The Department of Chemistry Times
An Electronic Newsletter of the Department of Chemistry
State
University of New York
College at Brockport
Volume
2, No. 6 Brockport, NY 14420
December 2003
An Electronic Newsletter of the Department of Chemistry
Volume
2, No. 6 Brockport, NY 14420
December 2003
Rochester Midland
Corporation Formalizes
Support of 2004
Undergraduate Research
By Thomas W. Kallen
Rochester Midland Corporation (RMC) will continue
to provide funding to support undergraduate research at the SUNY College at
Brockport in 2004.
Michael S. Coyner, President and Chief
Operating Officer of RMC, writes in the body of his contract transmittal letter
to the SUNY
Research Foundation, “Rochester Midland Corporation (RMC) is
delighted with the many recent outcomes of interaction between our R&D
staff and the SUNY Brockport Chemistry Department.. The results of this past summer’s collaboration with Ms. Megan
Bennett under the advisement of Dr. Markus Hoffmann provided a wealth of
detailed technical information. Besides
providing real-world research experience to Ms. Bennett, this work has made a
notable contribution to RMC’s basic chemical research needs in the area of
surfactant science. It is foremost for
these reasons that we would like to continue for our fiscal year 2004 The Rochester
Midland Magnetic Resonance Research Fellowship….”
RMC’s financial support provides funds to
support eight weeks of full-time summer research for one student (The Rochester
Midland Magnetic Resonance Research Fellowship), supplements funding provided
by the Brockport
Foundation such that the Chemistry Alumni Fund may fully support a
second summer research student (The Chemistry Alumni Fellowship), and also
provides funds for the student Research Fellow’s supplies, travel and overhead.
Mr. Jack Fox (’92)
of RMC and Professor Markus M. Hoffmann of SUNY Brockport jointly
supervise the summer research of the undergraduate chemistry major chosen as
the RMC Fellow. Megan Bennett,
a junior chemistry major, was chosen as the first recipient of the RMC
Fellowship in 2003.
Chemistry Hosts In-service
Elementary Teachers
By Carolyn J. Greene
On Saturday, October 18, Carolyn J. Greene, Dawn
M. Lee and Kenneth D. Schlecht of the Department of
Chemistry hosted a group of 21 in-service elementary school teachers for a
workshop entitled “Energy Waves.” Teachers
performed 13 hands-on activities that were related to wave behavior, wave
properties, sound waves and light waves.
A series of demonstrations followed the
hands-on activities. First, a laser was
used to illustrate changes in the pathways of light rays incident upon various
mirrors and lenses. Then a second set
of demonstrations showed the role that energy plays in a variety of chemical
reactions.
Six Chemistry Majors Present Their
Research
at U of R Research Conference.
Jason Tubbs receives Vincent du Vigneaud, PhD, Merit Award
for his Conference Paper Abstract
By Markus M. Hoffmann
Six SUNY Brockport chemistry majors presented
poster papers at the annual Undergraduate Research Conference of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
on November 8, 2003. Students
representing schools as distant as Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY presented
a total of 36 posters at this conference.
Megan Bennett presented her paper, "Surfactant Research Utilizing Hydrogen Nuclear Magnetic Resonance,” based
on her summer research with Jack D. Fox and Don P. Wyman of Rochester Midland Corporation under Professor Markus M. Hoffmann. Jim Hutchings presented his paper, “Phase Behavior of Ionic Liquids in CO2,” and Jason Tubbs presented his paper, "Evidence For Ion Pair Formation
in Dilute Low Dielectric Ionic Liquid Solutions,” based on their summer
research, also done under Professor Markus M.
Hoffmann.
Kristina Fuller presented her paper,
“Characterizing Solvation in Room-Temperature Phosphonium Ionic Liquids,” based
on her summer research under Professor Mark P. Heitz.
Alicia Penna presented her paper, “The
Antioxidant Properties of Novel Diaryl Tellurides in a Linoleic Acid Free
Radical System,” and Ahmed Yimam
presented his paper, “An Efficient Route for Synthesis of Novel Diaryl
Tellurides Antioxidants,” based on their summer research under Professor Margaret E. Logan.
This year, for the first time, the conference organizers
presented Merit Awards of up to $500 to the three student participants
submitting the best 350-word abstracts in advance of the conference. Jason Tubbs was awarded the $200 third prize
for his abstract. Tubbs commented that
this award is his very first scholarly award he ever received.
Funding for these awards was established in memory
of Vincent du Vigneaud, PhD, 1955 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Du Vigneaud, who received the Prize for his
work on biochemically important sulfur compounds and for the first synthesis of
a polypeptide hormone, began his career in the area now known as medicinal
chemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Rochester.
Keep up the good work, Jason, and many more awards
will follow. Well done, and congratulations!
SUNY Brockport Students Participate in
the first
"Head Start 2003" Symposium at SUNY Buffalo
By Markus M. Hoffmann
A Large Contingent of Brockport Physics and
Chemistry majors participated in the first “Head Start 2003” Physics Symposium held at SUNY at Buffalo on November 1, 2003. Chemistry majors Megan Bennett, Jim
Hutchings and Jason Tubbs and physics majors Eli Banta and Allen Harvey, Jr., presented poster
papers and five-minute “teaser talks” on the results of their summer research.
Megan Bennett presented her paper, "Surfactant Research Utilizing Hydrogen Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance,” based on her research with Jack D.
Fox and Don P. Wyman of Rochester Midland Corporation under Professor Markus M. Hoffmann.
Jim Hutchings presented his paper, “Phase Behavior of Ionic Liquids in CO2,” and Jason Tubbs presented his paper, "Evidence For Ion Pair Formation
in Dilute Low Dielectric Ionic Liquid Solutions,” based on their research under
Professor Markus M. Hoffmann.
Seven other physics majors attended the
symposium to get a taste of what it is like to do independent research and to
disseminate the findings. Thus, the
Brockport contingent of students amounted to approximately a quarter of the
Symposium’s participants.
Alumni News
By
Thomas W. Kallen
Dan Allgeier (‘72), currently
Marketing Development Executive with Eastman
Chemical Company in Kingsport TN, responded to Professor K. Thomas
Finley’s letter advising him of his co-authorship of an article in the Journal
of Organic Chemistry (J. Org. Chem., 2003 (Vol 68, No 12), 4988-4990)
with a warm letter of thanks.
Dan
writes, “Kay, how nice it was to hear from you, especially under the
circumstances of being part of a published article in the JOC. As you can see I am now located in
Kingsport, Tennessee, home of Eastman Chemical Company. I have lived here about 8 years, after more
than 20 in the Rochester area and 7 in the Chicago area.
After
more than 32 years with Eastman Kodak and Eastman Chemical, I have often looked
back at my days at the bench working with you at Brockport and with the
chemists at Eastman Kodak. How lucky I
have been to have the experience of learning chemistry from such distinguished
people. I am indeed privileged and
honored to be included in the published work you shared with me.
Just
to bring you up to date on my career, I went from the research labs at Kodak to
the analytical labs doing characterization of impurities found in the chemistry
run at Kodak, to sales and marketing, product management, new platform
development (carbohydrate chemistry) to market development. I have had the opportunity to have several
careers at one company. Along the way I
completed my MBA at Benedictine University.
As
you recall I had two sons. Both are now
married---one is now working and living in Lewiston NY and the other in
Naperville IL. My wife Kathy and I
recently celebrated our 35th anniversary.
Kay,
thank you for thinking of me. I
appreciate it very much. Sincerely,
Dan”
Bill Barker (’92) writes, “Good Morning! Nice to hear from you. Sorry I took so long to
reply. My wife, the new baby (William Patrick), and I went down to
Florida to see Grandma and Grandpa (my parents). William was born October
13, 2003. My wife has decided to stay home and raise him and we hope to
have a little girl in the next year or so. I am working for a
pharmaceutical company, Adolor Corporation,
where I manage the Analytical Chemistry lab. We are located just outside
of Philadelphia. I hope that Chemistry is still as strong as when I was there. I
really feel that Brockport Chemistry gave me a better education than most of my
colleagues from other schools received. It has been a real benefit to
me. Part of the magic was the personal atmosphere between senior students
and the Chemistry faculty. Thanks for the newsletter and please include me on future distributions.
Elizabeth Gregory (’02), a second-year graduate student in chemistry at the University of Rochester, writes, “Hi
everybody. Figured I’d send an email out
while I’m waiting on my distillation, seeing as I missed the Spaghetti Dinner.
I hope everyone is doing well and is surviving grading the finals!
Grad school is still going well for me. I really like the research I’m doing
under Pat, excluding the reaction with pivaloyl chloride to make our
ligand! I’m picking up a project that
our previous postdoc had started, dealing with a 3-coordinate iron hydride and
its reactions, which is really cool. My paper should be out in a month or so,
if my elemental analyses come back okay, so I’m pretty excited about that.
I
just had my last class today, which means I’m completely done with classes now.
I need to TA again next semester, but after that it's full time research, which
will be nice...I didn't realize how hard it would be to juggle taking classes
and TA’ing and getting research done, not to mention the family stuff I’ve
always got going on in the background. But I’ve found that happy medium (aka
Beth is still in the lab at 2 in the morning!).
One icky thing, but good...a doctor finally found something wrong with my knee
that he can fix! I’m having surgery on
12/30 to have a piece of tissue removed that’s irritated. So after 3 days on
the couch and watching the Dick Clark New Year's special, I’ll hopefully be
able to not be in pain for once. It’s nice to see light at the end of the
tunnel for once!”
Well,
I've got NMR time in about 5 minutes, so I'll end here and go make my sample.
Take care everyone!
Larry Ducady (’02), who is working for Tyco Healthcare Mallinckrodt,
writes, “Hi everyone!! Yeah, yeah, I know...It's been some time since I talked
to many of you. No excuses, just been extremely busy. Hopefully, thing will
calm down after the holiday season and I'll have more time to call/write/email
everyone. Here's what's up: Well, I've been at Tyco Healthcare Mallinckrodt for
about ten months now. I'm working 6 days a week (my choice; the overtime is
tooooooooo good to pass up) and am still going strong. I get tired every once
in a while but hey, I've got bills to pay. I'm slowly but surely clawing my way
out of debt. The credit cards are almost at zero and my student loans are under
control. I am very fortunate to have such a good paying job. In the last ten
months I've learned a ton at Tyco. Analytical chemistry still is not my
favorite field, but the experience I've gained is invaluable. It will
definitely be great to put on my resume for my next job. Maybe, in a few years,
that will be in Philadelphia. I've only driven by Philly once before on a great
trip to Atlantic City, so who knows right now. Aside from the job, as some of
you know, I bought a new car!! I actually bought it a while ago in July. It's
an SUV, Ford Escape XLT Sport in yellow. It's been so great to not have the
headaches of a bad vehicle. I don't see this car breaking down or catching on
fire any time soon. The car's (truck? SUV?) only miles are the ones I put on
it!! What a great feeling! Plus, with 4 wheel drive, I say bring on the snow…!
The holiday season is upon us soon. I hope you all have a safe and happy
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. Keep me updated on all that is new in
your lives. I really do miss everyone and hope ya'll can forgive me for not
writing sooner! Take care! Larry”
Mike Potter (’03) writes, “I don't know if you got my last message or not, but I
wanted to inform you both of my recent news. I started a new position on Monday
with Durez Corporation on Grand Island.
It is the place I used to do analytical work for, before I went back to school.
Instead of doing the analytical work, now I am working as a phenolic chemist. I
just made two batches of phenol-formaldehyde resins this week.
The site I work at is a research facility, so these products that I will be
making, will be sent to customers who have given us certain specs that they
would like for their resin, and we basically try to make it for them. It's a
great opportunity. I am so glad I kept in contact with them over the past
couple years. This is such a relief. My girlfriend and I were just about ready
to move because of the lack of jobs in western New York, but then, bam! I got
the call.
Anyhow, I'd like to thank you both again. I am already using the techniques you
both taught me. From Dr. Kallen, I already assisted in a Kheldahl test for free
Nitrogen content. From Dr. Hoffmann, I am currently trying to fix a leak in a
vacuum pump the looks identical to those we fixed in P-chem II lab! Talk to you
both later. Michael Potter”
If you
have news about yourself that you wish to have included in the “Alumni News”
section of The
Department of Chemistry Times, please send it by e-mail to the editor, Tom Kallen, at tkallen@brockport.edu.
SUNY BROCKPORT
The Department of
Chemistry Times is posted on the Department of Chemistry
Web site at irregular intervals by Professor, Chairman and Editor Dr. Thomas W.
Kallen, Department of Chemistry, SUNY College at Brockport, 350 New Campus
Drive, Brockport NY 14420-2971. You may
visit the Department of Chemistry Web site at www.brockport.edu/~chemistry/.
E-mail messages to the Times should be addressed to Professor Kallen at tkallen@brockport.edu.