Chemistry and Biochemistry

 

Majors and Minors in
Chemistry and Biochemistry

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Big News!  Please congratulate these folks when you see them!

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry recently learned that William F. Carroll Jr. '73 has been elected as chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) for 2009. CSSP is an organization of presidents, presidents-elect, and recent past presidents of about sixty scientific federations and societies whose combined membership numbers well over 1.4 million scientists and science educators. More information about Dr. Carroll, his accomplishments and this honor can be found here.

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is proud to announce that Alexander Breitinger, Kathleen Mittendorf and Nicole Stone, all junior majors in the department, are among 321 students nationwide who have been awarded the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for 2008.  A list of all 2008 Goldwater Scholars nationwide can be found here.  Please congratulate Alex, Kate and Niki the next time you see them.

Kate Ziegelgruber (Chemistry, '08) is lead author on the article, "Hydrothermal chemistry of Th(IV) with aromatic dicarboxylates: New framework compounds and in situ ligand syntheses" in the February 2008 issue of Journal of Solid State Chemistry. The work is a result of her SRF internship in Chris Cahill's lab at George Washington University.

The February 4, 2008 issue of Chemistry and Engineering News highlights Susan V. Olesink (Chemistry '77) of Ohio State university ACS AWARD for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students in the Chemical Sciences. Read about it here.

Prof. Hilary Eppley is among a group of seven inorganic chemists from across the United States to be awarded a National Science Foundation Phase I Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Initiative (CCLI) grant. The $150,000 award, for 2008-09, will fund the work of the inorganic chemists at seven different primarily undergraduate institutions in the development of a "community of practice" for the teaching of inorganic chemistry. See the entire article by clicking here.

Our innovative curriculum provides a solid foundation of chemical understanding while allowing students the flexibility to study in greater depth those areas of chemistry most interesting to them.  Our students gain not only chemical knowledge, but also develop excellent problem solving skills.  Their education in chemistry, together with DePauw’s emphasis on the liberal arts, prepares them well for a variety of opportunities including graduate school in chemistry, biochemistry, and related science disciplines such as environmental science, pharmacology, materials science, medicine, and law (corporate, patent, or environmental, for example). Students are also ready for careers in chemically-related industries, such as sales, drug development, instrumentation, biotechnology, cosmetics, and agrochemicals.

  • metabolomic studies of medicinal plants
  • trace metal geochemistry
  • using non-traditional solvents like ionic liquids to synthesize new metal-organic frameworks
  • developing methods for the stereoselective synthesis of epoxides for use in pharmaceuticals
  • modeling laser–molecule interactions
  • understanding structure/function relationships of proteins important in metal detoxification processes in archaea
  • building the tools to study interactions during the encapsidation of ebolavirus
  • designing and characterizing proteins to fascilitate prediction of tertiary structure
  • and spectroscopic investigations of reverse micelles using both time resolved and time averaged techniques.