News Archive 2008
12/22/2008
Joanna Fowler, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and an affiliate member in the Chemistry Department at Stony Brook, will receive the 2009 NAS Award in Chemical Sciences. This award is recognizes innovative research in the Chemical Sciences that in the broader sense contributes to a better understanding of the natural sciences and to the benefit of humanity.
09/08/2008
Kathlyn A. Parker has been named the recipient of the Francis P. Garvan – John M.
Olin Award of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Professor Parker is being honored
for leadership in the chemistry community and for innovative research in synthetic
organic chemistry.
The Garvan – Olin Award is given annually to recognize distinguished service to chemistry by women chemists who are citizens of the United States. It is the third oldest national award given by the ACS.
08/25/2008
With the beginning of the Fall semester, we note the retirement of two faculty members. Prof Arnold Wishnia, who joined the department in 1965 and Prof. Robert Schneider who was a member of the department since 1960.
08/22/2008
We hear that the various activities at the Philadelphia ACS meeting were all eminently successful, namely:
- The Symposium in Honor of the scientific career of John M. Alexander
- Stony Brook’s Department of Chemistry Alumni Social hour
- The ceremony celebrating the ACS Division of Chemical History's Chemical Breakthrough Award to Stony Brook University for the paper by Prof. P. C. Lauterbur, "Image Formation by Local Interactions: Examples Employing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance," published in Nature in 1973 (vol 242, p 190-191)
07/04/2008
Clare Grey and coworkers have published their work detailing the use of multinuclear NMR to characterize Mg/Al ordering in layered double hydroxides in the most recent issue of Science.
The anion-exchange ability of layered double hydroxides (LDHs) has been exploited to create materials for use in catalysis, drug delivery, and environmental remediation. The specific cation arrangements in the hydroxide layers of hydrotalcite-like LDHs, of general formula Mg2+1–xAl3+xOH2(Anionn–x/n)·yH2O, have, however, remained elusive, and their elucidation could enhance the functional optimization of these materials. We applied rapid (60 kilohertz) magic angle spinning (MAS) to obtain high-resolution hydrogen-1 nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectra and characterize the magnesium and aluminum distribution. These data, in combination with 1H-27Al double-resonance and 25Mg triple-quantum MAS NMR data, show that the cations are fully ordered for magnesium:aluminum ratios of 2:1 and that at lower aluminum content, a nonrandom distribution of cations persists, with no Al3+-Al3+ close contacts. The application of rapid MAS NMR methods to investigate proton distributions in a wide range of materials is readily envisaged.
06/25/2008
Liz Boon has received a 2008 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award to
support her research program on bacterial biofilms!
ONR's Young Investigator Program seeks to identify and support academic scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees within the last five years and who show exceptional promise for doing creative research. The objectives of this program are to attract outstanding faculty members of Institutions of Higher Education to the Department of the Navy's research program, to support their research, and to encourage their teaching and research careers.
11/11/2008
Elizabeth Millings, a junior CHE major and transfer from Suffolk Community College, made a poster presentation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory yesterday, as a participant in the Science and Energy Research Challenge. Her poster described work on synthesis of a PET radiotracer she carried out with Dr. Jacob Hooker at BNL. She took second place in the chemistry section and received a cash award. Congratulations to Elizabeth. For more information see: http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/serch/winners.html and also http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=858.