ofChemistry. Academic achievement: Both Emily Jackson and Gail Clements completedcumulative exams and defended their written candidacy proposals. These are significantmilestones toward their PhD degrees, and both students have done an outstanding job!

Continuing our tradition of hosting a local high school student during the summer, we hadthe pleasure of welcoming Johneice Pearson from the School Without Walls for summer2011. It was a pleasure hosting Johneice, who is now an undergraduate at theUniversity of Alabama Birmingham. Zack Sheldon, who joined us in 2010, isnow an undergraduate student at Oberlin College. Both students are majoringin chemistry!

Our alumni continue to do well. Elizabeth Hirst (BS 2009) is completing a PhD in chemistry at Boston University. Eugene Uh (BS 2010)has been in the postbaccalaureate program at NIH in Dr. Clif Barry’s lab, Cindy’s former mentor. Eugene intends to go to medical schoolin 2012. Elizabeth Humes (BS 2010, former REU student from Dickenson College) is also in a postbaccalaureate program at NIH. Sheplans to pursue a Masters in Public Health.

In September 2009, we were awarded a highly competitive RC1 Challenge Grant from NIH. Since then, we moved the Dxr project intohigh gear, hired postdoc Geraldine San Jose, and are now starting to publish the results. We will continue to publish our work this yearand have submitted two large grant proposals to (hopefully) continue our funding stream. We have been fortunate to receive significantinternal resources from GW. These pay for important preliminary studies that then become the basis for large, multi-year proposals sentto the federal granting organizations.

It’s a fantastic time to be in science at GW! Our community is looking forward to completion of the new Science and Engineering Halland is currently enjoying the increase in Chemistry faculty over the last few years. The Dowd lab is enjoying the much anticipated newlaboratory, shared with the Voutchkova group, which is the result of an extensive renovation on the third floor of Corcoran Hall. Thisnew space allows us to expand our group, learn from each other, and move our science forward faster than our previous space allowed.I look forward to this year and the progress that it will bring in many areas. As always, I encourage you to visit if you have a chance.To find out more about our group, please go to our webpage at http://home.gwu.edu/~cdowd/.

Dowd Research Group

Prof. Dowd

[left to right, back] Prof. Dowd, Michael Forman, CarlBrothers [front] Emily Jackson, Geraldine San Jose, GailClements

Page 6 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry Volume 29 | Page 7Department of Chemistry

Joan Hilderbrandt officially retired at the end of the Spring 2012 Semester. She had been with the universityon a full-time basis since the Fall of 1990. The nature of her position at GW evolved over time.

Originally, Professor Hilderbrandt was the Coordinator of the laboratory courses for Honors Chemistry (Hon-ors 33/34), Contemporary Science (Chem. 3/4), and General Chemistry (Chem. 11/12.). These laboratories tookplace in Corcoran 402 and in Acheson Hall on the Mount Vernon Campus. In reflection, Professor Hilderbrandtnotes that when she began as the Coordinator for the introductory laboratories in 1990 the combined total for theFall 1990 Semester was 697 students. The enrollment in Fall 2006, for just Chemistry 3, was 720 students.

Joan states ,“My records indicate that the peak registration for the laboratory program in a single academicyear was reached in Fall 2004 (over 1100 students) and Spring 2005 (over 1000 students).” She adds, “I requested to be relieved frommy duties as the Laboratory Coordinator during the 2005-2006 academic year. This responsibility was changed to a full-time staff posi-tion.” She notes, “Managing the introductory labs also allowed me to come into contact with chemistry graduate students. I really missedthe weekly interactions with the GTAs.”

Professor Hilderbrandt taught general chemistry from 1991 to 2012. She lectured Chem. 11 and 12. She also was the instructor for aChemistry 3/4 course sequence offered on the Mount Vernon Campus. When asked, Joan believes that she has taught between 5000-6000 students in the span of her 22 years at GW. Most of the lectures were in Chem. 11/12 and until recently were given in Corcoran302. (This space has now become the shared research laboratory of Dr. Cynthia Dowd and Dr. Adelina Voutchkova. If you are in the area,stop and take a look!)

Professor Hilderbrandt has participated over the years in service to the university. She took part in the Graduate Teaching Assistant Pro-gram (GTAP) Orientation from August 1996 to August 2011. Joan was the last faculty Pre-Health Professions Advisor (1998-1999).She served as the 7 year BA/MD Advisor from August 2003 and continued until August 2009. (Both of these positions became part ofthe CCAS Undergraduate Academic Staff Advising.) In addition, Professor Hilderbrandt has worked with the Office of Admissions andthe Columbian College with Regional Visits, Colonial Inaugurations and Major’s Fairs. She has also served on university committeesdealing with undergraduate education.

Professor Hilderbrandt was given sole responsibility, in 2009, for the quantitative analysis laboratory associated with the Chemistry22 lecture. This course is currently a 1 credit “writing in the discipline” (WID) class. It continues to be a work in progress. Joan will re-turn to GW, on a part-time basis, for both the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 Semesters to continue fine tuning Chem. 2123W.

Finally, Professor Hilderbrandt was the advisor for declared chemistry majors that graduated in 1997, 2001, 2005, and 2009. She willparticipate in the ceremonies for the class of 2013 held in May.

Professor Joan Hilderbrandt

Prof. Hilderbrandt

[left to right] Prof. Hilderbrandt, Prof. Zysmilich, Prof. Cahill

Tarek Mansour, Chemistry major [left], Prof.Hilderbrandt [right]

Prof. Miller’s lab continues to develop laser diagnostics for applicationto problems in biotechnology, atmospheric, and combustionchemistries. Specific projects underway include the development ofcavity enhanced absorption (CEA) sensors, the use of nanoparticles assensor platforms in biological systems, and combustion chemistry offossil and bio-derived fuels.

In more recent news, Prof. Miller won a Bender Teaching Award. Also,graduate student Esra Yonel graduated with her Ph.D., and Liesl Bau-mann received her Master’s degree. New students Hilary Melroy andErin Webster have joined the group, and they are already making greatcontributions.

Miller Research Group

Prof. Miller

Volume 29 | Page 9Department of Chemistry

Our research group is working intensively to provide chemical solutions to global climate and energy chal-lenges. 2010 and 2011 have been the years for experimental confirmation of our new solar theory published in2009 as “STEP: A solar chemical process to end anthropogenic global warming”.

STEP uses solar energy to produce chemicals, rather than electricity, and converts solar energy at efficiencieshigher than that of any solar cell. STEP produces materials using new carbon dioxide free chemistries.

The Licht group has introduced STEP carbon capture, which converts carbon dioxide to useful fuels at over 50%solar energy conversion efficiency, and STEP carbon dioxide free iron, which replaces the millennia-old, car-bothermal carbon dioxide process used by industry to make iron. The portfolio of STEP generated materials israpidly increasing, and in addition to fuels and iron already also includes hydrogen, magnesium, and bleach.

Resources and funds are urgently needed to build larger demonstrations of our STEP process to combat climate change. Any contribu-tions to the GW Chemistry Department would expedite the research and would be greatly appreciated. A detailed recent overview of theSTEP process is published as: Licht, “Solar Thermal Electrochemical Production of Energetic Materials: STEP, a different solar energyconversion process” Advanced Materials, 2011.

The group has grown, and the level of excitement risen, since the opening ofour solar and battery chemistry labs in 2009. The group includes graduate stu-dents Jason Lau, Ulyana Cubeta, Jessica Stuart, Bryan Leone, Maryam Far-mand (co-mentored with Prof. Ramaker), Postdoctoral Fellows ChamindaHettige and Hongjun Wu, returning Visiting Scientist Dr. Baohui Wang, Re-search Assistant, Joseph Asercion, undergraduate Harry Bergmann, and groupalumni who finished last year include Dianlu Jiang, Zhonghai Zhang, and un-dergraduates Andrew Dick and Olivia Chityat, and international visitor SusantaGhosh.

The group is also actively increasing the capacity of batteries using new mul-tiple electron per molecule storage chemistries. The nano-chemistry enhance-ment of both our super-iron and VB2/air batteries was introduced and recentlypublished. Group members Jason Lau and Chaminda Hettige had a productivevanadium boride battery research experience in an industrial setting in CollegeStation Texas last summer funded through our NSF grant, and Maryam Far-mand has spent time probing super-iron battery chemistry at the BrookhavenNational Labs. Last June the group, led by undergraduate Harry Bergmann,presented lectures and demonstrations to the School Without Walls, a high school in Washington, DC.

In 2010 and 2011, the group has published ~30 peer reviewed studies, chapters, and patents, and presented at a number of national andinternational Chemical, Electrochemical and Solar Energy conferences. The Licht group is funded by a multi-year grant from the Na-tional Science Foundation, grants from several corporations, a small French/US partnership grant (in collaboration with GW’s high per-formance computing Center) and a University Facilitating Fund grant.The new STEP process has garnered national and international media attention, a few examples include:

PhysOrg - 22 July 2010, “Solar-powered process could decrease carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels in 10 years”http://www.physorg.com/news199005915.html

Discover Magazine “Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Bioplastics,” Sept. 26, 2011:http://www.discovermagazine.com/2011/sep/26-carbon-dioxide-into-bioplastics-2-birds-1-stone

German Public Radio “U.S. chemists developed climate-friendly methods of metal production,” July 4, 2011:http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/forschak/1496894/nature.comblogs, Sept. 23, 2010, “Beautiful Photochemistry: The Iron AgeReinvented?”

Chemical & Engineering News, Aug. 2, 2010, Science Concentrates: “Solar Photo-Thermal Electrochemistry Demonstrated”

Page 8 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry

Licht Research Group

Prof. Licht

The Licht group’s Joe Asercion explains a working STEP (SolarThermal Electrochemical Production) process to GW PresidentSteven Knapp (middle), Virginia Secretary of Technology, Jim Duf-fey, State Sen. Mark Herring, VA House of Delagates Tag Grea-son, and GW Science and Technology Campus Dean AliEskandarian (left).

Massiah Research GroupDr. Michael Massiah recently joined our department as a structural bio-chemist/NMR spectroscopist. His group employs multi-dimensional Nu-clear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and other biophysicaltechniques to characterize the structures of proteins, and to probe protein-drug and protein-protein interactions. The goal is to elucidate the mecha-nism of function of proteins associated with key cellular processes. Hisgroup is focusing on the structural and functional studies of human MID1and alpha4 proteins. Mutations of either protein, but more predominantlyin MID1, result in ventral midline abnormalities that include wide-spacedeyes, cleft lip, palate and/or laryngoesophageal, and defects in the brainand genitalia. Both proteins are also important for maturation of immune

lymphocytes.

Prof. Massiah was able to set up his lab with funding he received from the National Science Foun-dation as part of a CAREER award, prior to joining the department, and with a new award he receivedafter joining the department. Since joining, Prof. Massiah has published a lengthy research article inthe Journal of Molecular Biology on the function of MID1 that describes how MID1 may target it-self, alpha4 and another protein, PP2A, for degradation; protein degradation is a mechanism of main-taining balance in cellular processes. He also has another article on the structure of alpha4 acceptedin PLoS ONE Biology. Prof. Massiah has also presented a poster and given a short talk at the Key-

stone Symposia in Big Sky Montana. In ad-dition, he has presented seminars at theNational Children’s Hospital in DC,Catholic and George Mason Universities, and in the Biology department at GW.

In his lab, Prof. Massiah has a post-doctoral fellow, Haijuan Du, and a bounti-ful group of bright-eyed excited undergraduates. The undergraduate students arelearning critical biochemistry and biotechnology skills. A couple of talented ones,Erica Walters and Manar Zaghlula, are making great strides towards the overallgoal of the lab. Erica Walters was awarded the prestigious Gamow Scholarshipto continue her research in the lab during the summer of 2011, and she also men-tored a high school student, Leanne Yuen, from Wheaton High School in Mont-gomery County in MD.

Prof. Massiah is teaching undergraduate Biochemistry courses to CCASstudents.

Prof. Massiah

[left to right, back] Esra Yonel, Prof.Miller, Liesl Baumann

Wheaton High School students. Prof. Massiah organized avisit to the department, giving the students an opportunity toexplore chemistry as an academic pursuit and to motivatethem to pursue chemistry in the future.

The group continued to explore enabling analytical techniques to study biological and medical problems. Al-though the theme of lasers and mass spectrometry was retained in this endeavor, the focus of our efforts hasshifted to the analysis of single cells and very small cell populations. The two main techniques the lab has in-troduced are laser ablation electrospray ionization (LAESI) mass spectrometry for larger, e.g. plant cells, andsilicon nanopost arrays (NAPA) mass spectrometry for smaller, e.g. yeast cells.

Thanks to prolific contributions by the current and some former lab members, Jessica Stolee, Bennett Walker,Peter Nemes, Bindesh Shrestha, Yong Chen and Prabhakar Sripadi, the 2010–2011 period saw a high level ofresearch output. This was reflected in 14 publications in high impact peer reviewed journals, including 2 coverpage articles and 1 paper featured on the back cover, as well as 2 book chapters. In 2010 Professor Vertes alsoserved as a guest co-editor for the Special Issue of Applied Physics A, entitled “Laser Ablation: Fundamentals.”

In the LAESI-related papers the efficacy of this technique was demonstrated for mouse and rat brain analysis and chemical imaging oftissue sections. New approaches to single cell analysis and cell-by-cell imaging were demonstrated using LAESI mass spectrometry. Wealso showed that the degradation of old books and other paper-based historic documents could be followed by this method. Two of ourcontributions in this group took advantage of new possibilities in publishing based on video articles. With an Internet connection you canview these articles by following the http://www.jove.com/index/details.stp?id=2097 and

http://www.jove.com/index/details.stp?id=2144 links.

The concept of nanophotonic ion sources, introduced by the group, has alsobeen featured in wide ranging publications, including “Polarization dependentfragmentation of ions produced by laser desorption from nanopost arrays,” “As-sessment of laser-induced thermal load on silicon nanostructures based on iondesorption yields,” “Tailored Silicon Nanopost Arrays for Resonant Nanopho-tonic Ion Production,” and “High-Energy Fragmentation in Nanophotonic IonProduction by Laser-Induced Silicon Microcolumn Arrays.”

During the 2010–2011 period, our work was featured by the national and inter-national media on 11 separate occasions. Some of these reports have generatedsignificant international response. For example, on September 8, 2010, ProteaBiosciences, Inc., the company that pursues the commercialization of the LAESIinvention, issued a press release with the title “Protea Biosciences FinalizesNew Technology License Agreement: LAESI technology identifies viral-in-fected cells in minutes.” Within days, over 50 media outlets reported on the an-

nouncement. In addition to numerous US accounts, there were reports in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Finland, and Japan.German, French, and Dutch translations also appeared. Among the better known sites were: Bloomberg, CNBC, Drug Discovery and De-velopment, Forbes, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, MSNBC, Reuters, Spiegel, TD Ameritrade, The Medical News, andYahoo! Finance.

Similarly, on June 6, 2011, Protea Biosciences, Inc., announced the availability of LAESI mass spectrometry services including two-di-mensional and three-dimensional tissue analysis. They also had the first commercial version of the instrument on display at the 59thMeeting of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry in Denver, CO. Within days, over 250 media outlets around the world pickedup the story.

Professor Vertes delivered a number of distinguished lectures at international venues. Among other speaking engagements, in 2011 hewas a keynote speaker at the 14th Beijing Conference and Exhibition on Instrumental Analysis (BCEIA 2011), Beijing, China, and de-livered a plenary lecture at the Fifth Meeting of the Spanish Society of Mass Spectrometry, Malaga, Spain. In 2010, he received theVelmer A. Fassel Award in Analytical Chemistry and delivered the corresponding lecture.

During the past year, Professor Vertes became an Academic Editor for the journal PLoS ONE and served as a member of the Commit-tee of Visitors reviewing the Division of Chemistry at the National Science Foundation.

Prof. Vertes

Vertes Research Group

[left to right] Brian Smith, Aparna Sajja, McKenzie Floyd, DanForeman, Sylwia Stopka, Shellie Jacobson, Prof. Vertes,Laine Compton, Amy Li, Tarek Mansour, Linwen Zhang,Bindesh Shrestha

Prof. Ramaker and his group continuedwork on the utilization of x-ray absorptionspectroscopy (XAS) to study operating fuelcells and also began a series of studies on Liion batteries.

The following group changes occurred.Badri Shyam obtained his PhD in May 2010and accepted a postdoctoral position at Ar-gonne National Lab in Chicago, where he iscontinuing to use synchrotron radiation to

study battery materials. Dr. Smitha Vasudevan, a Ph.D. graduate ofthe University of Virginia, continued her postdoctoral work on acooperative agreement funded by the Naval Research Lab. AnnaKorovina and Maryam Farmand continued as graduate students thisyear, and Keegan Caldwell was added to the group.

New research opportunities also occurred. The Ramaker groupbegan collaboration with Profs. Licht and Wagner in the Depart-ment to study Li ion batteries as well as iron ferrates. The ferratematerials are unique in that they can transfer three electrons per Featom, thus offering very high capacities. The Ramaker group alsoobtained funding through a DOE Energy Frontier Research Consor-tium project with General Motors as lead investigator, along withMIT, Northeastern University, Johnson Mathey, and Technical Uni-versity of Darmstadt. The project involves looking at Pt-M (M =Cu, Co, or Ni) materials which have been electrochemically de-al-loyed to form a core-shell particle with a Pt outer layer and a Pt-Minner core. These materials exhibit oxygen reduction activities 4-5 times larger than Pt, but the reasons for this are not clear. Ourgroup uses x-ray absorption spectroscopy to follow the adsorbatecoverage of oxygen reduction intermediates while under operandoconditions in a fuel cell, and this data is providing answers.

Our collaboration with Prof. Christina Roth from the Technical Uni-versity of Darmstadt continued this year with two of her graduatestudents spending 2- 3 weeks with us, and a third student spendinga summer. This collaboration has continued now for several yearsand has been very productive, resulting in 2 papers this year.

Again the members of the group were very productive this year,publishing 5 papers in such high impact journals as the Journal ofPhysical Chemistry, and authoring or coauthoring 9 presentationsat conferences such at the Electrochemical Society meeting inBoston in October, and the 5th International Conference on Greenand Sustainable Chemistry organized by the American ChemicalSociety.

Ramaker Research Group

Prof. Ramaker

Page 10 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry

[left to right, back] Keegan Caldwell, Maryam Farmand [front]Anna Korovina, Prof. Ramaker

Prof. Sadtchenko and his group continue to focus on experimental stud-ies of chemical and physical phenomena in condensed aqueous phase(ice, supercooled water, cryogenic aqueous solutions) with emphasis oninterfacial and nanoscale phenomena. The group is primarily interestedin the numerous important chemical phenomena which occur at surfacesof molecular solids under conditions where such surfaces are dynamic,disordered, and difficult to characterize. Over past years, theSadtchenko group has developed a unique scientific instrument. It com-bines such typical high vacuum techniques as Time-of-Flight MassSpectrometry and Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy with Fast Scan-ning Calorimetry and makes it possible to study phase transitions, molecular kinetics, transportphenomena, and reactions in nano- and micrometer scale vapor-deposited ice and deeply super-cooled water films at temperatures from cryogenic to near ambient. Because of the critical roleof water in the environment and in biological systems, the results of these experiments are of greatinterest in environmental chemistry, materials science, and biochemistry.

In more recent news, grad student Deepanjan Bhattacharya has completed his candidacy exam, andhe looks forward to making even more progress with his research. The Sadtchenko lab also hosted2 high school students over the summer. Daniel Morgan Rivers attends Wheaton High School inMaryland, and Alejandra Torres received an ACS-SEED scholarship to do her summer research.

Sadtchenko Research Group

Prof. Sadtchenko

Department of Chemistry Volume 29 | Page 11

[left to right] Prof. Sadtchenko, Deepanjan Bhattacharya

Volume 29 | Page 13Department of Chemistry

Professor Zysmilich is responsible for the chemistry program for non-science majors and, as such, he has beenteaching Contemporary Science for Non-Science Majors (Chem1003 and 1004) for a number of years. An up-to-date curriculum with discussion topics “ripped from the headlines” and the use of the state-of-the-art teach-ing technologies have kept these two courses the most sought-after science courses among GW undergraduates.In collaboration with the GW Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), he has developed severalinstructional videos and tutorials to improve the laboratory experience of these two courses. Professor Zysmilichis also a faculty member in the University Honors Program, teaching the highly praised Honors General Chem-istry I and II courses. In January 2010, Professor Zysmilich published the preliminary edition of his book“Over-the-Counter Chemistry,” Cognella/University Readers. A revised edition was published in January 2011.Professor Zysmilich has participated as “facilitator” in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) workshops for prospec-tive science high-school teachers and for high-school students in Argentina. He has also participated in the production of an instructionalvideo for the award-winning magazine ChemMatters.

Professor Zysmilich serves as an academic advisor for chemistry majors ,and he was the acting Director of Graduate Studies at the chem-istry department for the 2011-2012 academic year. He also served in the Health Professions Advisory Committee (2010-2011), in the Gen-eral Curriculum (GPAC) Science review committee, and he is presently the chairman of the Columbian College Undergraduate StudiesCommittee.

Professor Martín G. Zysmilich

Prof. Zysmilich

Dr. Wagner’s group had a highly productive year. Chao Yan (Jerry) and Cliff Cook completed their Ph.D.’s.Jonathan Cox was offered a job that he felt was perfect for him and left GW while still writing his Ph.D. the-sis, which should be done soon. The year has also been highly “reproductive” with former group memberSumin Li having a child, as did Jonathan’s wife. Congratulations! Jerry’s wife is expecting their first child thissummer. Congratulations! Kevin Hayes and Minjie Li continued their Ph.D. thesis research on high rate ofcharge Li-ion batteries and a new Ph.D. student, Nathan Banek, joined the battery team. Our patent applica-tion for this advanced battery is in the final stages of approval. Ming Zhang has taken over Jerry’s project de-veloping a rapid, highly efficient method of producing nanocrystals with very small size distributions,essentially identical in size. On a personal note, my eldest son, Richard, started kindergarten this year. Watch-ing my sons Richard and Caivs grow up so fast is really amazing and a bit scary; seems like if I turn aroundfor a moment they will run off to college.

Wagner Research Group

Prof. Wagner

Department of ChemistryPage 12 | Volume 29

Professor Teng continues to research interfacial processes at mineral surfaces in aqueous environments. Heis joined by Post Doc, Jie Xu. Grad student Mina Hong is also making excellent progress on her research, andshe traveled to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory this summer to learn new techniques.

Using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), the Teng group observes molecular scale surface processes in anambient atmospheric environment as well as under solution flow-through conditions. Data collected fromAFM experiments help them to understand how growth/dissolution starts and proceeds in fluid, and where onmineral surfaces bio-molecules and even bacteria prefer to interact. They also investigate bulk solutionprocesses of mineral-water interactions by analyzing temporal solution chemistry changes. These bulkprocesses concern both dissolution and crystallization and various solution chemistry effects. Results of these

studies find wide implication and applications in both geosciences and environmental sciences.

Henry Teng is current funded by DOE’s Basic Energy Science Geoscience program and NSF’s Sustainable Energy Pathways program.In addition, he has extensive collaboration with colleagues at Nanjing University sponsored by China’s Ministry of Science and Tech-nology and Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. Prof. Teng traveled to Nanjing again this summer, and he plans to return next year.

Teng Research Group

Prof. Teng

Research Professor Tossell received the 2011 ACS GEOC (Geochemistry Division) medal at a symposium inhis honor at the Spring ACS Meeting in Anaheim. This is the premier prize awarded every two years by theACS GEOC and is for fundamental advances in Geochemistry. The award was presented by past President ofthe ACS Professor Joseph Francisco. Several of Tossell’s former students and colleagues spoke at the sympo-sium.

Tossell is using computational chemistry to explore new methods for the capture and mitigation of CO2, nowfocusing on molecules containing pyridyl and pyrrol groups. He is also studying a number of topics in sulfur,antimony and arsenic geochemistry, some with his long time collaborator Professor George Helz at Univ. ofMaryland. He is also collaborating with Professor Henry Teng and his graduate student Mina Hong in a study

of boric acid and borate incorporation into calcite.

While he has no current research funding, he does have a fine computational environment provided by previous grants.

Tossell Research Group

Prof. Tossell

Grad student Gail Clements poses with George at the GWholiday party

Grad student Robin Samuel at the annual chalk-in

Dr. Voutchkova’s group aims to address the urgent need to develop environmentally benign synthetic method-ologies for the fine chemicals industry. Specifically, they are exploring new classes of catalysts that improveatom/energy economy, allow the use of renewable feedstocks, and minimize the toxic waste streams releasedinto the environment. Currently, the group is examining the electronic and steric effects of various metal ox-ides supports on homogeneous catalysts and nanoparticles in order to identify interactions that are particularlybeneficial to catalysis. Such interactions could be tailored to facilitate a variety of otherwise challenging syn-thetic and energy-related transformations, such as CO2 activation and utilization. In addition to developinggreener synthetic methods, Dr. Voutchkova is also interested in understanding how to rationally design chem-icals used in commercial products such that they are not toxic to humans and the environment. This work usescomputational chemistry and toxicology to probe how chemical structure and properties are related to toxic-ity. She will be developing new coursework that incorporates toxicology and green chemistry into existing cur-ricula. With these interests in green and sustainable chemistry Dr Voutchkova will also contribute to the

Environmental and Resource Policy program.

Voutchkova Research Group

Prof. Voutchkova-Kostal

Khameinei Ali, May 2010A year of research with NIH and then medical school

Cory Antonakos, May 2010PhD program in chemistry at UC Berkley

Kathrine Baldwin, May 2011Working

Dana Berman, May 2011Working at NIH for a year then applying to grad schools

Julian Broad, May 2012

Megan Buonaiuto, May 2012PhD program in chemistry at Stanford University

Scott Caplan, May 2012PhD program in organic chemistry at University of Pittsburgh

Taylor Carrington, May 2011Applied to Physicians Assistant School; for fall semester willbe home and volunteer

Michael Chung, May 2012Working and applying to dental school

Kristine Colquett, Aug. 2011

Jennifer Day, May 2010University of Minnesota Medical School

Ashley De Chelfin, May 2011Complete Master's in Forensic Science-GW

Robert Ge, Aug. 2010Graduate program in Forensic Chemistry-GW

Philip George, May 2010Medical school-GW

Nancy Guan, May 2011Applying to pharmacy school and working

Anila Khan, May 2012Medical school-Creighton University

Abby Knop, May 2011Applying to dental school and working

Zoë Krohn, May 2012Master's degree in Forensic Science at Towson University

Adam Kutnick, May 2011Complete Master’s in Forensic Science at GW

(Arthur) Eun Jung Lee, May 2010Graduate school at Yonsei University (Korea)in nanomedicalprogram

Julia Lister,May 2012Medical school-University of Minnesota

Getachew Mengistu, May 2011Medical school at Howard University

Sarah Millman, May 2012Medical Science Master's at Boston University

Mary Moreno, May 2012

Page 14 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry

Liesl Baumann, MS, May 2011Working at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

Jennifer Herdman, PhD, May 2012Starting a post doctoral position at the University of Groningen inthe Netherlands

Karah Knope, PhD, May 2010PostDoc at Argonne National Lab

Adam Lentscher, MS, Aug. 2010Teaching high school chemistry in Michigan

Jelena Lusic, MS, May 2010

Anice Mathew, MS, Aug. 2010

Badri Shyam, PhD, May 2010Post doc at Argonne National Lab

Chao Yan, PhD, May 2011

Esra Yonel, PhD, May 2011Teaching chemistry part time at GW and George Mason Univer-sity

Graduate Students

Graduation

Undergraduate StudentsLooking for full-time lab position, then attend grad school formasters in public health in epidemiology or pharmacoepidemi-ology

Catherine Munro, May 2012Working in the Voutchkova lab this fall, then grad school

Kwasi Osae-Kwapong, May 2012Working and applying for medical school

Georgina Pappas, May 2011Will work at the Naval Medical Research Center/Walter ReedArmy Institute of Research in Silver Spring, MD in the Neuro-Trauma Dept. Plans to apply to medical school and graduateprograms in biochemistry and neuroscience

Candace Payne, Jan. 2011PhD program in chemistry at University of Aberdeen in Scot-land

Jessica Rodriguez, May 2011Medical school-GW

Anil Shah,May 2012Medical Science Master's at Boston University

Eric Shapiro, May 2012Attending Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

Samantha Sherman, May 2011Doing research then applying to medical school

Alex Sotolongo, May 2012Working for Dr. Murad in Biochemistry Dept. for 1 year andapplying for MD/PhD programs

John St. Angelo, May 2011Work in Vertes lab and attending Temple University Medicalschool in Fall 2012

Eugene Uh, May 2010A year of research at NIH (C. Barry's group)

Evangeline Van-Dunem, May 2011Applying to graduate programs in biochemistry

Deana Vranas, May 2011

Tiffany Wong, May 2010Medical school-GW (early selection)

Jingcheng Wu, May 2011Instructional assistant with Chemistry Department and apply-ing to medical school

Maggie Yuen, May 2012

Undergraduate StudentsContinued

Department of Chemistry Page 15 | Volume 29

2012 graduating class

Prof. Wagner (left) and Tarek Mansour (right) at the un-dergraduate research poster session

[left to right] Ashley Dechelfin, Jessica Rodriguez, Saman-tha Sherman, John St. Angelo, Getachew Mengistu

Graduation continued from page 14

Volume 29 | Page 17Department of Chemistry

Lee Silverburg (BS ’86) accepted a tenure-track position at PennState Schuylkill as an Assistant Professor. He is very excited aboutteaching and running a small undergraduate research program.

Cory Antonakos (BS ’10) received an NSF research fellowship tosupport her work on her PhD at UC Berkley.

After graduation, Ryan Brennan (PhD ’09) moved to Massachu-setts. He and his wife are very proud of their first child, Aidan Gar-rett.

Prof. Vertes met up with Kathrine Baldwin (BS ’11) at ASMS.She reports that she is doing well in Amina Woods’ lab at NIH.

Anice Mathew (MS ’10) married Jaideep Khapre whom she metwhile studying at GW. They traveled home to India for the wed-ding.

Alumna Renee Verdecchio (BS ’11) works at BASF as a staff sci-entist.

Nancy Guan (BS ’11) is attending the University of MarylandPharmacy school.

Gunjan Shah (BS ’04) finished medical school at Temple, follow-ing up with a residency in Internal Medicine at Jefferson University.

She plans to do a fellowship Hematology/Oncology Fellowship atTufts University.

Joel Shulman (BS ’65) was elected an ACS Fellow. Congratula-tions!

Best of luck to Zohra Olumee-Shabon (PhD ’99), who accepteda Staff Fellow position with the Center for Veterinary Medicine atthe FDA.

Olesya Chornoguz (BS ’05)spent a year at PNNL after graduat-ing with her BS, before moving on to UMBC.

Another former member of the Vertes group has also accepted aposition with the FDA. Peter Nemes (PhD ’09) became a StaffFellow after completing a post doc at the University of Illinois.

Glauco Souza (PhD ’04) is doing well at n3D Biosciences, Inc.He passed on articles that were published in Nature, http://www.na-ture.com/nnano/journal/v5/n4/full/nnano.2010.23.html and in Nan-otechnology Now,http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=37240.

Kaveh Kahen (PhD ’06) is a Principle Research Scientist at ABSciex in Ontario, Canada.

Alumni News

Page 16 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry

Alpha Chi Sigma: Awarded to the graduating senior with the highest academic record in chemistry courses (with at least 16 hours at GW): Jennifer Day(2010), Jingcheng Wu (2011), Megan Buonaiuto (2012)

American Chemical Society: Awarded to a student completing his or her junior year and who has demonstrated excellence in Analytical Chemistry: Jingcheng Wu (2010),Tarek Mansour (2011), Emma Edelstein (2012)

American Chemical Society– Division of Inorganic Chemistry Undergraduate Award: Awarded to a student who has demonstrated excellence in inorganic chemistry at the undergraduate level and whose future plans includea career in chemistry: Cory Antonakos (2010), Jincheng Wu (2011), Yebo Fu (2012)

American Institute of Chemists: Awarded to a senior graduate student and graduating senior majoring in chemistry who excel in scholarship, integrity, and leadership.Undergraduate: Michael Holland (2010), John St. Angelo (2010), Anila Khan (2012) Graduate: Karah Knope (2010), Badri Shyam(2010), Chao Yan (2011)

A. D. Britt, Charles R. & Elma M. Naeser, and Madeleine Reines Jacobs Funds: Awarded to one or more outstanding junior or senior undergraduate majors to carry out research in the summer:

A.D. Britt: Megan Buonaiuto (2010), Katherine Baldwin (2010), Adam Kutnick (2010), Getachew Mengistu (2011), Julian Broad(2011), Daniel Foreman (2012), Yoo Jeong (2012), Tarek Mansour (2012), Alexander Yepikhin (2012)

Madeleine Reines Jacobs: Julia Lister (2010, 2011), Kuanlin Wu (2012), Emma Edelstein (2012)

Charles R. & Elma M. Naeser: John St. Angelo (2010)

Chemical Society of Washington Prize: Awarded to the outstanding junior majoring in chemistry: Megan Buonaiuto (2010), Julia Lister (2011), Tarek Mansour (2012)

Byrne Thurtell Burns Memorial Prize: Awarded to the graduating chemistry major who has shown the greatest proficiency in organic chemistry as demonstrated by a written ex-amination: Eugene Uh (2010), Adam Kutnick (2011), Megan Buonaiuto (2012)

William E. Fitch Prize: Awarded to the graduating chemistry major with the best written comprehensive examination in chemistry: Jennifer Day (2010), Adam Kut-nick (2011), Megan Buonaiuto (2012)

Chemistry DepartmentPrizes and Awards

Chemical Rubber Company Freshman Chemistry Achievement Award: Awarded to one or more freshmen who have achieved the highest records in their respective sections of Introductory Chemistry:

2010: Holly Boyum, Erin Crawford, Ilya Kavalerov, Nicholas McGlynn, & David Neary

2011: Woojin Lee, Madeline Mador, Thomas Savage, Noor Tarazi, & Manar Zaghlula

2012: Evin Feldman, John Kopriva, Steven Lee, & Brinda Mysore

Benjamin D. Van Evera Memorial Prize: Awarded to the most effective Graduate Teaching Assistants in Chemistry: Gail Clements (2010), Michael Kessler (2010), Liesl Bau-mann (2011), Esra Yonel (2011), Robin Samuel (2012), Ming Zhang (2012)

Spring 2011 graduates and award recipients[left to right] Julia Lister, Tarek Mansour, John St. Angelo

Prof. Sadtchenko (left) and Erica Walters (right) at theChemistry Department’s 1st annual undergraduate re-search poster session

Sarah Millman and Kwasi Osae-Kwapong at the ChemicalSociety of Washington dinner

Prizes continued from page 16

Page 18 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry

2011 Department Fall Retreat at Alpine Lake Resort, WV

A nice way to support the department would be to endow the annual departmental retreat.

Kaveh Jorabchi (PhD ’06) accepted a tenure track Assistant Pro-fessor position at Georgetown University.

Najmeh Izadpanah (BS ’09) worked as a medical scribe atINOVA Fair Oaks’ Emergency Department before moving on tomedical school.

After a brief hiatus from chemistry, Jonathan Congmon is plan-ning to start a Masters program in chemistry.

Chase Bovaird (BS ’08) got a job at PNNL after graduation.

Tiffany Wong (BA ’10) attended the GW Medical School afterbeing accepted early decision.

Candace Payne (BS ’11)is doing graduate research in Prof. JamesAnderson’s lab at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Her proj-ect involves synthesizing Pt and Pd nanoparticles and using them incatalysis.

Carly (Levin) Filgueira (BS ’03) accepted a position at theMethodist Hospital Research Institute in the Texas Medical Centerin Houston., where she works for the department of genomic med-icine under the direction of Dr. Paul Webb. She also works underDrs. Berkenstam and Phillips and with Dr. Gustaffson at Universityof Houston.

Alumnus Terry Schull (PhD ’99) spent many months inAfghanistan on a contract with his company, Six3 Systems. He re-cently came back to the DC area looking for his next contractingopportunity.

Scott Dantley (BS ’92) is an Associate Vice President at CoppingState University in Maryland.

Scott Keeler (MD ’82, BA ’78) stopped by the department whilevisiting GW with his daughter on their college tour. Scott is anMD, and worked in Colorado before moving on to a hospital inSouthern Mississippi about 10 years ago.

After graduation, Ali Khameinei (BS ’10) spent one year doing re-search with the NIH while applying to medical school.

Stephanie McCartney (PhD ’09) reports that her two boys aredoing well, and they’re getting bigger every day. Stevie is 3, andFenton is already approaching 1 year. Stephanie continues to workfor Southern Polytechnic University in Marietta, GA.

Xiaodong (Daniel) Tang (PhD ’97) is VP of Operations ofDMPK/Bioassay of Frontage Laboratories in Shanghai.

Chemistry Department GiftsJuly 2010-June 2012

We are deeply appreciative of the gifts from our alumni to the Department. Each gift, whatever the amount, allows us to fur-ther our research and educational goals. If your check is made out to the Chemistry Department, the money is earmarked forour use. If not, it goes into the general fund. So please remember to cite the Chemistry Department E&R Account on any gift.

Many thanks to each of you for your thoughtfulness, and a special thanks to donors who gave $1000 or more.

Mrs. Davette E. AbkowitzMr. Sotirios AntonakosMr. Phillip J. AruscavageMr. Garet A. Bornstein and Mrs. Ann Bornstein*Mr. Robert Bowen* Mrs. Shelesa A. Brew *Dr. Elise A. BrownMs. Megan BuonaiutoMr. Benjamin F. Calvo, M.D.* *Dr. Mary Widmark Carrabba** Dr. Edward and Dr. Virginia Caress*** Ms. Soyun ChoiDr. Roy S. Clarke*** Mr. John C. Cooper, III*Ms. Dorothy Steimel-Crespi and Mr. Charles Crespi*Mr. Timothy Cullen and Dr. Claire Cullen*Dr. and Mrs. Courtland Davis* Mr. Daniel Day and Dr. Deborah Day* Mrs. Elizabeth B. Donaldson* Dr. Kathleen Duda and Dr. Christopher Duda**Mr. Richard J. Evans* Ms. Katherine Ann Fedor*Mr. Lawrence Fertel*Dr. Mark Dominick Fili*Mrs. Carly Levin Filgueria***Dr. David Firestone*Mr. and Mrs. James Funkhouser*Ms. Stephanie D. Gibbs-WattsMr. Dwayne R. Gamble and Ms. Susan GillmorMr. James Wilson GladdenDr. David E. Goldberg**Dr. Thomas M. Hall***Dr. Forest K. Harris*Dr. Lee S. Harrow*Ms. Susan HealdDr. R. Gerald Heinze*Mr. and Mrs. C. Michael Hoffman**Dr. John C. HoffsommerProf. Emanuel Horowitz*Dr. Charles R. Hurt***Dr. Madeline R. Jacobs and Mr. Joseph Jacobs***Dr. Frank Louis Joe, Jr.* Dr. Randall Kaye** Mr. Gerald J. KeefeMs. Anila N. Khan

Dr. Usha Khatri-ChhetriMs. Linda KingDrs. Carolyn and Charles Knobler***Dr. Stuart and Dr. Rosalind Kornfeld***Mr. Charles MarshallDr. Maria E. Martins**Mr. and Mrs. Harry D. McCament, Jr.*Ms. Le-Nhung McLeland***Dr. Charalambos Menelaou*Ms. Diana S. MillmanMr. and Mrs. Alan S. Nadel***Ms. Ellen and Mr. Stanley NesheimDr. Marriner Krumm NorrDr. James H. O’Mara***Ms. Georgina PappasMr. and Mrs. Eddie PerkinsDr. Theodore P. Perros***Protea Biosciences Inc.***Dr. David Ramaker and Mrs. Beverly Ramaker* *Dr. Richard Reeves and Mary Reeves* *Eric J. Reines, M.D. *Dr. Wilbert J. Robertson* Dr. Mitchell Neal Ross *Dr. David A. Rowley and Ms. Elaine H. Rowley**Mrs. Pamela L. Russ*Dr. William Edward Schmidt***Dr. Terence L. SchullDr. Joel Shulman** Dr. Jay A. Siegel*Dr. Reynolds Reed and Mrs. Jennifer Leigh Skaggs*Dr. Karen J. Skinner*Jere B. Stern, M.D. Mr. Albert Stewart Jerremy M. Stipkala, Esq.*Mrs. Shirley M. Stuntz**Dr. Peter Tarasoff***Dr. Paul A. Thomas*LCDR John F. Van Patten, MSC, USN*Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Verdecchio** Ms. Reema Vora Mr. Charles Wales*Dr. David G. White and Estate of Marjory W. White***Mr. Frank R. WojcikMr. Zelalem S. WollieMs. Tiffany C. Wong

Volume 29 | Page 19Department of Chemistry

Alumni News continued from page 17

* = $100 or more ** = $500 or more *** = $1000 or more

Department of Chemistry725 21st Street, NWWashington, DC 20052

Phone: 202-994-6121Fax: 202-994-5873

email: gwchem@gwu.edudepartments.columbian.gwu.edu/chemistryhttp://www.facebook.com/gwchemistry

Newsletter publications and editing--Michael King and Shanna Roth

Corcoran Hall, Home of the Chemistry DepartmentDr. Michael M. King, Chairman

Page 20 | Volume 29 Department of Chemistry

Chemistry department interpretation of the periodic table of elements. GW Chalk-In.

University Photography The George Washington University