Monday, April 28, 2008

40th Annual Chemistry Department Awards

Friday, April 25 marked the 40th Annual IUP Department of Chemistry Awards Ceremony & Reception. At 3:30 in Weyandt 32, students and their families, staff, and faculty gathered to recognize students in the department for their academic achievements in the 2007-08 year.

The 2008 Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh Award for Outstanding Achievement was given to Ms. Kaycie Butler. In addition, she was recognized by her peers and presented the ACS Student Affiliate Member of the Year.

The Division of Analytical Chemistry American Chemical Society 2008 Undergraduate Award was presented to Ms. Beth Leverett.

The William I. Heard Memorial Scholarship was given to Ms. Lacie Buxton.

The Edward N. Brown Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Ms. Elizabeth Paladin.

Both Mr. Andrew Kerr and Ms. Tracey Baker were awarded Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant.

The Graduate Teaching Assistant award went to Ms. Francisca Sekyere.

The Graduate Research award went to Mr. Einstein Djabeng.

The Graduate Academic Excellence award went to Mr. Sean Smith.

The Freshman CRC Handbook Award was given to Mr. Jonathan Henninger.

The following students, by year, were recipients of Academic Achievement Awards:
Seniors:
  • Ms. Brittany Baird
  • Mr. Robert Bauer
  • Ms. Kaycie Butler
  • Mr. John Crandall
  • Mr. Andrew Kerr
  • Mr. Jeffrey Layton
  • Ms. Nicole Morozowich
  • Mr. Antonio Scatena
Juniors:
  • Ms. Tracey Baker
  • Ms. Brittany Buterbaugh
  • Ms. Lacie Buxton
  • Ms. Jane Calvert
  • Mr. Andrew Friday
  • Mr. Brandon Jones
  • Ms. Beth Leverett
  • Ms. Olivia McGovern
  • Mr. Chad Meyers
  • Ms. Jessica Nichol
  • Ms. Elizabeth Paladin
  • Ms. Galit Regev
  • Ms. Aubree Webb
  • Mr. Joseph Wiley
  • Ms. Caitlin Williamson
Sophomores:
  • Ms. Olumayowa Azeez
  • Ms. Maura Barrett
  • Ms. Jennifer Beveridge
  • Mr. Justin Williams
First Years:
  • Mr. David Ankney
  • Ms. Deanna Belsky
  • Ms. Kimberly Boonie
  • Mr. Chris Chambers
  • Mr. Stephen Christensen
  • Ms. Victoria Constant
  • Ms. Alex Daughenbaugh
  • Ms. Laura Fox
  • Mr. Jonathan Henninger
  • Ms. Samantha Leone
  • Mr. Andrew Lightner
  • Ms. Mairi Lindsay
  • Ms. Lisa McCombie
  • Mr. Joseph Reichard
  • Mr. Stephen Shiring
  • Mr. Cory Stahlman
  • Ms. Andrea Strein
  • Ms. Ashley Swiderski
  • Ms. Nadia Szymanski
  • Mr. Christopher Taylor
  • Mr. Kevin Taylor
  • Mr. Rongjin Weng
  • Mr. James Zewe

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

ACS Club Elects 2008-09 Officers

The Student Affiliate American Chemical Society (ACS Club) on Monday elected their officers for the 2008-09 academic year.

Congratulations and good luck to:
President: Ms. Olivia McGovern
Vice President: Ms. Jessica Nichol
Secretary: Ms. Maura Barrett
Treasurer: Ms. Beth Leverett

Many thanks to our 2007-08 ACS Club officers for another successful year:
President: Elizabeth Paladin
Vice-President: Catie Brunecz
Secretary: Kaycie Butler
Treasurer: Jessica Nichol

Two Chemistry Students Win Awards at College Event

Two chemistry department students won awards at last week's NSM Women in Mathematics, Science, and Technology program.

Ms. Beth Leverett won a $100 Co-Op Store gift certificate for her research poster "A Crystallographic Detective Story: Solving the Li2ZnSnS4 Structure"

Ms. Elizabeth Paladin won a $50 Co-Op Store gift certificate for her research poster "Modifying the Physical Properties of Indomethacin by Co-Crystallization".

Other winners were undergraduate Ms. Olivia McGovern ($75 g.c.) and graduate student Ms. Heather Meloy ($100 g.c.).

Congratulations!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Job Opportunity in Pittsburgh

Verichem, Inc., located on Neville Island in Pittsburgh, is seeking a Quality Assurance Technician.


• LOCAL CHEMICAL COMPANY SPECIALIZING IN THE MANUFACTURE OF INDUSTRIAL BIOCIDES IS SEEKING AN INDIVIDUAL TO FILL A FULL TIME POSITION AS AN ANALYTICLA LABORATORY TECHNICIAN.

• THE CANDIDATE NEEDS TO HAVE A GOOD ORGANIC CHEMISTRY BACKGROUND, SOME ANALYTICAL EQUIPMENT EXPERIENCE (GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY, LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY, AND WET CHEMISTRY ANALYSIS) AND WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF MICROSOFT XL PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE.

• HOURS WOULD BE 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM DURING THE TRAINING PERIOD. AFTER TRAINING THE HOURS WOULD BE AT THE DISCRETION OF THE QA MANAGER.

SUBMIT YOUR RESUME TO: pmeriage@verichem.com
FAX YOUR RESUME TO: pmeriage@verichem.com

ACS Club and Alpha Chi Sigma at IUP's Earth Fest

Today in the Oak Grove from 11a to 5p, the ACS Club and Alpha Chi Sigma will be hosting a Green Chemistry table for IUP's Earth Fest. Stop by to see some chemistry demonstrations on this beautiful day outside!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

IUP Represented at 235th ACS Meeting in New Orleans

Both an IUP chemistry department student and faculty presented research at the recent 235th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans, LA (Apr 6-10).

Mr. Robert Bauer, a biochemistry major, presented a poster of his project that he completed during his R.E.U. summer research at the University of Buffalo. The poster, "DNA structure-selective interactions of Zn(II) tetraazamacrocycle with appended acridine", was authored jointly with Janet Morrow, of SUNY Buffalo.

Dr. Nate McElroy gave the invited oral presentation "QSAR at the undergraduate institution and a model of air-to-blood partition coefficients for small organic molecules". Part of this presentation was a review of the cheminformatics research completed by Mr. Sean Smith, who recently completed his Masters thesis in the department.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Chemistry seminar - 4/11

This week's chemistry seminar will be presented by IUP student Ms. Francisca Owusu Sekyere. Her talk, "Growth Hormone Receptor Antagonists" will be in Weyandt 149 starting at 3:30.

Light refreshments will be served.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Undergraduate Scholars Forum Awards

Congratulations to our CHEM/BIOC students who won the following awards on April 1 at the 3rd Annual IUP Undergraduate Scholars Forum.

Ms. Beth Leverett (Chemistry) won a Best In Session Award for her oral presentation of "A Crystallographic Detective Story: Solving the Li2ZnSnS4 Structure"

Mr. Antonio Scatena (Biochemistry) won $100 and First Place in the Sigma Xi Award for his poster presentation "Polymerase Chain Reaction: Amplification of RNA from Tomato Mosaic Virus"

Ms. Caitlin Williamson (Chemistry) won $50 and Third Place in the Sigma Xi Award for her poster presentation "Homology Modeling of Influenza A Virus Polymerase Basic 2 Subunit"

Chemistry Seminar - 4/4

This week's seminar will be given by IUP graduate student Mr. Marc Ferrington. His talk, "Palladium Catalyzed Suzuki Cross-Coupling", will be given in Weyandt 149 at 3:30pm on Friday, April 4.

Light refreshments will be served.