reached the level of Professor in 1993.

Wiley’s research has been far reaching. He has studied the synthesis and reactivity of transition metal cyclynes, the synthesis of imidazoles and their macrocyclic rings, and the application of these moie-ties to fuel cell membranes. More recently he focuses on the anti-tumor and antimicro-bial activity of silver com-plexes of N-heterocyclic car-benes. Throughout his career he has used x-ray crystallog-raphy to study the structures of compounds he has made. He is the director of the de-partment X-ray crystallogra-phy center.

Wiley has directed 22 Ph.D. dissertations, 6 M.S. theses, and 30 undergraduate re-search projects. He is the author of more than 160 publi-cations and review articles and has 11 patents. Wiley serves on the editorial board of Organometallics and Metal Based Drugs.

In 2005, he was chosen as Researcher of the Year by the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences. He was also awarded the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences Chairs’ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research in 2002.

Distinguished Professor, the highest academic level at the University of Akron, was re-cently awarded to two Chem-istry Department faculty mem-bers, Drs. Chrys Wesdemi-otis and Wiley Youngs. The title is an honor bestowed on a faculty member based on professional accomplishments over his/her career and it is given for the dedication to and achievements in scholarship and teaching as recognized at the local, the national and the international arenas.

Chrys received B.S. (1972), M.S. (1976), and Ph.D. (1979) degrees from Technische Universität Berlin (Berlin Institute of Technology) in Germany. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University in 1980, and a stint in the Greek Army, he returned to Cornell University in 1983 as a Senior Research Associate. In 1989, he accepted a faculty position at the UA Department of Chemistry, where he has been ever since.

Chrys’ research interests in-volve fundamental studies in gas phase ion chemistry and the development of new mass spectrometry methodologies. Current research focuses on the design and advancement of mass and tandem mass spectrometry techniques for the analysis of synthetic poly-mers, polymer surfaces, and polymer-biomolecule inter-

faces. Over the last decade, he created, with federal and state support, a Mass Spec-trometry Center to promote interdisciplinary research in chemistry, polymer science, engineering, and biology. The center has become a resource for polymer-related mass spectrometry studies within the Ohio Mass Spectrometry Consortium and was recently funded by NSF to acquire new instrumentation.

Since 1989, Chrys has di-rected 19 Ph.D. dissertations, 9 M.S. theses, and 40 under-graduate research projects. He has authored more than 180 peer reviewed publica-tions and book chapters and serves as editor of the Euro-pean Journal of Mass Spec-trometry. He serves on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry as member-at-large for education and has organized numerous sympo-sia and workshops on mass spectrometry related topics.

Chrys received the American Society for Mass Spectrome-try Research Award (1991), the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences Research Award (2001), the University of Akron Outstanding Re-searcher Award (2004), and the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences Chairs’ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research (2006).

Wiley Youngs received a B.S. in Physchology (1972) from SUNY Albany and a PhD (1980) from SUNY Buffalo. After a three year post-doctoral appointment at North-western, he went to Case Western Reserve as an Assis-tant Professor, reaching the level of Associate Professor in 1989. He then migrated to the University of Akron, where he

Drs. Wesdemiotis and Youngs Named Distinguished Profs

Chemistry Department News

Points of Interest

• Distinguished Profes-sors

• Department Picnic

• New faculty

• Summer Graduates

• Presentations

• Joint Appointment

The University of Akron August 2009

A quarterly newsletter for our faculty, graduate students,

Volume 1, Issue 3

Inside This Issue

Fall Picnic 2

Summer Graduates 3

New faculty 3

Meetings and Pres-entations

4

Grants, Contracts, and Patents

5

Faculty News 5

Summer UG research scholarships

6

UACHEM

August 2009

A quarterly newsletter for our faculty,

graduate students, undergraduates,

alumni, and friends

Our annual Chemistry De-partment Fall Picnic was held adjacent to Knight Chemical Laboratory on the afternoon of September 4. The weather was beautiful, the food was delicious, and Dr. Chris Ziegler served the food with panache. As always, there were many healthful side dishes. Eve-ryone from the department had the opportunity to meet, laugh, and gather strength to meet the upcoming se-mester. Again, Sarah Ro-benstein’s grandmother’s cookies were appreciated by

Fall Picnic Welcomes New and Returning Students

Volume 1, Issue 3 Page 2

This fall semester, Dr. Thomas Leeper joins the Department of Chemistry faculty as an Assistant Pro-fessor. Tom’s field of spe-cialization is the structural aspects of protein-RNA interactions and he will be a member of the Biochem-istry Division.

Tom comes to Akron after a post-doctoral appoint-ment in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington. His post-doctoral mentor was Dr. Gabriele Varani.

Tom received a B.S. in

Biology at Truman State University and earned a Ph. D. in Biochemistry in 2001 at the University of Missouri.

At UA, he will study the way in which RNA/protein (RNPs) complexes modify chromatin. His structural studies make use of NMR to determine the three di-mensional structures of these RNPs. Specifically, he will examine the target-ing of telomerase to DNA by looking at the Ku arm of telomerase RNA that inter-acts with the ends of DNA. He also plans to look at the

mode by which non-coding RNA, Xist RNA, involved in x-chromosome silencing.

Tom occupies newly re-modeled labs on the sec-ond floor of Knight Chemi-cal.

Dr. Thomas Leeper Joins Faculty

Graduate Students Earn Degrees Summer ’09

Sara Philips M.S. “A Photo-physical Characterization on the Unique Properties of Perylene-3,4:9,10-Bis ((3,4,5(Tris(Octyloxy)Benzohydrazide)-Dicarboximide.” Sara has taken a job at Hiram College as a lab coordinator.

Tim Smith Ph.D. “Synthesis and Photophyiscal Characte-riazation of Covalent and Self-Assembled Oligo (Phenylenevinylenes and Related Multichromophone-Containing Assemblies .” He

is post-doctoral researcher at Kent State University.

Heather Steele Ph. D. “Permeation Sampling of Phthalate Esters.” She is currently working at Analyti-cal Perspectives in Wilming-ton, North Carolina.

Beth Subel Ph. D. “Applications of Mass Spec-trometry to Poly(electrolytes) and Kinetics .” Beth is em-ployed at the FDA in Cincin-nati.

Five Chemistry Department graduate students received degrees this summer. Four of whom earned the Ph.D. The Chemistry Department is proud to welcome all these new chemists to the alumni ranks. All the gradu-ates report they have jobs that utilize their talents to the highest extent.

Melinda Carnahan Ph.D. “Novel Nitric Oxide Donors for Use in Medicinal Appli-cations.” She will be work-ing at SNH in Stow Ohio.

Volume 1, Issue 3 Page 3

From left to right: Melinda Carnahan, Sara Phillips, Tim Smith, Heather Steele, and Beth Subel

New Graduate Students Fall 2009

Faculty, Students Present Research at National Meetings

Colòn and Ronald F. Ziolo “Polymer-Semiconductor Nanoparticle Com-posites: Characterization of the Bulk and Interface Structure”

ASMS Conference on Mass Spec-trometry and Allied Topics, Phila-delphia, PA.

Nilufer Solak and Chrys Wesdemi-otis, “Structural characterization of a complex nonionic surfactant by LC-MSn”

Danijela Smiljanic and Chrys Wes-demiotis, “Investigation of non-covalent complexes between syn-thetic polymers and biomolecules us-ing mass spectrometry”

Chrys Wesdemiotis, Nilufer Solak, and Andrew Baker, “Separation and characterization of copolymers by ion mobility mass spectrometry”

Ömür Çelikbiçak, Bekir Salih, and Chrys Wesdemiotis, “Noncovalent interactions between poly(ethylene imine) and Cibacron Blue 3GA stud-ied by mass spectrometry”

Vincenzo Scionti, Claire Tessier, Wiley Youngs, and Chrys Wesde-miotis, “Characterization of poly(organophosphazene)s by mass spectrometry techniques”

Alesia Salberg, Abdulkareem Me-

laiye, Ed Johnson, and Chrys Wesde-miotis, “Characterization of the physical and chemical networks in filled rubber compounds by pyrolysis - GC/MS”

Brian Field, Fan Xiang, Martin Resch, and Chrys Wesdemiotis, “Overcoming the limitations of MALDI-TOF-MS analy-sis of polymers using GPC-MALDI and a hybrid ion trap time of flight MALDI MS”

David E. Dabney, Jon Janoski, Roderic P. Quirk, and Chrys Wesdemi-otis, “Identification of functional additives in polybutadiene by tandem mass spec-trometry”

Bethany Subel and Chrys Wesdemi-otis, “Positive and negative mode mass spectrometry of poly(electrolytes)”

63rd Ohio State University Interna-tional Symposium on Molecular Spec-troscopy, Columbus

Sylvestre Twagirayezu, Trocia N. Clasp, David S. Perry, Justin L. Neill, Matt T. Muckle, And Brooks H. Pate, “Confirmation of Vibration Coupling in The Symmetric CH Stretch as Revealed by Coherence-Detected FTMW-IR Spec-troscopy of CH3OD”

Sylvestre Twagirayezu, David S. Perry, Justin L. Neill, Matt T. Muckle,

Faculty and students were busy this summer presenting research at several national meetings.

Invited Keynote Presentations

Rinaldi, P. L.; Li, X.; McCord, E. F.; Baiagern, S.; Fox, P. A.; How-ell, J. L.; and Sahoo, S. “Advanced 2D-NMR studies of fluoropolymers” 42nd IUPAC Congress: Chemistry Solutions, Glasgow, Scotland

Chrys Wesdemiotis, “Mass spec-trometry methods for the characteri-zation of new synthetic polymers and materials.” Annual Conference of Mass Spectrometry, Society of Japan, Osaka, Japan

Chrys Wesdemiotis, “Mass Spec-trometry of Polymers and Materials I – Structures and Properties” and “Mass Spectrometry of Polymers and Materials II – HPLC and Ion Mobility Separation,” ASMS Confer-ence on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics, Philadelphia PA

ACS National Meeting, Washing-ton, DC

Li, X.; Rinaldi, P. L.; McCord, E. F.; Fox, P.; Baiagern, S.; Sahoo, S. K.; Howell, J. L.; “Advanced 2D-NMR studies of fluoropolymers”

Matthew P. Espe, Saida Y. Ortiz-

Volume 1, Issue 3 Page 4

From Left to right: Kiran Khanal – B.S., Trib-huvan University, Nepal, M.S. University of Akron; Bryan Katzenmeyer – B.S. Penn State University , M.S. University of Wisconsin; Caroline Davis – B.S. Walsh University; Joshua Chavez – B.S. New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology; Mahesh Dawadi – B.S. and M.S. Tribhuvan University, Nepal; Yu-sheng Chen – B.S. Tianjing University, PR China; Ryan Schafer – B.S. Westminster Col-lege; Jessi Baughman – B.S. College of Wooster.

Commuter Campus, NSF, Bill Dono-van, $26,000

Collaborative Research: Polymeric Drug Delivery Systems and Biofilms in the Lung, NIH, Wiley Youngs, $36,400

Acquisition of a Dual Cu/Mo Source X-ray Diffractometer, Matt Panzer, Claire Tessier, Wiley Youngs, Chris Ziegler, NSF, $438,650

The faculty continue to receive re-search support from national funding agencies.

IDBR: Development of Microfluidic Coulter Counting Instrument, NSF, Jun Hu, $45,535

Collaborative Research: Transforma-tion Model of STEM Education for First-Year Students at an Urban-

Dynamics of Large Amplitude Motion in Energized Molecules, DOE, D. Perry, $122,000

Protic Salt Polymer Membranes, DOE, W. Youngs, $45,000

Ohio Consortium for Undergraduate Research: REEL, NSF, Bill Donovan, $10,000

Continued from page 4

Grants, Contracts, and Patents News

Sylvestre Twagirayezu, Trocia N. Clasp, David S. Perry, Justin L. Neill, Matt T. Muckle, Brooks H. Pate, , “Vibrational coupling path-ways in methanol as revealed by coherence-detected FTMW-IR spec-troscopy”

30th Annual Combustion Research Meeting, Warrenton, VA

David Perry “The Dynamics of Large-Amplitude Motion in Energized Molecules”

42nd Silicon Symposium, Long Branch, NJ

Joanna Beres, Alyison M. Leigh, Chrys Wesdimiotis, Claire Tessier, “Use of Group 6 carbonyl reagents to stabilize siliconium cations”

and Brooks H. Pate “Coherence-Detected FTMW-IR Spectroscopy of CH3OD in The OD Stretch Region”

Ram S Bhatta, Amy Gao And David S Perry “Nature of Torsion-Inversion Coupling in CH3NH2, CH3OH2

+, and CH3CH2•”

Dynamics of Molecular Collisions 2009, Snowbird, UT

Volume 1, Issue 3 Page 5

Faculty News

Beginning Fall 2009, Dr. Chrys Wesdemiotis will serve both the Buchtel College of Arts and Sci-ences and the College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering as a distinguished professor of chemistry and a distinguished pro-fessor of polymer science.

“Dr. Wesdemiotis’ joint appointment with full faculty rights in the Depart-ment of Polymer Science will strengthen ongoing collaborations with the polymer science and poly-mer engineering faculty and will cer-tainly lead to new ones, facilitating joint grants and publications,” says Dr. Stephen Cheng, dean of UA’s College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering.

Wesdemiotis will not only participate in teaching polymer science courses

and add lectures on mass spec-trometry techniques, which are used increasingly in polymer research, but also actively involve the decision making process and supervise graduate students in the depart-ment. Any current graduate stu-dents assigned to the department who are interested in Dr. Wesdemi-otis’ research can choose him as their advisor, Cheng added.

“Many of these synergistic activities take place within the Integrated Bio-science Program and will, conse-quently, promote the development of new biomaterials and new biologi-cal applications of synthetic poly-mers,” Chrys says.

The joint work with the department of polymer science and the inte-grated bioscience groups will help

advance the UA Mass Spectrometry Center as a national core facility for mass spectrometry studies of syn-thetic macromolecules and biomate-rials, according to Wesdemiotis.

Dr. Wesdemiotis Receives Joint Appointment with Polymer Science

Three Undergraduates Receive Summer Research Fellowships from UA Chemistry Patrick Wagers is a senior honors chemistry major. He spent the sum-mer synthesizing and characterizing new inorganic molecules and new organic based ligands. He worked the laboratory of Professor Wiley Youngs. During the summer he be-came quite adept at running and in-terpreting NMR spectra.

Albert King is a senior chemistry major at Walsh University in North Canton Ohio. He worked this sum-mer in the laboratory of Professor Wiley Youngs. He spent his time learning advanced techniques in or-ganic and inorganic synthesis and in structural characterization of com-

pounds using various spectroscopic techniques.

In keeping with the department empha-sis on undergraduate research, three students received $3000 summer re-search fellowships for 2009. These fellowships came from donations to the department from alumni and industry.

Megan Cesta is a senior honors chem-istry major pursuing a double major in biology and biochemistry at UA. Over the past year she has been working with Professor Michael Taschner on the synthesis of a PEG conjugate of flavin. This compound will be coupled with bioactive molecules to provide specific targeting of medicines to tis-sue.

Volume 1, Issue 3 Page 6