Chemistry professor Yi Lu, left, and graduate student Evan Mirts have designed a new synthetic enzyme that reduces the compound sulfite to sulfide – a notoriously complex multistep chemical reaction that has eluded chemists for years.

Perry Lim, research intern, Serionix (undergraduate, chemistry) was a finalist for "Best Entrepreneurial Leadership in a Startup" award. While Tonisha Thacker, communication/marketing Intern, AARP (undergraduate, chemistry and sociology) won the "Most Advanced Marketing-Business Development" award.

The Women Chemists Committee (WCC) Bonding with Chemistry Day Camp is an annual event with the purpose of exposing middle school girls to various areas of chemistry.

The J. C. Jamieson award is given for outstanding achievement in the field of high pressure research. This year's award is unusual in that there was a tie and it is being awarded jointly to Will Bassett and Dominique Laniel.

The 2018 School of Chemical Sciences (SCS) Teaching Awards recipients have been announced. This year’s recipients represent just a few of the large number of highly dedicated instructors in SCS.

Name: Erin Nissen. Year: 3rd Year. Hometown: Colorado Springs. Why Illinois? I loved the people and research.

Name: Kyle Shelton. Year: Class of 2016. Hometown: Des Moines, Iowa. Why Illinois? I completed a summer rotation in the chemistry department as an undergrad, and knew it was a really great school where I would be supported as a student throughout my Ph.D.

Name: Becky Haight. Year: Junior (Class of 2019). Hometown: Wadsworth, IL. Why Illinois? One of the top schools for undergraduate chemistry in the country is only a couple hours from home.

Thirty-two University of Illinois students have won National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships including 11 students from the Department of Chemistry.

Name: Elizabeth Kathleen Neumann. Year: Third Year. Hometown: Moorpark, California. Why Illinois? The environment seemed very supportive and interdisciplinary.

Name: Ashley Lenhart. Year: Senior. Hometown: Watseka, IL. Why Illinois? I had ‘chemistry’ with the campus and opportunities immediately.

Illinois Chemistry sophomore Alayna Johnson has been named a Goldwater Scholar for the 2018-19 academic year.

Kali Serrano, a fourth year PhD student, is the Joint Safety Team (JST) representative for Professor Paul Braun’s research group and currently serves as the only graduate student on the ACS National Committee on Chemical Safety—a prestigious role that comes with partial support to attend all ACS national meetings. Here she discusses her recent work related to lab safety and student safety programs.

Name: Timothy P. Moneypenny. Year: 3rd Year. Hometown: Akron, Ohio. Why Illinois? Awesome chemistry department and awesome people.

Erin Nissen, a doctoral candidate in Dana Dlott’s research group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been awarded a Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE NNSA SSGF) to support her research into chemistry.