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Alumni News


2005

12/29/2005 Gary Breton (B.S., 1987)
[Gary received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1992]
I was a 1987 chemistry graduate who worked with Dr. Robert Kerber. I'm currently an associate professor of chemistry at Berry College in Rome, GA. I've been here 12 years.
Gary Breton
3361 Littleport Lane
Acworth, GA 30101

11/27/2005
Updated and added many links on the alumni e-mail and web link page. If you find an incorrect link or wish to add yours to the list, let us know!

10/27/2005 Shripat S. Bhagwat (Ph.D. 1983, Helquist)
Shripat S. Bhagwat has been named Senior Vice-President of Drug Discovery of Ambit Biosciences. Shripad has been with a number of biotech and pharma companies, holds more than 40 patents, and has written more than 50 papers.

10/27/2005 Stuart Rosenblum (Ph. D., 1987, Bates)
We have just learned that Stuart Rosenblum was named a "Hero of Chemistry" by the ACS in 2004, for his role in the discovery of cholesterol-lowering drug Zetia as part of a Schering-Plough team. More recently, the Zetia team has been named 2005 National Inventor of the Year by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation.

10/21/2005 Chris Cahill (Ph.D., Parise, 1999) and Tianbo Liu (Ph.D., Chu, 1999)
Chris and Tianbo were participants in a panel discussion - The Stony Brook PhD – Entering the Real World - a gathering organized by the Stony Brook Departments of Chemistry, History and Mathematics under the auspices of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate on October 21. The panel was organized by Kathy Parker.

Chris Cahill is Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the George Washington University, and
Tianbo Liu is Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Lehigh University

09/29/2005 Yingjie Li (Ph.D., Chu, 1992)
I obtained my PhD from Professor Chu's group in 1992. I have been working for Henkel Technologies for the last nine years. Currently I am a Technical Director responsible for the product development and technical service of Henkel's polyurethane and other reactive adhesives in North America. I work out of Henkel's Elgin facility, west of Chicago.
I enjoyed my PhD life at Stony Brook and the knowledge and skills I gained there have been the main reason for where I am now.

Best wishes for the whole Chemistry Department.
Yingjie Li
Henkel Technologies
1345 Gasket Dr
Elgin, IL 60120 (847) 289-2424

09/20/2005
On Thursday and Friday, Sept 29-30, the Stony Brook Symposium on New Horizons in Organic Chemistry will honor Prof. Iwao Ojima. The program for the symposium is posted. The Symposium Organizing Committee, takes great pleasure in annnouncing the Stony Brook Alumni Symposium (9:00-11:40 AM, Sep. 29) ; as part of the New Horizons Symposium. The speakers will be graduate students or postdocs from the Ojima group who are currently working in industry or academia. Details of the Alumni Program

08/24/2005 Stephen Heller (B.S., 1963)
Steve Heller (currently with NIST) is among the individuals highlighted (and pictured) in C & E News' article about IUPAC's International Chemical Identifiers chemical nomenclature system in the August 22 issue. Speaking of Steve, there will be a Festschrift & celebration on Thursday, September 1, 2005 in honor of his nth birthday at the Mount Vernon Campus of the George Washington University. Alumni who may be in D.C. for the ACS meeting can contact Prof. Shelly Heller (sheller@gwu.edu) (B.S., 1964) for details. Shelly has a web page.

08/22/2005 Alton Lam (B.S., 2004)
Alton is starting medical school this fall at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

08/21/2005 Susan Oatis (Ph.D., 1990, Phil Johnson)
We welcome Dr. Susan Oatis who joins the department as a Lecturer. Susan has been on the faculty of the Southampton campus of Long Island University and has conducted research at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. She is involved in the Introductory Laboratory course and the Organic Chemistry Lecture course.

08/02/2005 Robert Eberle (B.S., 1986)
Dr. Robert Eberle visited the campus for the first time since his graduation ceremony. He is an anesthesiologist who is currently moving from Albany to a private practice in Plattsburgh, NY. He was accompanied by his wife, a gynecologist, and three daughters.

08/02/2005 Marc Berry (B.S., 1987)
Fission Communications has announced the addition of Marc Berry (webpage) as director of creative services. Marc earned his bachelor's degree in Chemistry at Stony Brook and his master's of business in Media Management from Metropolitan College of New York in New York City. He is the recipient of numerous creative accords, including an Emmy Award, a Telly Award, and a Gold BDA/Promax Award.

07/22/2005 Caroline Schauer (Ph.D., 1997, Fowler, Lauher)
Caroline Schauer is Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University.

07/21/2005 Wei Yang (Ph.D., 2001, Drueckhammer)
Wei Yang has finished a postdoctoral appointment with Martin Karplus and is joining the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University

07/18/2005 Swati Bal-Tembe (Ph. D. 1981 (as Swati A. Bal), Helquist)
I just came across the Stony Brook Chemistry Department Alumni news on the internet and realised that my contact details need to be updated. After more than twenty years in Drug Discovery Research at Hoechst Marion Roussel and Nicholas Piramal India Limited, Mumbai, I am currently Head of the Patents Department at the Nicholas Piramal Research Centre in Mumbai, India. I look forward to receiving the Alumni Newsletter.

Office Address: Dr. Swati Bal-Tembe, Head, Patents Department, Nicholas Piramal Research Centre, Nicholas Piramal India Ltd.
1 – Nirlon Complex
Off Western Express Highway, Goregaon (East)
Mumbai 400 063, India
E-mail: sbaltembe @ nicholaspiramal.co.in
Home: e-mail address: baltembe @ yahoo.com

07/17/2005 Mark Knight (B.S., 1992)
Dr. (M.D. from U. Penn) and Lieutenant Commander Mark Knight's illustrious career are featured in the Jamaica Observer.

06/20/2005 Hofstein, Jason (Ph.D., 1999, Phil Johnson)
We are reminded that Jason Hofstein is also a faculty member in the Chemistry Department at Siena College

06/20/2005 Moriarity, Daniel (Ph.D., 1999, Raleigh
A note from Dan Moriarity serves as a reminder that he is a faculty member in the Chemistry Department at Siena College

06/08/2004 Michael Duffy (B.S., 1964)
Bill le Noble, Francis Bonner and Bob Schneider were pleased to join Mike Duffy for lunch. Mike was attending an NSFsponsored Chatauqua workshop at Stony Brook. Dr. Duffy is chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pennsylvania. He is retired from a career with DuPont. Before joining DuPont (Endo Labs, at the time), he taught high school on Long Island. While at DuPont, he earned his Ph.D. at Adelphi

We thoroughly enjoyed exchanging recollections about the escapades and successes of one of Stony Brook's (well, partially Oyster Bay's) earliest graduating classes. Mike can be reached by e-mail at mduffy at misericordia.edu

06/01/2005 Anita Mehta (Ph.D., Francis Johnson, 1988)
I learnt a lot by working in the highly experienced and motivated research group under the brilliant guidance of Prof. (Francis) Johnson.

After leaving Stony Brook in 1988, I did my postdoctoral work at University of Manchester with Prof. Douglas and at I.C.S.N., Gif-sur-yvette with Prof. Dodd. All the research experience that I gained prepared me well for Medicinal Chemistry area. In 1993, I joined Ranbaxy Research Labs. I was given the responsibility to create Medicinal Chemsitry Department. I established the department and directed the research work of more than 50 chemists (most of them Ph.D.’s) over a period of 9 years. My research group was responsible for advancing three NCE’s (New Chemical entities) into clinical trial stage in the area of anti-infectives and urology. I joined Ranbaxy as senior Research Scientist and after four promotions reached a position of Associate Director, Medicinal Chemistry.

I left Ranbaxy in 2002 to join Saintlife Incorporation, USA as Chief Scientific officer and then moved on to a position of Vice- president, Research and Development at Avocet Polymer Technologies, Illinois, USA. In between, I gained valuable graduate and undergraduate teaching experiences by teaching at University of Delhi, University of Manchester and Northwestern University.

On a personal note, my husband is working as a Controller, Phelps Dodge Magnet Wire, Fort Wayne, USA and our daughter is studying in School of Foreign Studies, Georgetown University.

I have very fond memories of the time that I spent in Stony Brook. I can be contacted at mehta_anita@hotmail.com. I would love to hear from my SB friends and, should anyone need anything from me, please do not hesitate to call me.

05/17/2005 John Butera (Ph.D., Helquist, 1985)
The 35th departmental convocation will be held on Friday, May 20. The speaker will be alumnus, John Butera of Wyeth Research.

04/12/2005 Terence Gavin (Ph.D., Ramirez, 1982), Ralph Salvatore (M.S.)
Prof. Kerber reports:
Escorting a number of students to last Saturday's NY Chemistry Assoc. meeting as SBU was Prof. Terence Gavin of Iona College. Terry has been teaching at Iona some twenty years since receiving his Ph.D. degree here. He reports that Ralph Salvatore, who left here with an M.S., subsequently earned a Ph.D. at Univ. of South Florida. He has been an Assistant Professor at Western Kentucky University, but is now moving to U. Mass (Boston) as a Associate Professor.

04/25/2005 Hiroshi Okazaki (Ph.D., 1978, Ramirez)
Jim Marecek reports that Hiroshi is currently working for DuPont Electronic Polymers in Corpus Christi, Texas. His e-mail address is Hiroshi.Okazaki at usa.dupont.com
Phone numbers are: (361) 776-6649 (office) and (361) 986-9863 (home)

04/05/2005 Wei Yang (Ph.D., 2001, Drueckhammer)
Wei Yang's work with Martin Karplus on the enzyme that fixes flawed DNA is mentioned in News of the Week in the April 4 issue of C&E News

04/01/2005 Catherine Dignam (Ph.D., 2004, Millar)
who has been a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Bates College has accepted a faculty position at Framingham State.

03/25/2005 Michael Cann (Ph.D., 1973, Kerber)
The newest edition of W.H. Freeman's Environmental Chemistry, which we have used in CHE 310 and 591, has just arrived. It now has Dr. Michael Cann as co-author, along with the original author, Colin Baird. Mike has infused the new edition with the concepts of Green Chemistry. He has previously co-authored the ACS manual, Real-World Cases in Green Chemistry. Mike is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Scranton.

02/04/2005 Lawrence Ginsberg (B.A., 1978)
On the assumption that accomplishments of former students is something you enjoy to hear, I have had myself a nice career in medicine. I am currently Professor of Radiology and Head and Neck Surgery (the latter is only a cross-appointment) at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. I am an expert in imaging of head and neck cancer, and have had a very nice academic experience, teaching, writing, and traveling, most recently to Singapore and South Korea.
Dr. Ginsberg has a web site with recent publications

01/04/2005
Donna Barrington-Stotsky retires! After many years of loyal service to the Chemistry Department, Donna is retiring. While her official date is yet to come, she has, in fact, already departed for points South. A luncheon in her honor was held. It was attended by many of her friends and colleagues both from within the Department of Chemistry and from the many offices with which she dealt over her long and dedicated career.

01/02/2005 Stephen Fox (Ph.D., 1990, Koch / Millar)
Stephen writes that he is a tenured Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Louisiana at Monroe