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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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George Frederick Smith (1891 – 1976)

Spotlight: Smith, George Frederick (1891-1976)

G. Frederick Smith, as he was more generally known, was born in Lucasville, Ohio, and raised in Columbus, Ohio. Smith attended the University of Michigan, and received his BS, MS and PhD (1922) degrees, the PhD obtained under H. H. Willard in analytical chemistry. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois to teach analytical chemistry in 1921. At Michigan he had learned about perchlorates – at Illinois he published an article on the analysis of steel, in which he pointed out the advantages of magnesium perchlorate, which he prepared for his own use, as a super drying agent....