Greetings from the Department Head

As usual, the Illinois weather has been keeping us on our toes with falling leaves one week and falling snow the next. As we dig out of our second round of snow and ice of the season, I invite you to catch up on the latest happenings in the department.

 

DIVERSITY AND CLIMATE UPDATES

Our Diversity Committee and Climate Committees have been hard at work developing new programs and improving existing resources to ensure the department actively cultivates an inclusive, healthy environment for our students, faculty, and staff. Some projects in the works include a new faculty mentoring program, templates for research lab policy manuals, a revamped CHEM 493 course for first-year graduate students, and a newly created CHEM 590C course for third-year graduate students, which further develops topics introduced in CHEM 492.

The upcoming weeks will find most of the diversity committee on the road, traveling to SACNAS, ABRMCS, NOBCChE, and other conferences in support of our recruitment efforts. 

 

AWARDS AND HONORS

Our faculty, students, and alumni continue to impress and inspire us with their achievements. Here is a recap of their latest awards and honors.

Faculty

Marty Burke received a 2019 Mukaiyama Award and Scott Denmark received the 2019 Ryoji Noyori Prize, both from the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan. Alison Fout was named a 2019-20 Building Pathways for Emerging Leaders Fellow by the Office of the Provost. Catherine Murphy received the ACS Linus Pauling Award, presented annually by the Portland, Puget Sound, and Oregon Sections of the American Chemical Society; she also received an MRS Medal from the Materials Research Society. Jonathan Sweedler has the #1 spot on Analytical Scientist’s 2019 “Power List”. Josh Vura-Weis received the 2019 Inter-American Photochemical Society (I-APS) Young Investigator Award.

Professor Emeritus Ted Brown received the University of Illinois Distinguished Service Award. Rohit Bhargava, affiliate faculty member in chemistry, was selected for Analytical Scientist’s 2019 “Power List” of the top 100 analytical chemists.

Students

Elizabeth Murphy, an undergraduate in the Paul Braun group, is one of three winners in the Beckman Institute’s research image contest. The Women Chemists Committee (WCC) received an ACS ChemLuminary Award for the third year in a row for their 2018 Bonding with Chemistry day camp. And the Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) also received an ACS ChemLuminary Award for the third year in a row, for their community outreach and professional development programming in 2018.

Alumni

Amanda Hummon (PhD, ’04, Sweedler) and Lingjun Li (PhD, ’00, Sweedler) were both selected for Analytical Scientist’s 2019 “Power List” of the top 100 analytical chemists. Dale Kempf (PhD, ’82, Beak) received the University of Illinois Alumni Achievement Award.

Finally, H. N. Cheng (PhD, ’74, Gutowsky) has been elected the 2020 American Chemical Society (ACS) President-Elect. Illinois is maintaining its record as having the most ACS Presidents among our alumni and faculty.

Congratulations to all our honorees! For more information on the above awards and for the most up-to-date listing of new awards, visit our website.

 

AWARD NOMINATIONS

As you can see, some of the awards listed above are given by campus units, and we diligently nominate our alumni and friends for such honors every year. Hosting and reconnecting with award recipients on campus is always a delight. External and internal nominations are both accepted, so if there is a classmate or mentor whom you wish to be recognized, we invite you to submit a nomination.

Learn more about the awards here: Illinois Alumni Association Awards, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Awards, and International Achievement Awards.

 

LOOKING AHEAD

We are in the process of finalizing our 2018-19 annual report, so please keep any eye out for that. Hopefully it will provide updated information, answer some quantitative questions, and perhaps even inspire some new ones. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

In the meantime, I hope that the upcoming holiday season is restorative and rejuvenating for each of you. Until next year,

Martin

 

Martin Gruebele

Head, Department of Chemistry
James R. Eiszner Chair in Chemistry
Professor in the Center for Advanced Study
Professor of Physics
Professor of Biophysics and Quantitative Biology