Department News

2012

December 2012 - The Chemical Society of Washington (CSW) named Prof. Richard Weiss as the 2012 recipient of the Charles L. Gordon Award. [more]

December 2012 - Graduate student Carina Minardi awarded fellowship from NSF. [more]

August 2012 - Prof. Jong-in Hahm has been selected by the Women Chemists Committee (WCC) of the American Chemical Society (ACS) as a recipient of the 2013 WCC Rising Star award for excellence in the advancement of nano sciences and developing next-generation, enhanced DNA and proteins sensors beneficial to life sciences.

July 2012 - The National Science Foundation has awarded Prof. Christian Wolf a grant for his projected entitled “Designing Axially Chiral Sensors for Enantioselective Recognition of Chiral Compounds.” The award begins on August 1, 2012 and is for 3 years.

June 4, 2012 – Two Ph.D. students in the Department of Chemistry, Lora Angelova and Katy Sherlach, received the prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship from the Clare Boothe Luce Foundation. [more]

May 23, 2012 - While the Lewis pairs are frustrated, Allan Cardenas and Brooks Culotta, student researchers in Prof. Timothy H. Warren’s laboratory, don’t have any trouble getting along. Their research alongside German collaborators demonstrates a unique way to capture nitric oxide (NO) and inject this essential small molecule with exciting reactivity. Their discovery was highlighted as News of the Week in the May 21, 2012 issue of Chemical & Engineering News. [more]

March 31, 2012 – Georgetown University’s College Academic Council recognized the contributions of Profs. Diana Glick, Bahram Moasser, and Timothy Warren to undergraduate education. [more]

2011

December 31, 2011 – The New Zealand Association of Scientists awarded Professor Geoffrey B. Jameson with the Marsden Medal for 2011. [more]

October 18, 2011 – The Research Board of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) awarded a consortium, which includes Georgetown University, a grant to study “The Science and Technology of Dispersants as Relevant to Deep Sea Oil Releases.” [more]

September 28, 2011 – The Journal of the American Chemical Society underscored the significance of a novel discovery in Professor Richard G. Weiss’s laboratory: the JACS cover featured graphics from the findings. [more]

September 16, 2011 – Georgetown University Professor Sarah Stoll’s ongoing work with the synthesis and characterization of magnetic semiconductors yielded a substantial grant and a new, international collaboration. The National Science Foundation awarded the chemistry professor a three-year grant for $375,000. Her proposal, “Electron doping in magnetic semiconductors,” indicates her goal is “to synthesize and characterize nanostructured electron doped magnetic semiconductors.” [more]

September 6, 2011 – Georgetown researchers have found that perchloroethylene (PCE), a potentially carcinogenic dry cleaning solvent, is retained in dry-cleaned clothes made of polyester, cotton or wool. The levels increase with repeat cleanings, according to the researchers, whose work appeared Aug. 30 online in Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry. [more]

August 22, 2011 – The Department of Chemistry hosted the Tenth Annual Georgetown University Synthesis Symposium on August 17, 2011. The talks featured ten students from across Georgetown’s campus. In keeping with the symposium’s tradition of inspiring influential research, the participants presented talks about their work involving molecular synthesis. [more]

August 8, 2011 – Georgetown’s Department of Chemistry concluded its sixth annual NSF-REU program with a poster session on August 4, 2011. Nine undergraduate students, who attend nine different colleges and universities in eight states and the District of Columbia, presented their findings after a rigorous, ten-week research program. The competitive program, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, provides undergraduate students with valuable research experience, a stipend, and housing for the ten-week period. Profs. Sarah Stoll and Jennifer Swift are the principal investigators on the grant.

August 1, 2011 – The Department welcomed Kaveh Jorabchi as he joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor. Information about Prof. Jorabchi and his research may be found on his departmental webpage.

August 1, 2011 – The Department congratulated Tim Warren and Christian Wolf, who were promoted officially to Full Professor effective August 1.

July 28, 2011 – Prof. YuYe J. Tong was notified that the recently published work by In-Su Park, Bolian Xu, Dianne O. Atienza, Augusta M. Hofstead-Duffy, Thomas C. Allison and Tong—titled “Chemical State of Adsorbed Sulfur on Pt Nanoparticles” [ChemPhysChem, 2011, 12, 7474-752]—was selected as an important scientific contribution within the DOE BES Catalysis Science program and wants to highlight it during an upcoming meeting where the core research activities in the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division will be overviewed.

July 12, 2011 – The Washington Post consulted Paul D. Roepe, Professor of Chemistry and Co-Director of the Georgetown University Center for Infectious Disease, in a piece about the possibility veteran quarterback Joe Theismann contracted hoof-and-mouth disease in a 1971 game. Given Theismann’s description of his symptoms, Roepe concluded, “Theoretically it’s possible….But it’s extremely rare.” [more]

July 6, 2011 – Recent findings in the laboratory of Prof. Paul D. Roepe will help in the global fight against malaria, which afflicts 500 million people annually. Roepe and researchers in his lab developed an assay that can determine inexpensively and efficiently the effectiveness of anti-malarial, investigative drugs. The results were published in May in the online edition of Molecular & Biochemical Parasitology. Roepe is confident the assay “will provide a critical filter that should speed up this pipeline [of determining effectiveness of an anti-malarial drug]. With it, you will know an essential fact about the drug – how well it kills malaria – and may not need to launch expensive animal studies.” [more]

June 24, 2011 – Lora Angelova, a Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Prof. Richard G. Weiss and a recipient of the Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship, recently presented her research on Borate gels, a new aqueous co-solvent gel system for use in cleaning paintings and painted materials, at the 39th Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Lora’s talk, which included collaborator Kristin deGhetaldi of the National Gallery of Art and was titled “Potential Cleaning Applications of Poly(Vinyl Alcohol–Co-Acetate)/Borate Gels on Painted Surfaces,” discussed the gels’ properties—transparency, pliability, easy removability with no detectable residue—and their potential in furthering conservation. [more]

June 8, 2011 – The department announced University President John J. DeGioia’s appointment of Timothy Warren and Christian Wolf to Full Professor effective August 1, 2011.

May 31, 2011 – Nine undergraduates, who attend colleges and universities throughout the country, arrived to begin a ten-week research program through the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates. Click here for more information about Georgetown’s NSF-REU program.

May 20, 2011 – Timothy Barbari, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) at Georgetown University, conferred the 2011 Career Research Achievement Award to Prof. Miklos Kertesz at the GSAS commencement ceremony.

May 17, 2011 – The National Science Foundation, through its Division of Materials Research, awarded Prof. K. Travis Holman a three-year grant totaling $405,000. The abstract for his project, entitled “Metal-Organometallic Frameworks Supporting Catalytically Active Moieties,” may be found on the NSF’s website.

April 26, 2011 – The Georgetown Chapter of Sigma Xi, an international science and engineering honor society, inducted new associate members at its annual induction dinner, including Chemistry major Holly Tao (C’12) and Biochemistry major Karinne Von Groningen (C’11).

April 15, 2011 – The Department recently learned that, in October 2010, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke awarded Dr. Thomas J. Bruno (Ph.D. ’81, Martire) a silver medal for his work. Dr. Bruno was recognized for developing a new method of analyzing complex fluid mixtures that facilitates the introduction of new fuels in the U.S. energy infrastructure. Dr. Bruno leads the Experimental Properties of Fluids Group of the Thermophysical Properties Division at NIST, Boulder.

March 30, 2011 – Monique Koppel, from Moasser's group, and Katy Sherlach, from Roepe's group, are the recipients of the ARCS fellowship for the 2011 - 2012 academic year.

March 15, 2011 – In connection with the International Year of Chemistry the students of our Chemistry Club received a $300 ACS grant for support of their outreach activities and contributions. The purpose of the grant is to "raise awareness of the importance of chemistry in everyday life".

March 10, 2011 – For its March 2011 issue, BioTechniques interviewed Professor Paul D. Roepe about “the ambitions, character, and motivations that led to his success.” [more]

March 8, 2011 – For its issue dated March 14, 2011, ChemPhysChem selected a paper written in the laboratory of Professor YuYe Tong, Chair of the Department of Chemistry, to occupy its inside cover. [more]

February 23, 2011 – We have learned with sadness and regret that Mrs. Ann Pope, Professor Michael Pope’s wife, passed away.  [more]

February 9, 2011 – At its February 9th meeting, the Cincinnati Section of the American Chemical Society named Georgetown alumna Apryll M. Stalcup (Ph.D. ’88, Martire), Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati, the 2011 Cincinnati Chemist of the Year. [more]

January 31, 2011 – The Office of Technology Commercialization at Georgetown University honored twenty-six members of the Georgetown faculty, including Professors Richard G. Weiss and Christian Wolf, for being awarded U.S. patents from 2007-2010.

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