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Sagnik Chakrabarti wins 2025 T.S. Piper Award for Outstanding Inorganic PhD
Graduate student Sagnik Chakrabarti was selected as the recipient of the 2025 Theron Standish Piper Award for Outstanding Inorganic Ph.D. Thesis in the Department of Chemistry.In a special presentation to the department on May 13, 2025, Chakrabarti presented his thesis, "Low-valent Nickel and...
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Two graduate students receive 2025 Walter Klemperer Award for Outstanding Materials Chemistry PhD
Two PhD graduates, Gavin Lindsay and Rachel Nixon, were awarded the 2025 Klemperer Award for Outstanding Materials Chemistry Ph.D. Thesis in the Department of Chemistry.In back-to-back presentations to the department on May 15, 2025, Nixon presented her thesis, “Toward the sustainable...
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General Chemistry innovation proposal wins grant funding
A proposal for providing general chemistry students with resources and instruction to help improve their math fluency has been awarded funding through the Provost’s Initiative on Teaching Advancement (PITA).The proposal was submitted by Elise McCarren, director of the Chemistry Merit Program, and...
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Investiture celebrates two chemistry faculty members
In chemistry, the right combination of essential elements can lead to scientific discoveries that impact the world.Drawing a comparison, Rosa Milagros Santos, associate provost of faculty development at Illinois, described as “essential elements” the generosity of individuals who support faculty...
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Chemistry graduate student selected for DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship
 A first-year graduate student, Eliza Asani truly enjoys chemistry, but you won’t find her in the lab. As a computational chemist, she spends most of her time in front of a computer.That would have surprised Asani several years ago when she was a freshman at the University of Alabama in...

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Analytical Chemistry
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Inorganic Chemistry
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Materials Chemistry
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Organic Chemistry
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Rue Linn Belford

Spotlight: Belford, Rue Linn (1931-2015)

Rue Linn Belford was born in St. Louis, Missouri on December 13, 1931 to the late Rue L. Belford and Fannie Belford (neé Kelley). His family moved numerous times throughout the Depression as his father sought work: Bayview, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; and one year in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, where in that short period of time he met his future wife, Geneva Grosz. Linn obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1953. He carried out undergraduate research with Professor Peter Yankwich on the temperature coefficient of the intermolecular 13C kinetic isotope...