2019 Annual Report - inside.trinity.edu · feedback during faculty searches. We are grateful for...

2019 Annual Report

Table of Contents

Report from the Chair………………………………..1 Class of 2019 Graduates…………………………… 2 Senior Awards……………………………………….. 3 Department Awards………………………………….4 Chemistry Club……………………………………….6 Advisory Boards……………………………………...7 Undergraduate Research…………………………... 8 Research Groups…………………………………….10 Student Conference Presentations………………...24 Faculty Presentations………………………………..29 Publications………………………………………….. 33 External Grants……………………………………… 36 Major Research Instrumentation…………………... 38 Department Seminars………………………………. 41 Greetings from the Faculty and Staff……………… 42 Alumni Connection………………………………….. 60 Gifts and Donations ………………………………… 61

Trinity University Department of Chemistry

Annual Report 2019 1

Report from the ChairHello alumni and friends of the chemistry department! I greet you as the new chair of chemistry. After 26 years of service, Dr. Chris Pursell retired from Trinity University and took a position as chair of chemistry at Samford University in Alabama. We thank him for his dedicated service to the university and wish him the best in this new stage of his career. It has certainly been a year of change in the department. We were granted a new tenure-track line in Organic chemistry, which is very exciting news. Thus, we conducted two national searches in the fall of 2019, one for a physical chemist to replace Dr. Pursell and one to fill this new line. I am happy to report that we have successfully hired Dr. Rebecca Rapf in the physical chemistry position. She will start next fall and we are all very excited to have her in the department. Alas, the Organic search was not successful, but we are planning to search again next fall. In addition to the searches, we have been working in the department toward the University’s efforts of “Inclusive Excellence”. The goal of the university is to achieve being part of the top 25 Universities in the country, but do so with our more diverse student body. In our department, we have been reflecting on how we can work toward this goal. We conducted a survey of students that have graduated over the last 5 years to understand the things that we are doing well and what we need to work on. We have also engaged in conversations about classroom environment and how to support students from diverse backgrounds. We have also been discussing departmental priorities and department culture at the student and faculty level. These are ongoing conversations and efforts that I am sure will positively affect the department as we move into the future. As it has always been, we thoroughly enjoy hearing from our alumni and friends. Please write to us and keep us up with where you are in your life. If you are in San Antonio, we would love it if you stopped by. We continue our efforts in communication and networking of chemistry alumni. Please make sure you join the TU Chemistry Linkedin group, the departmental Facebook group, and the alumni email distribution list.

All my best, Laura Hunsicker-Wang Professor and Chair of Chemistry [email protected] (210) 999-7895



Class of 2019

Bachelor of Science in Chemistry Anne Agee

Emily Babcock Zoheb Hirani

Timothy Wheatley

Bachelor of Art in Chemistry Stella Affognon

Tayde Contreras Hailey Taylor

Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry Max Chamoun Aaron Knopp

Benjamin Sawyer Erin Tsai

Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Elena Boms

Cole Claunch Victoria Henderson

Cristina Hofman Grace Lee

Samantha Lee Mengyu Liu

Garrison Meeks Emmanuella Oduguwa

Jonathan Palmer Camille Potts

Megan Richards Ashley Ward



Senior Awards

William Crews McGavock Award for Outstanding Research Zoheb Hirani and Camille Potts

Outstanding Senior in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Camille Potts

Award for Academic Excellence in Chemistry Emily Babcock and Cristina Hofman

Senior Achievement Award in Research Jonathan Palmer and Hailey Taylor

American Institute of Chemists Award Tayde Contreras

ACS Undergraduate Award in Organic Chemistry Zoheb Hirani

ACS Undergraduate Award in Inorganic Chemistry Anne Agee

Undergraduate Award in Biochemistry Grace Lee

Senior Service Award Hailey Taylor

McGavock Poster Award Hailey Taylor and Zoheb Hirani



Department Awards

Chemical Rubber Co. (CRC) General Chemistry Achievement Award Katharine McGrath and Virginia McGrath

Achievement in Organic Chemistry Adam Davis

ACS Undergraduate Award in Physical Chemistry Hayden Anderson

ACS Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry David Richards

John A. Burke Award for Achievement in Inorganic Chemistry: Hayden Anderson

Outstanding Student Assistant Award Rochelle Hand

2019-2020 James Augustus McCloskey, Jr. Scholarship Rachel Goldstein

2019-2021 William Crews McGavock Scholarship Anna Van Zile



William Crews McGavock Award for Outstanding Research

Camille Potts Zoheb Hirani

James Augustus McCloskey, Jr. Scholars

Cristina Hofman Rachel Goldstein 2018-2019 2019-2020

Ina Beth and William Crews McGavock Scholars

Grace Lee Isabelle Pacheco Anna Van Zile 2017-2019 2018-2020 2019-2021



Chemistry Club

Co-Presidents: Hayden Anderson and Madeline Hopps VP of Outreach: Lois Warden VP of Social Events: Joseph Anderson VP of On-Campus Events: Danielle Jamison Secretary: Jordan McMurry Treasurer: Will Skinner Green Chemistry Officer: Breanna Brietske Volunteer Coordinator: Nick Pittner Fundraising Officer: Wilford Lee

In 2019, the Chemistry Club received an American Chemical Society (ACS) Honorable Mention national award for our work advancing the club's mission of exposing students to different career options, fostering student-faculty interactions, and giving back to the Trinity and San Antonio community. For National Chemistry Week in October, we organized several campus events, including serving liquid nitrogen ice cream to students, showcasing chemistry demonstrations on Mole Day, and hosting Chemistry Jeopardy. Chemistry Club has developed an ongoing partnership with the Witte Museum to provide interactive science demonstrations for people of all ages at their Super Saturday events. Additionally, we created an intramural team to create a sense of community and get involved. Follow our Instagram account @tu_chemclub to stay updated with the club. We look forward to another great year!



Department Board of Advisors

The individuals listed below meet each Spring on the Trinity campus to advise the chemistry department on a variety of matters. The Board has been instrumental in assisting the department in fund-raising efforts, particularly for equipment. The Board members serve each Spring as judges for the McGavock poster competition as part of the McGavock Symposium Day program. We owe these folks a great deal of thanks for their unselfish work on our behalf.

Dr. Andy RusinkoMr. Bruce StoryDr. Jason Tedrow Dr. Alexis Thompson Dr. Andrew Vance Dr. Susan Weintraub Dr. Joshua Woody

Dr. Andrew BurkeDr. Randle CollardDr. Jay Conyers Dr. Hannah Crampton Dr. Yolanda Fintschenko Dr. Judy Guy Caffey Dr. Shirley Moy

Members listed below:Student Board of Advisors

The students listed below are selected by the chemistry faculty to represent their classes and collect feedback to share with the department chair and the department Board of Advisors. These students also collect and provide feedback during faculty searches. We are grateful for their time, contributions, and advice.

Class of 2019: Emily Babcock, Zoheb Hirani, Camille Potts Class of 2020: Alex Bradley, David Richards, Caitlyn Turner Class of 2021: Wilford Lee, Jordan McMurry, Daniel Ocampo



Undergraduate ResearchThe Trinity University Department of Chemistry has one of the oldest (50

years!) and most active undergraduate research programs in the world. Trinity students and alumni work with faculty full-time during the summer and part-time during the academic year on a range of projects across all major fields of chemistry and at the interface with biology, physics, engineering, and medicine. There are also many collaborations with groups at major research institutions in the United States and abroad. Our laboratories are housed in the state-of-the-art Center for the Sciences and Innovation.

One of the hallmarks of our program is its accessibility to students early on in college. In 2019, 56 Trinity students (63% female) were involved in chemistry research, and more than half of them started research in their first or second year at Trinity. Thirty-six students participated in the 10-week summer program, which runs from mid-May to the end of July. Faculty also mentored three postdoctoral scholars and three Trinity alumni working as full-time research associates. In the decade 2010-2019, Trinity students gave 187 presentations at major research conferences, and there were 175 Trinity student coauthors on the 166 papers published during this decade.

Attracting external funding for research is increasingly difficult and requires faculty to be both innovative and productive. Over the decade 2010-2019, the chemistry faculty were awarded over $12.5M in new grant contracts, including $9.4M for faculty research laboratories, $1.5M for major research instrumentation, and $1.6M in education or multi-departmental programs. These grant funds support summer stipends and travel for Trinity students and faculty, research instrumentation, research supplies and chemicals, instructional resources, and salaries for postdoctoral and post-baccalaureate research associates. We gratefully acknowledge the following public and private foundations for their generous support: the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the San Antonio Area Foundation, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Welch Foundation, the W. M. Keck Foundation.



Summer Research 2019

1st row: Dr. Hunsicker Wang, Zach Acevedo, Dr. Ryan Davis, Jose Ricardo dos Remedios, Tyler Bate

2nd row: Alex Bradley, Zoe Bullock, Cara DeWitt, Mary Bajomo, Natalia Gonzalez, Jordan McMurry

3rd row: Danielle Jamison, Nick Pittner, Madeline Hopps, Natasha Muppala, Caroline Darbro

4th row: Dr. Maeder, Virginia McGrath, Lois Warden, Rachel Goldstein, Brylee Lavoie, Nia Clements, Dr. Cooley, Josephina Hajek-Herrera, Kristin Trobaugh, Dr. Songok, Allison St. John

5th row: Katie Barondeau, Erin Cha, Chen Wang, Anna Van Zile, Christopher Fan, Joseph Anderson, Mitch Beito, Raheed Sunesra, Dr. Bruno

6th row: Daniel Ocampo, Dr. Shearer, Dr. Lambert, Todd Whittaker

Not pictured: Tyler Bate, Rochelle Hand, Cristina Hofman, Rachel Lopez, Isabelle Pacheco, David Richards, Jennifer Sample, Dr. Chandler, Dr. Embry, Dr. Songok, Dr. Urbach



Chandler Research Group

1st Row: Dr. Sravan Kumar, Rochelle Hand, Mary Bajomo, Jennifer Sample, Natalia Gonzales

2nd Row: Todd Whittaker (’17), Dr. Bert Chandler, Alex Bradley, Allison St. John, Dr. Jimmy Bruno

Not Pictured: CJ Guzman (’19)

CJ Guzman (‘19) worked on alkyne hydrogenation studies with Au and bimetallic Ni-Au catalysts, as well as developing our methods for measuring surface acidity & basicity. He is now in graduate school at Florida State and enjoying his time learning more Physics.

Mary Bajomo (‘20) developed new methods for measuring benzyl alcohol and 2-phenyl ethanol oxidation kinetics. After solving some difficult problems, she is now working on Hammett studies with these reactions.

Alex Bradley (‘20) used H2 oxidation to evaluate support effects on H2 adsorption equilibrium constants.

Rochelle Hand (‘20) studied support effects on alkyne partial hydrogenation and began developing new synthesis methods for bimetallic Ni-Au catalysts, while mentoring students and advisors in the finer points of artistic expression through Powerpoint animations.



Allison St. John (‘20) continued her work developing new a new UV-visible thiol titration for Au catalysts.

Natalia Gonzalez (‘22) developed a new solution phase reaction to evaluate O2 binding to Au, and is working on measuring reactive oxygen on Au catalysts and in solution.

Jennifer Sample (‘22) learned the ins and outs of alcohol oxidation kinetics, and is getting ready to take over this project from Mary.



Cooley Research Group

1st row: Jose Ricardo dos Remedios, Tyler Bate, Christopher Fan, Joseph Anderson

2nd row: Madeline Hopps, Dr. Christina Cooley, Cara DeWitt, Jordan McMurry

Not pictured: Jonathan Palmer (’19), Danyal Tahseen (’19), Breanna Brietske

Jonathan Palmer (‘19) continued his work until graduation on ROS-activatable prodrugs for treatment following ischemia-reperfusion injury. This work was published in November with Jonny as first author. He is currently attending medical school at Long School of Medicine, UT Health San Antonio.

Danyal Tahseen (’19) continued his work until graduation on fluorogenic polymerization directly from the surface of initiator-modified proteins. He is currently attending medical school at McGovern in Houston.

Joseph Anderson (’20) continued his work on the design and synthesis of new fluorogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbon probe monomers for polymerization. He plans to attend medical school in Houston in the fall of 2020.



Tyler Bate (’20) continued his work on the synthesis of our ROS-activatable prodrugs and additional prodrug molecules designed for in vivo drug delivery. He plans to attend medical school in the fall of 2020.

Breanna Brietske (’20) continued work on the synthesis and evaluation of ROS-activatable prodrugs of stress-responsive signaling pathway activators for treatment following ischemia-reperfusion injury. She plans to explore a career in the health professions, possibly as a Physician’s Assistant.

Cara DeWitt (’20) pioneered the development of uncontrolled, light-activated fluorogenic polymerization strategies and explored its utility for detection. She plans to pursue graduate studies following her graduation from Trinity this year.

Madeline Hopps (’20) finished her Beckman Scholar year during 2019. Her Beckman project explored a light-activated fluorogenic polymerization reaction for detection and the incorporation of enzymatic deoxygenation strategies to run polymerizations in the open air. She plans to pursue graduate studies following her graduation from Trinity this year.

Jordan McMurry (’21) continued her work on the optimization of the fluorogenic ATRP polymerization for detection, developing a reaction combination that exhibits significantly improved reaction kinetics and time to fluorescence. She plans to pursue an MD PhD degree to advance research and human health.

Christopher Fan (’22) joined the lab in the Spring of 2019 and has synthesized a water-soluble prodrug of AA 147 for in vivo delivery. He has recently begun a new project to optimize the kinetics of release of free drug for improved biological activity. He plans to eventually attend medical school and is considering a career in research as well.

Jose Ricardo Dos Remedios (’22) joined the lab in the Spring of 2019 and has worked with Jordan on the optimization of the fluorogenic ATRP reaction, focusing on catalyst loading, ligand and halide optimization. He plans to pursue a career in research.



Davis Research Group

Kristin Trobaugh, David Richards, Dr. Ryan Davis, and Josefina Hajek-Herrera

Not Pictured: Eric Grace

Eric Grace (‘20) performed research in the fall of 2019. He has been learning to perform experiments on levitated droplets.

David Richards (‘20) worked in research the entire year, and has been working on studying gel and phase transitions in aerosol particles. David plans to enroll in a PhD program in the fall of 2020.

Kristin Trobaugh (‘20) worked in research the entire year, and designed and fabricated a custom electrodynamic balance for levitating droplets.

Josefina Hajek-Herrera (‘22) worked in research the entire year, and designed and fabricated a custom electrodynamic balance for levitating droplets. Josie plans on a health profession after graduation.



Pursell Research Group

Isabelle Pacheco, Caroline Darbro, and Dr. Christopher Pursell

Isabelle Pacheco (‘20) and Caroline Darbro (‘22) worked on understanding the dissociation of D2 and H2 on metal catalysts using infrared spectroscopy.

Lambert Research Group During the summer of 2019 and the following academic year, Natasha Muppala (’20) carried out a survey of the proton NMR spectra of worldwide amber and plant exudates. She recorded the spectra of some 200 such samples. Many results were obtained and many still are in progress, but one has resulted in a publication to date. With samples provided by collaborators from other institutions, we characterized amber samples from the mines of Burma (Myanmar). We found an unexpected diversity of molecular types. This publication currently is in press. Muppala will be graduating in 2020 and will attend medical school.

Previous research that came to fruition in 2019 and resulted in publications included the work of graduated students Tayde Contreras ('19), Truongon Nguyen ('17), and Allison Levy ('15).



Hunsicker-Wang Research Group

Dr. Hunsicker-Wang, Zach Acevedo, Rachel Lopez, Mitch Beito, and Raheed Sunesra

Not pictured: Victoria Henderson (’19), Cristina Hofman (’19), Rudy Jarero (’19), Kelsey Kohler (’19), Grace Lee (’19), Emmanuella Oduguwa (’19), Benjamin Sawyer (’19)

Victoria Henderson (‘19) worked on the project where we are probing if there is a correlation between the reduction potential of the Rieske protein to the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Victoria worked on expressing and purifying the isolated yeast Rieske protein. Victoria plans on attending medical school after taking a gap year.

Cristina Hofman (‘19) continued her work on the Sco and CuA projects. Her second paper was published in 2019 where she examined the effect of changing the number of DEPC equivalents that will react with CuA. Cristina is a research technician with Dr. Urbach this year and will be attending a PhD program in biomedical science at UT Southwestern.



Rudy Jarero (‘19) worked with Victoria on examining how the Rieske reduction potential correlates with the formation of ROS. He worked to develop and an in vivo assay to monitor the formation of ROS by yeast. Rudy is attending a Masters Program in Biomedical Science.

Kelsey Kohler (‘19) continued her work on the Rieske project finishing up various projects. Her latest work was trying to measure the pKA values for G156S using pH-dependent CD. Kelsey intends to go to medical school after taking a gap year.

Emmanuella Oduguwa (‘19) continued her work on the microdroplets project. In this project, we fund that the protein spontaneously reduces when sprayed from a spray bottle and then quickly reoxidizes! Emmanuella will be attending medical school.

Benjamin Sawyer (‘19) expressed and purified proteins and learned how to measure pKA values using UV-Visible spectroscopy. Ben is in graduate school at the University of Mississippi.

Zach Acevedo (‘20) has continued his work on CuA. His most recent work has been on reacting CuA with HNE and ONE, lipid peroxidation products. He has also optimized a mass spec protocol that allows us to monitor what kind of modifications are occurring. Zach will be attending medical school.

Rachel Lopez (‘20) has continued her work on the effect of distal charges on the Rieske protein reduction potential. In her latest work, she has produced three new mutants, Q141K, Q165K and the double mutant Q141K/Q165K which alter neutral residues to positive residues. Rachel will be going to graduate school, where she will be incorporating both her Biochemsitry and Molecular Biology Major and her Communication Major.

Raheed Sunesra (‘21) and Mitch Beito (‘21) both joined the lab in fall 2018. Raheed and Mitch worked together on the ROS project, expressing and purifying yeast Rieske and trying measure ROS produced by yeast. Both Raheed and Mitch plan on going to medical school.



Maeder Research Group

1st Row: Zoe Bullock, Virginia McGrath, Rachel Goldstein, Nick Pittner 2nd Row: Danielle Jamison, and Dr. Corina Maeder Not pictured: Camille Potts (’19), Garrison Meeks (’19)

Camille Potts (2019) worked towards identifying U5 residues that interact with Dib1 and constructing the necessary yeast strains for their characterization. She is currently taking a gap year to work in a wolf sanctuary and will be applying to graduate programs this next year.

Nick Pittner (2020) developed new biochemical assays to monitor splicing in order to characterize a series of truncations to the Dib1 protein, which were constructed by graduating senior Grace Lee (2019). Nick is applying for graduate program for next fall. Grace is working for the year in Dr. Laura Hunsicker-Wang’s lab and will be attending a graduate program in the fall.



Rachel Goldstein (2020) continues to works on a joint project with our group and Dr. Kelvin Cheng in which we perform molecular dynamic simulations on splicing complexes. These studies have informed our experimental approaches. This past summer, Rachel received a Murchison Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship to support her summer work. Rachel will be attending graduate school in biophysics in the fall.

Caitlyn Turner (2020) continues her work to identify essential residue in Dib1 using an unbiased genetic approach. Caitlyn will be taking a gap year then applying to graduate programs.

Danielle Jamison (2021) and Zoe Bullock (2021) are working to characterize the auto-cleavage activity of both yeast and human Dib1, a key pre-messenger RNA splicing protein. This work was aided by graduating senior Garrison Meeks (2019). This past spring, Danielle received an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Research Award to support her summer project. Danielle will be applying for neuro-related gradated programs this next year, and Zoe will be applying to medical school. Garrison took a gap year to work in the neighboring lab of Dr. Beth Strunk and is applying to medical school.

Virginia McGrath (2022) joined the lab last spring. She is exploring the interactions of Dib1 and Prp8 in the spliceosome through a series of mutational analysis. Virginia plans to go to medical school.



Shearer Research Group

Dr. Abigail Songok, Daniel Ocampo, Katharine Barondeau, Chenyi Wang, and Dr. Jason Shearer

Not pictured: Katherine McGarrity

Katherine Barondeau (‘21) joined the lab in the summer of 2019, and is working on understanding how outersphere interactions contribute to the stability, structure, and enzymatic mechanism of nickel superoxide dismutase (NiSOD). She is currently preparing a number of mutants of NiSOD focusing on several key residues the Shearer group has identified as key to the enzymatic structure and reaction mechanism.

Daniel Ocampo (‘21) joined the lab in the Fall of 2018, and is probing the mechanism of superoxide disproportionation by nickel superoxide dismutase (NiSOD). He is currently expressing and purifying NiSOD and attempting to isolate nitric oxide bound adducts (as a spectroscopic mimic for superoxide). Daniel also accompanied Dr. Shearer to the Canadian Light Source and acquired X-ray absorption data for a number of different proteins, metallopeptides, and small transition metal complexes.



Chenyi Wang (‘21) worked in the lab over the summer of 2019. She was responsible for expressing a designed protein capable of binding iron and performing superoxide disproportionation. In the Fall of 2019 she spent a term studying abroad in Denmark.

Katherine McGarrity (‘23) joined the lab in the Fall of 2019. She is currently preparing a loop mutant of nickel superoxide dismutase (NiSOD) mutating a residue we have identified as being a key structural component in NiSOD allowing for metal binding to the enzyme.



Urbach Research Group

Dr. Adam Urbach, Nia Clements, Brylee Lavoie, Cristina Hofman, Anna Van Zile, Lois Warden, and Erin Cha

Not pictured: Emily Babcock (’19), Zoheb Hirani (’19), Hailey Taylor (’19), Hayden Anderson

Emily Babcock (’19) led the controlled release project until she graduated in May. She is now pursuing her PhD in chemistry at UT Austin, working in the Anslyn research group.

Zoheb Hirani (’19) led the protein engineering project and completed an honors thesis before graduating in May. He is now pursuing his PhD in chemistry as an NSF Graduate Fellow at Northwestern University, working in the Dichtel research group.



Hailey Taylor (’19) led the aminopeptidase project and completed an honors thesis before graduating in May. She continued for a month as a full-time research associate, helping the summer group get up and running. Hailey is now pursuing her PhD in chemistry at UNC Chapel Hill, working in the Knight research group.

Hayden Anderson (’20) completed the aminomethyl insulin project, and he spent the summer in Dr. Chris Parker’s research group at Scripps Research Florida. He will begin the PhD program in chemistry at Stanford this fall.

Erin Cha (’21) and Brylee Lavoie (’22) did research the entire year, making significant advancements on the controlled release project.

Anna Van Zile (’21) did research the entire year, completing a project on disaccharide binding in collaboration with Scripps Research Florida, and working on the aminopeptidase project.

Lois Warden (’21) did research the entire year, leading projects on the sensing of insuliin and the synthesis of cucurbit[n]uril derivatives.

Nia Clements (’22) did research the entire year and led the disordered protein project.



Student Conference Presentations * indicates the presenter; undergraduates are underlined

American Chemical Society National Meeting CJ Guzman, CJ,* E. Rochelle Hand, Nico S Dwarica, James Bruno, and Bert D. Chandler “Selective hydrogenations with mono- and bimetallic Au catalysts” 257th ACS National Meeting, Orlando, FL, April 1, 2019 (poster).

Madeline Hopps* and Christina B. Cooley “Fluorogenic Polymerization in Aqueous Media as a Detection Strategy” 257th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Orlando, FL, April 1, 2019 (poster).

Jonathan Palmer,* Breanna Brietske, Tyler Bate, and Christina B. Cooley “Synthesis and Evaluation of ROS-Activatable Prodrugs” 257th ACS National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Orlando, FL, April 1, 2019 (poster).

David Richards*, Kristin Trobaugh, and Ryan Davis “Probing the rheology of model sea spray aerosol particles using a dual-balance linear quadrupole trap as a micro-analytical tool” 258th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, San Diego, CA, August 26, 2019 (poster).

7th Annual San Antonio Postdoctoral Research Forum

Addie Embry*, Caitlyn Turner, Danielle Jamison, and Corina Maeder “The Roles of the Essential Proteins Dib1, Prp31, Prp6 and the U5 snRNA During Splicing” 7th Annual San Antonio Postdoctoral Research Forum, UT Health San Antonio, TX, Sept 19, 2019.

Experimental Biology 2019

Danyal Tahseen,* Jemima Sackey-Addo, and Christina B. Cooley “Fluorogenic Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization as a Strategy for Biomolecular Detection” Experimental Biology 2019, Orlando, FL, April 8, 2019 (poster).



Cristina Hofman* and Laura Hunsicker-Wang “Functional Analysis and Characterization of the Metal Bound Sco Protein from Thermus thermophilus” Experimental Biology 2019, Orlando, FL April 6-10, 2019 (poster). Victoria Henderson* and Laura Hunsicker-Wang “Establishing the Role of Rieske Protein Reduction Potential in the Formation of Reactive Oxygen Species in Complex III” Experimental Biology 2019, Orlando, FL April 6-10, 2019 (poster) Addie Embry*, Camille Potts, Danielle Jamison, Caitlyn Turner and Corina Maeder “The Roles of Essential Proteins Dib1, Prp31, Prp6 and U5 snRNA during Splicing” Experimental Biology 2019, Orlando, FL, April 2019 (talk and poster). Rachel Goldstein*, Sara Cheng, Gabrielle Orr, Christian Schreib, Kelvin Cheng, and Corina Maeder “Energetics and Interfacial Interactions of Spliceosomal Protein Dib1 Predicted with MD Simulations” Experimental Biology 2019, Orlando, FL, April 2019. (talk and poster). Grace Lee*, Garrison Meeks, and Corina Maeder “Exploring the Tail Region of Pre-messenger RNA Spliceosomal Protein Dib1” Experimental Biology 2019, Orlando, FL, April 2019 (poster). Camille Potts*, Rachel Goldstein, Nick Pittner, Julia Widom, Elizabeth Duran, Nils Walter, and Corina Maeder “Characterizing the impact of splicing protein Dib1 on the pre-messenger RNA interactions with the spliceosome” Experimental Biology 2019, Orlando, FL. April 2019 (poster).

Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium at UT Austin

Jordan McMurry,* Jun dos Remedios, and Christina B. Cooley “Better. Faster. Brighter. Optimizing Fluorogenic Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization as a Strategy for Detection” Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, September 28, 2019 (talk).



Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium Mary Bajomo,* Jennifer Sample, and Bert D. Chandler “Hammett Studies of 2-Phenethanol Oxidation to Characterize Au Catalysts” Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rice University, Houston, TX, November 2, 2019 (talk)

Jordan McMurry,* Jun dos Remedios, and Christina B. Cooley “Better. Faster. Brighter. Optimizing Fluorogenic Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization as a Strategy for Detection” Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rice University, Houston, TX, November 9, 2019 (talk).

Zoe Bullock*, Danielle Jamison, and Corina Maeder “Investigating the Stability of the Yeast and Human Spliceosomal Protein Dib1 and hDim1.” Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rice University Houston, TX, October 2019 (talk). Received an Award for Outstanding Presentation in Session.

Danielle Jamison*, Zoe Bullock, and Corina Maeder “Investigating the Autocleavage Activity of Yeast Spliceosomal Protein Dib1.” Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rice University, Houston, TX, October 2019 (talk). Received an Award for Outstanding Presentation in Session.

Erin Cha,* Brylee Lavoie, Cristina Hofman, Emily Babcock, Dany Munoz-Pinto, and Adam R. Urbach “Affinity Controlled Release of Cucurbit[7]uril-Guest Conjugates” Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rice University, Houston, TX, November 2, 2019 (talk).

Anna Van Zile,* Hailey Taylor, and Adam R. Urbach “Creating Receptor Binding Sites by Selective Enzymatic Processing” Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rice University, Houston, TX, November 2, 2019 (talk).

Lois Warden,* Hayden Anderson, David Bardelang, and Adam R. Urbach “Synthesis and Characterization of Modified Cucurbit[8]uril” Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rice University, Houston, TX, November 2, 2019 (talk).



6th International Conference on Cucurbiturils

Erin Cha,* Nia Clements,* Cristina Hofman,* Brylee Lavoie,* Anna Van Zile,* Lois Warden,* Zoheb Hirani, Hailey F. Taylor, Emily F. Babcock, Andrew T. Bockus, and Adam R. Urbach “Molecular Recognition of Non-Aromatic Peptides by Cucurbit[8]uril” 6th International Conference on Cucurbiturils, Athens, Ohio, July 22, 2019 (poster).

North American Catalysis Society Meeting

James Bruno,* Nico Dwarica, E. Rochelle Hand, CJ Guzman, Zhifeng Chen, Robert M. Rioux, and Bert D. Chandler “Ni@Au Catalysts for the Selective Hydrogenation of Terminal Alkynes” 26th North American Catalysis Society Meeting, June 19, 2019 (talk).

Todd Whittaker T*; Sravan Kumar, K; Robert M. Rioux, Lars C. Grabow, and Bert D. Chandler “H2 and O2 Activation over Au Catalysts: Heterolytic H2 Activation at the Metal-Support Interface and the Role of Support Protons” 26th North American Catalysis Society Meeting, June 21, 2019 (talk).

Todd Whittaker,* Sravan Kumar, Robert M. Rioux, Lars C. Grabow, and Bert D. Chandler “Physisorbed H2O on Metal-Oxide Supported Au Nanoparticles: Origin of Poisoning Effect in H2 Oxidation” 26th North American Catalysis Society Meeting, June 19, 2019 (poster).

2019 Southwest Catalysis Society Annual Symposium Alex Bradley,*Todd Whittaker, and Bert D. Chandler “Role of the Metal-Support Interface in H₂ Activation on Supported Gold Nanoparticles” 2019 Southwest Catalysis Society Annual Symposium, April 26, 2019 (poster). James Bruno,* Nico Dwarica, E. Rochelle Hand, CJ Guzman, Zhifeng Chen, Robert M. Rioux, and Bert D. Chandler “Au-based Catalysts for the Selective Hydrogenation of Terminal Alkynes” 2019 Southwest Catalysis Society Spring Symposium, April 22, 2019 (poster).



E. Rochelle Hand,* CJ Guzman, James Bruno, Nico S. Dwarica,Alexander Huther, and Bert D. Chandler, BD; “Support Effects for theSelective Hydrogenation of 1-Octyne on Au/MOx” 2019 SouthwestCatalysis Society Annual Symposium, April 26, 2019 (poster).Todd Whittaker,* Sravan Kumar, Robert M. Rioux, Lars C. Grabow, and Bert D. Chandler “Physisorbed H2O on Metal-Oxide Supported Au Nanoparticles: Origin of Poisoning Effect in H2 Oxidation” Southwest Catalysis Society Spring Symposium, April 22, 2019 (poster).



Faculty Presentations Dr. Bert Chandler

“H2 Oxidation over Supported Au Nanoparticle Catalysts: Mechanistic Evidence for Heterolytic H2 Activation at the Metal-Support Interface” 257th National Meeting National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Orlando, FL, March 31, 2019.

“Bridging the Gaps Between Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalysis: Hammett Studies and Active Site Kinetics Studies to Better Understand Alcohol Oxidation over Au Catalysts” 257th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Orlando, FL, April 1, 2019.

“Understanding and tuning small molecule reactivity over Au nanoparticle catalysts: improvements in CO preferential oxidation and alkyne partial hydrogenation” Department of Chemistry, Tufts University, July 22, 2019.

“Understanding and tuning small molecule reactivity over Au nanoparticle catalysts: improvements in CO preferential oxidation and alkyne partial hydrogenation” Department of Chemistry, ETH Zurich (Switzerland), November 26, 2019.

“Mechanistic investigations of small molecule activation over supported Au catalysts” Core Laboratory, Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), December, 12, 2019.

Dr. Christina Cooley

“Fluorogenic Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization as a Strategy for Biological Detection” 257th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Orlando, FL, April 1, 2019 (talk).

“Fluorogenic Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization as a Strategy for Biodetection” Gordon Research Conference on Polymers, South Hadley, MA, June 10, 2019 (poster).

“Fluorogenic Controlled Polymerization Amplification Strategies for Detection of Biological Analytes” Polymers for Advanced Technologies (PAT) Meeting, College Station, TX, August 9, 2019 (talk).



Dr. Ryan Davis

“Gel formation from low molecular-mass organic gelators in model marine aerosols: Synergistic role of water, organic, and inorganic components” 258th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, San Diego, CA, August 28, 2019 (talk).

“Exploring Gelation in Model Marine Aerosol Particles: Micro-Rheological Observations of Ternary Water-Monosaccharide-Calcium Ion Microdroplets” American Association for Aerosol Research annual meeting, Portland, OR, October 15, 2019 (talk).

"Defying gravity: Leveraging levitation-based techniques to understand atmospheric chemistry and physics" Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, November 20, 2019 (invited seminar).

Dr. Laura Hunsicker-Wang

“DEPC Modification of the CuA Protein from Thermus thermophilus“ Saint Edward’s University, Austin, TX, Feb 22, 2019 (invited seminar).

“DEPC Modification of the CuA Protein from Thermus thermophilus” 257th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Orlando, FL Oral Presentation Mar 31, 2019 (talk).

“DEPC Modification of the CuA Protein from Thermus thermophilus“ Reed College, Portland, OR, May 30, 2019 (invited seminar).

“DEPC Modification of the CuA Protein from Thermus thermophilus“ University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, May 31, 2019 (invited seminar).

“Chemical Modification of Proteins in the Biochemistry Lab” American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Symposium: Transforming Undergraduate Education in the Molecular Life Sciences, San Antonio, TX, Poster Presentation July 26, 2019 (poster).



Dr. Joseph Lambert

“Analysis of Fossilized Resin (Amber) by Carbon-13 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in Solution: A Worldwide Survey,” J. B. Lambert, 13th Archaeological Chemistry Symposium, 257th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Orlando, FL, Apr. 1, 2019.

“Upper Cretaceous Texas Amber: Its First Biological Inclusions,” V. Friedman, J. A. Santiago-Blay, F. J. Vega, M. L. Serrano, G. E. Mustoe, and J. B. Lambert, 8th International Congress on Fossil Insects, Arthropods, and Amber, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Apr. 9, 2019, presented by V. Friedman.

Dr. Corina Maeder

“Application of ESI-TOF-Mass Spectrometry to identify Protein Mutants in a Biochemistry Teaching Lab” Corina Maeder* and Christina Cooley. ASBMB Transforming Education in the Molecular Life Sciences Symposium, San Antonio, TX, July 2019 (poster).

Dr. Jason Shearer

“Is it Odd There are Few Metal-Selenolcysteine Ligated Metal Centers in Nature? Quantum Chemistry Says “Maybe?”” Gordon Research Conference on Metals in Biology, Ventura, CA, January 2019 (poster).

“Investigating the Role of Cysteine Protonation Events in the Mechanism of Nickel Superoxide Dismutase: A Spectroscopic and Computational Approach” Gordon Research Conference on Inorganic Reaction Mechanisms, Galveston, TX, March 2019 (poster).

“Ni-S-R Protonation and its Relevance to Nickel Superoxide Dismutase.” Department of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Great Britain, June 17, 2019 (invited seminar).

“Is There a Physical Justification for the Paucity of Metal-Selenolate Motifs in Nature?” 14th International Conference on the Chemistry of Selenium and Tellurium, Santa Margherita di Pula, Italy, June 2019 (invited talk).



Dr. Adam Urbach

“Sequence-Predictive Recognition of Peptides and Proteins” Texas A&M University, Chemical Biology, Jan. 14, 2019 (invited seminar).

“Sequence-Predictive Recognition of Peptides and Proteins” Brigham Young University, Department of Chemistry, April 10, 2019 (invited seminar).

“Sequence-Predictive Recognition of Peptides and Proteins” University of Utah, Department of Chemistry, April 11, 2019 (invited seminar).

“Sequence-Selective Recognition of Peptides and Proteins” Telluride Conference on Supramolecular Chemistry in Water, Telluride, CO, Aug 8, 2019 (invited speaker).

“Sequence-Predictive Recognition of Peptides and Proteins” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Chemistry, Nov. 20, 2019 (invited seminar).

“Faculty Careers at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Nov. 20, 2019 (invited by the graduate students).



Publications * indicates undergraduate coauthor

Bruno, J; Kumar, S.; Dwarica, N*; Huther, A*; Chen, Z; Guzman, CJ*; Hand, ER*; Moore, WC; Rioux, RM; Grabow, LC; Chandler, BD “On the Limited Role of Electronic Support Effects in Selective Alkyne Hydrogenation: A Kinetic Study of Au/MOx Catalysts Prepared from Oleylamine-Capped Colloidal Nanoparticles” ChemCatChem, 2019, v11, p1650-1664 (DOI:10.1002/cctc.201801882).

Bruno, J; Dwarica, N*; Hand, ER*; Guzman, CJ*; Chen, Z; Rioux, RM; Chandler, BD “Supported Ni-Au colloid precursors for active, selective, and stable alkyne partial hydrogenation catalysts” ACS Catalysis, in press, (DOI:10.1021/acscatal.9b05402).

Palmer, JE*; Brietske, BM*; Bate, TC*; Blackwood, EA; Garg, M*; Glembotski, CC; Cooley, CB “Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS)-Activatable Prodrug Strategy for Selective Activation of ATF6 Following Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury” ACS Med. Chem. Lett. ASAP, (doi:10.1021/acsmedchemlett.9b00299). Selected for special ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters issue to appear in March 2020: Women in Medicinal Chemistry

Richards, DS*; Trobaugh, KL*; Hajek-Herrera, J*; Davis, RD “Dual-Balance Electrodynamic Trap as a Micro-Analytical Tool for Identifying Gel Transitions and Viscous Properties of Levitated Aerosol Particles” Analytical Chemistry, 2020 (DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b04487).

Devlin, T.*, Hofman, C.R.*, Acevedo, Z. P.V.*, Kohler, K. R.*, Tao, L., Britt, R.D., Hoke, K. R., Hunsicker-Wang, L.M. “DEPC Modification of the CuAProtein from Thermus thermophilus” Journal of Biological InorganicChemistry 2019, 24, 117-135.

Silicon and Life, J. B. Lambert, in “Handbook of Astrobiology,” V. M. Kolb, Ed., CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2019, pp. 371-375.



“Modern Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: An Introduction to Principles, Applications, and Experimental Methods” (book), second edition, J. B. Lambert, E. P. Mazzola, and C. D. Ridge, John Wiley & Sons, 2019.

“Instructor’s Solution Manual for Modern Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: An Introduction to Principles, Applications, and Experimental Methods” (electronic book), second edition, J. B. Lambert, E. P. Mazzola, and C. D. Ridge, John Wiley & Sons, 2019.

Analysis of Fossilized Resin (Amber) by Carbon-13 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in Solution: A Worldwide Survey, J. B. Lambert, T. A. Contreras*, T. V. Nguyen*, and J. A. Santiago-Blay, in “Archaeological Chemistry: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Past,” M. V. Orna and S. C. Rasmussen, Eds., Cambridge Scholars Publ., Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, in press.

Structural Changes from Heating Amber and Copal as Observed by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, J. B. Lambert, T. V. Nguyen*, A. J. Levy*, Y. Wu, and J. A. Santiago-Blay, Magn. Reson. Chem., in press.

A New Molecular Type of Amber for Burma (Myanmar) J. B. Lambert, J. M. Karlberg, N. R. Muppala*, T. A. Contreras*, Y. Wu, and J. A. Santiago-Blay Life: Excitement Biol., in press.

Seo, J.; Shearer, J.; Willard, P.G.; Kim, E. “Reactivity of a Biomimetic W(IV) bis-dithiolene Complex With CO2 Leading to Formate Production and Structural Rearrgangement” Dalton Trans. 2019, 48, 17441-17444 (DOI: 10.1039/C9DT03906F).

Keegan, B.C.; Ocampo, D.*; Shearer, J. “pH Dependent Reversible Formation of a Binuclear Ni2 Metal-Center within a Peptide Scaffold.” Inorganics, 2019, 7, 90. (DOI: 10.3390/inorgancics7070090).

Manesis, A.C.; Musselman, B.W.; Keegan, B.C. Shearer, J.; Lehnert, N.; Shafaat, H.S. “A Biochemical Nickel(I) State Supports Nucleophilic Alkyl Addition: A Roadmap for Methyl Reactivity in Acetyl Coenzyme A Synthase” Inorg. Chem. 2019, 58, 8969-8982. (DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b03546); Journal Cover and ACS Editor’s Choice.



Roy, L; Al-Afyouni, M.H.; DeRosha, D.E.; Mondal, B.; DiMucci, I.M.; Lancaster, K.M.; Shearer, J.; Bill, E.; Brennessel, W.W.; Neese, F.; Ye, S.; Holland P.L. “Reduction of CO2 by a Masked Two-Coordinate Cobalt(I) Complex and Characterization of a Proposed Ocodicobalt(II) Intermediate.” Chem. Sci. 2019, 10, 918-929. (DOI: 10.1039/c8sc02599a)

Ricker, J. D.; Lee, Y.; Shearer, J.; Geary L. M. “Preparation of Pauson-Khand Intermediates: Convergence of Multiple Spectroscopic Analyses Clarifies an Ambiguous Mechanistic Proposal.” submitted.

Kim, Y.; Go, Y. K.; Sundararajan, M.; Malik, D.D.; Kim, J.-H.; Kim, J.; Hong, S.; Shearer, J.; Nam, W.; Baik, M.-H.; Kim, S. H. “Multi-Frequency (9/34/94 GHz) Pule EPR Spectroscopy Identifies a High-Valent Cobalt-Oxo Species.” under revision.



External Grants American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund

ACS-PRF “Development of Fluorogenic Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization in Aqueous Media” $55,000, May 2017 – Aug 2019 (57370-UNI7), PI: Christina Cooley

Arnold & Mabel Beckman Foundation Beckman Scholars Program, $130,000, May 2016- Aug 2019, PI: Laura Hunsicker-Wang

National Science Foundation

“RUI: Collaborative Research: Understanding and exploiting proton mobility in Au catalyzed selective oxidation reactions” $270,001, Aug 2018 – Sept 2021 (Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems, CBET-1803769), PI: Bert Chandler

“RUI: Preparation and Kinetic Characterization of New Bimetallic Au-M Selective Hydrogenation Catalysts” $357,000, Mar 2018 – Feb 2021 (Chemical Catalysis, CHE-1566301), PI: Bert Chandler

“Collaborative Research: Exploring the role of organics in atmospheric contact nucleation” $127,533, 8/15/2019 – 7/31/2022 (AGS-1925208), PI: Ryan Davis; Collaborator: Margaret Tolbert, University of Colorado.

“High-Valent Metal-Oxo Species: Beyond the Oxo-Wall” $450,000, Sept 2019 – Aug 2022 (CHE-1900380), Co-PI: Nicolai Lehnert, University of Michigan; Co-PI: Jason Shearer

“Influence of Cysteinate Protonation on Biologically Relevant Nickel Mediated Reactions” $425,000, Sept 2016 – Aug 2020 (CHE-1565766), PI: Jason Shearer

“MRI: Acquisition of an ESI-TOF Mass Spectrometer by Trinity University” $274,770, Aug 2017 – July 2020 (CHE-1726441), PI: Adam Urbach; coPIs: Christina Cooley, Laura Hunsicker-Wang, Corina Maeder



National Institutes of Health “Identification of a Novel Regulatory Element in the Assembly of the Spliceosome” $401,828, Sept 2016 – Aug 2020 (R15-GM120720-01), PI: Corina Maeder “Cysteinate Protonation at Metalloenzyme Active-Sites” $300,000 (direct costs), Sept 2018 – Aug 2020 (R15-GM120641-01), PI: Jason Shearer

“Supramolecular Strategies for the Controlled Release of Protein Drugs” $400,281, Sept 2017 – Sept 2020 (R15-GM126511-01), PI: Adam Urbach, CoPI: Lyle Isaacs at University of Maryland

Research Corporation for Science Advancement “Training Faculty to Assist Students in Career Planning” $25,000, Sept 2017 – Aug 2020 (Cottrell Scholars Collaborative), PI: Adam Urbach; Co-PIs: Andriy Nevidomskyy at Rice University, Penny Beuning at Northeastern University, Robert Berger at Western Washington University, Shane Ardo at University of California at Irvine, and Yan Xia at Stanford University

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality “2019 San Antonio Ozonesondes” $14,812, June 2019 – December 2019 (Trinity_TCEQ_SA-EP2019_SOW), PI: Marilyn Wooten

The Welch Foundation “Chemistry at Trinity University: Research as the Key to Chemical Education” $135,000, June 2018 – May 2021 (W-0031, Departmental Grant to support summer research students), PI: Chris Pursell “Fluorogenic Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain-Transfer for Biomolecular Detection” $195,000, June 2019 – May 2022 (W-1984, Research Grant), PI: Christina Cooley “Implication of an Uncharacterized Protein Auto-Cleavage in Spliceosome Assembly Regulation” $195,000, June 2019-May 2022 (W-1905), PI: Corina Maeder “Supramolecular Studies of Intrinsically Disordered Polypeptides” $195,000, June 2019 – May 2022 (W-1640, Research Grant), PI: Adam Urbach



Major Research InstrumentationNMR Spectroscopy

Varian 500 MHz NMR Spectrometer (2010) Varian Mercury 300 NMR Spectrometer (2002)

Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy Jasco J-815 CD Spectropolarimeter with Peltier Temp Control, Automated Titrator, and Stopped Flow (2007)

Fluorescence Spectroscopy Applied Photophysics Stopped Flow Spectrometer with Absorbance and

Fluorescence (2014) Tecan F200 Pro Fluorescence Plate Reader (2014) Tecan M200 Pro Fluorescence Plate Reader (2010) Bruker Tracer III-DS Handheld XRF (2010) PTI Fluorescence Spectrometer QM- 7 (2004) PTI LS-100 Fluorescence Spectrometer (1990)

UV-Visible Spectroscopy Agilent CARY 5000 UV-vis-NIR Spectrometer (2018) Thermo Nanodrop 2000c (2014) Thermo Scientific Biomate 5 UV-VIS Spectrophotometer (2007) Jasco UV-Visible Spectrometer (2005) Ocean Optics UV-Visible Spectrometer (2004) Cary 100 Bio UV-Visible Spectrometer (2001) Hitachi U-2900 UV-Visible Spectrometers (x3) (1997) Hitachi U-3000 UV-Visible Spectrometer (1995)

Infrared Spectroscopy Nicolet iS50 FT-IR (x2) (2014) Nicolet Nexus 470 FT-IR (x2) (2002, 2003)

Microspectroscopy Princeton Instruments FERGIE spectrometer, fiber-coupled (2019)

Atomic Emission Spectroscopy Varian 720-ES ICP-OES (2010)



Mass Spectrometry LCMS: Agilent 6230 LC-ESI-TOF (2017) GCMS: Varian Saturn 2100T ion trap with MS/MS (2006) MS: ThermoFinnegan LCQ Deca XP ESI-Ion Trap with MSn (2004)

Electrochemistry BAS 100 Electrochemical Analyzer (2004)

Calorimetry TA Instruments DSC Q2000 (2014) Microcal VP-ITC Microcalorimeter (2004)

Surface Analysis Micrometrics ASAP 2020 Surface Area and Porosity Analyzer (2014)

Microscopy Nikon Eclipse 50i Microscope equipped for tetrad dissection (2014) Jeol JSM-6010LA Scanning Electron Microscope (2013)

Liquid Chromatography Agilent 1260 HPLC System, Diode Array, Fluorescence (2014) Dionex Nanoflow UPLC 3000 Ultimate (2011) Akta Preparatory FPLC (x2) (2005, 2014) Teledyne CombiFlash Chromatography (2011) Waters Preparatory HPLC System (2005) Beckman Gold Analytical HPLC System (2000) Agilent 1100 Analytical HPLC System (1996)

Gas Chromatography SRI Instruments GC with Autosampler (x2) (2008) Varian 3900 Capillary GC (2006) Agilent 6890N Capillary GC (2003) SRI Instruments GC (x2) (2002)

Reactors Biotage Initiator Microwave Reactor (2012) Milestone Ethos EX Microwave Reactor (2008) CS Bio CS336 Automated Peptide Synthesizer (2008) HEL Parallel Reactor System (2008)



Controlled Environment COY Anaerobic Chamber (2019) VAC-Atmospheres Genesis Glovebox (2017) PLAS-LAB Mini glove box (2014)

Computational 2 x 18-core Linux Computational Workstations (2018) Dell PC Linux Cluster (2004-2013)

Biochemistry Labconco Freeze Drying System (2014) Retsch MM400 Ball Mill (2014) Sorval RC-6 Plus Superspeed Centrifuge (2012) Biorad GelDoc EZ Imager (2012) Beckman J2-21 Preparative Centrifuge (2012) Revco Ultra Low Temperature Freezer (2008) New Brunswick Scientific E24 Incubator/Shaker (2007) Innova 2500KC Refrigerated Incubator/Shaker (2007) Innova 140 Benchtop Incubator/Shaker (2005) GE Typhoon Trio Phosphorimager (2005) Beckman J-20XP Preparative Centrifugre (2002)

Aerosol Analysis & Levitation: TSI Micro-orifice uniform deposition impactor (2019) 2 x linear quad electrodynamic balances, custom (2019) Long working distance optical trap, custom (2019)



Department Seminars Feb 7 Andreas Gahlmann, University of Virginia

"Towards a molecular-level understanding of bacterial type 3 secretion: Resolving complex formation in living cells by tracking single-molecules“

Feb 21 Hannah Crampton, Dow Chemical "You Have Options: A Non-Typical Career Path in the Chemical Industry“

Mar 7 Garry Grubbs, Missouri University of Science & Technology "Enhanced CP-FTMW Sensitivity for Qualitative and Quantitative Chiral Analysis”

Mar 29 Tom Pillow, Genentech (McGavock Symposium Award Address) "Trojan Horses to Fight Cancer and Bacteria”

Apr 4 Sarah Brooks, Texas A&M University "Marine Aerosols and Clouds”

Apr 11 Zoheb Hirani and Hailey Taylor, Senior Honors Thesis Defense "Molecular Recognition of Methionine-Terminated Peptides by Cucurbit[8]uril”

Apr 25 Scott Anderson, University of Utah "Surface chemistry on nanoparticles: Size-Selected and Single Particle Studies”

June 11 Angela Belcher, MIT (McGavock Lectureship) "Engineering and Evolving Organisms to Build New Materials for Energy, the Environment and Medicine“

Sept 18 Tom Kodadek, Scripps Research Florida (McGavock Lectureship) "How to Revolutionize Medical Diagnostics (Maybe?): Chemical Tools to Monitor the Immune System”

Sept 26 Jeff Hartgerink, Rice University "Self-assembling MultiDomain Peptides: Supramolecular Chemistry to Biomedical Application”

The remainder of the semester was dedicated to interviews for two tenure-track faculty searches.



Greetings from the Faculty

Dr. Christina Cooley 2019 was another exciting year for the

Cooley Lab. During the spring semester, I was able to get back into the lab a bit during my early career leave which was a lot of fun. Following a productive and fun-filled summer research session, we published our first paper on our ROS-activatable prodrug project, establishing ourselves in the synthetic and medicinal chemistry space. We have also

moved forward with our fluorogenic polymerization project with multiple new directions. I attended my first Gordon Conference as well as other meetings this year and have really enjoyed networking and making friends in the broader chemical research community.

Teaching and working with students is the absolute highlight of this job and I am loving that aspect as much as ever! After my leave in the spring, I really enjoyed getting back in the classroom last fall. We added some organometallic reactions into the Organic II curriculum and I had a blast teaching some new material and showing the students how many organic molecules (and many drugs) are synthesized. As I have now finished my first four years at Trinity, it’s been a true joy to watch students I met first as freshman graduate and progress to the next steps of their career.

Scott and the kids (Cohen, 6 and Claire, 4) are all doing great. It seems like we are always on the go with various activities and it’s such a blast to watch them grow up. We are looking forward to what’s in store for 2020!



Dr. Ryan Davis I have been at Trinity for three semesters

now, and I am happy to be here. We recently published an article on research here at Trinity. I have been extraordinarily impressed with my research students, who have helped setup unique particle levitation capabilities. My research is largely motivated by atmospheric science, and our publication involves a new method to study the physical properties of

levitated aerosol particles to better understand air quality and climate. In one project, we are studying self-assembly of simple monosaccharides in microdroplets in the presence of inorganic ions. The goal is to understand the properties of these systems in order to more accurately predict the effect of ocean-derived particles on air quality and climate. A second project involves the production of reactive oxygen species in droplets. The third project we are working on focuses on how aerosol particles transition from liquid to solid (one of the largest uncertainties in the climate system). For this latter project, we are grateful to have been funded through the National Science Foundation.

Also in 2019, I focused significantly on implementing new teaching strategies into Advanced Analytical Methods. Specifically, I am making the course more research-based and focused on instrument and method development. Much of my teaching philosophy is guided by 1) the fact that in my research career, I have seldom (if ever) used a piece of equipment that was not either homebuilt or modified in some way, and 2) my personal belief that interdisciplinarity and a broad skill set, including the ability to develop instrumentation, will be necessary to address many chemistry questions relevant to the future. Thus, as a teacher, I am incorporating more principles of engineering and physics into my analytical courses to teach students the invaluable skills of modifying and building instrumentation to pushes the boundaries of what is possible. I am happy to be at an institution that supports both novel research and teaching goals! More on the Davis Research Group can be found at sites.trinity.edu/davis-lab



Dr. Bert Chandler Hello from Zürich, Switzerland! I’m on

sabbatical at ETH Zürich thanks for TU alum Prof. Jeff Bode. ETH is an amazing place to do science, and Switzerland is an incredibly well run and beautiful country. If you stopped by to say hello this fall, I’m sorry that I wasn’t around.

The group made a lot of progress this year and I’m now frantically trying to get papers out.

There is a big cohort of dedicated students (Rochelle, Allison, Mary & Alex) getting ready to graduate, Jimmy Bruno left for a job in industry, and Todd Whittaker is getting ready for grad school this fall. I’ve been really fortunate to work with all these people, who have accomplished a lot in their time at Trinity. All of the students, past and present, make this a very special place to be.

Dr. Laura Hunsicker-Wang 2019 has been a year of changes. I returned

from sabbatical to begin teaching again, was promoted to professor and became chair of the department. To say that it has been a busy year would be an understatement. I am excited about the future of the department and about my continued work with students and the faculty in the department.

The family continues to do well. Lilian is in 7th grade and Lauren is in 3rd grade. They both are still dancing competitively, so I continually joke that my secret life is as a dance mom! We do spend a lot of time at the studio (7 days a week) and spend many weekends traveling to compete. They both love the athleticism and the artistry that go into this sport. I love watching them grow. David is still with USAA, but USAA has sold off the financial services departments, so he will be moving to Charles Schwab in late spring or early summer. I continue to be active in my church as part of the choir and the praise band (One Voice) where I sing and play the flute. It is a full and good life.



Dr. Marie El Arba-Pino Hello everyone! In 2019 I completed my

second year as a Visiting Professor at Trinity University. In the Spring of 2019, I taught both sections of Organic Chemistry II class; this class is my absolute favorite! I also taught Organic Synthesis Laboratory along with my colleague Kristina Trevino. I found it really fun to have the same group of students in my lectures and lab. In the Fall semester I

switched it up and taught both sections of Organic Chemistry I. Once again, I was very fortunate to have an outstanding group of students. 2019 was an important year for me because I felt I have grown as a teacher; I feel more confident than ever and I wish to keep inspiring students to pursue academic excellence.

Dr. Kyralyssa Hauger-Sanchez Hello! Over this past year, I was once again

able to teach some of my favorite classes. In the spring, I taught General Chemistry lecture and Advanced Chemical Principles (ACP) lab. The fall brought a new batch of students to chemistry, and I taught many in both Introduction to Chemistry and General Chemistry lab. I love teaching these courses and am fortunate to work with our fantastic

Trinity Tigers! I am thrilled with my new role as an academic advisor, to both our majors and first year students. I had opportunities to further my continued education on best practices in order to better support our students. Thanks to assistance from the University, I was an attendee at two conferences: (1) 9th Regional Conference on Supplemental Instruction; (2) AACU’s Transforming STEM Higher Education. Both were constructive experiences, and gave the chance to learn from fellow STEM educators.

All is well on the personal front. The Sanchez family is healthy and happy. We are thankful for what 2019 brought and look forward to the year ahead!



Dr. Joseph Lambert The highlight of 2019 was the publication of

the second edition of the book Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: An Introduction to Principles, Applications, and Experimental Methods along with its Solution Manual, co-authored with two collaborators. In addition, one paper was published and three have been accepted and are in press. The published paper was an essay entitled “Silicon and Life” for the

reference volume Handbook of Astrobiology, in which I examined the necessary features for molecules on which life as we know it is based and demonstrated that silicon is unsuitable as a substitute for carbon as the principal element. In short, there can be no silicon-based life forms.

I attended the 13th Archaeological Chemistry Symposium held at the 257th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Orlando, FL, on Mar. 31 and Apr. 1, 2019, and presented a lecture entitled “Analysis of Fossilized Resin (Amber) by Carbon-13 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in Solution: A Worldwide Survey.” At this meeting, I also met up with former student Allison Levy, currently finishing graduate school at the University of Florida, who was presenting her own lecture on her graduate work. In addition, I attended the 50th Silicon Symposium held in Columbia, SC, in May 2019. Our personal travel included trips to Vancouver and Victoria (British Columbia, Canada), India, the coast of Norway including the Arctic island of Svalbard, and Indonesia



Dr. Brittany Long 2019 was a great year. In the spring I taught

and co-coordinated General Chemistry lecture and General Chemistry Lab. The general chemistry lecturers worked on a QEP Course revision grant for CHEM 1318 and saw good improvement in the overall success of the students compared to previous semesters.

During August I taught in the Summer Bridge Math Program again with physics professor Dennis Ugolini and the QRS Director Luke Tunstall. This year we had 42 students this

summer and the three of us worked to continue to improve upon the material covered in the course. Some encouraging statistics that this is really helping students show that among the 15 students who participated in Math Bridge and who enrolled in Introductory Chemistry, their average GPA in the course was a 2.31. Among the 28 students who were invited but did not participate in Math Bridge, and who enrolled in Introductory Chemistry, their average GPA in the course was a 1.64.

In Fall of 2019 I was able to teach physical chemistry and senior integrated lab. I made some changes to the two courses and really enjoyed getting to work with the juniors and seniors. For senior lab, I worked to try and incorporate a computational chemistry component to one of the lab experiments. I hope to be able to continue to develop this particular lab.

I started first year advising in August and was invited by academic affairs to attend an academic advising conference in October in Louisville, Kentucky. The conference was sponsored by NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising and was titled “In Their Corner: Advising Students to be the GREATEST!” I learned a lot about advising and I look forward to being able to implement some of what I learned with my advisees.

Also, in the fall semester, I was on one of the teams for an HHMI Inclusive Excellence grant that the university is working on. I was asked to attended an AACU conference on “Transforming STEM Higher Education” in Chicago.



Dr. Corina Maeder Each year I am more bewildered by how time

flies by. This year was my 20th reunion since graduating from Trinity. I had fun participating in the reunion events both as a faculty and an alum. Trinity was also celebrating its 150th birthday, so the reunion gathering was huge! It was great to welcome back old friends to our beautiful CSI building, which is quite different than Moody! Overall, I was reminded how special it is for me to serve on the faculty at my

alma mater, especially getting to do my research on pre-messenger RNA splicing in our beautiful environment!

In the spring, I taught Biochemistry I, Biochemistry II and the seminar course. In the fall, I taught Biochemistry Lab, Introductory Chemistry and the seminar course. The combination of teaching the first course in the chemistry series and then a senior level course allows me the chance to see growth and development of our students. It’s such a joy! I’ve also spent this year reflecting on what we can be doing to help build our chemistry community when students first join our department. Having the opportunity to get back into the first-year Introductory Chemistry gave me with Drs. Hauger-Sanchez and Dr. Trevino a chance to implement some new community building activities. The feedback we received on these activities suggest that the students felt they helped with the transition to college.

On the home front, Gerard, Ben (12), and Maddy (9) are all doing great! Both kids participated in the performance of Beauty and the Beast this past fall with their school; Ben was LeFou and Maddy was a gargoyle. Overall, most of my life outside of Trinity is filled with the kid’s activities—swim, Boy and Girl scouts, and theatre. We are looking forward to yet another busy year!



Dr. Chris Pursell This past year was very eventful – after 26

years, I retired from Trinity University, and accepted a new position as chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department at Samford University. This move to a “second career” was motivated by the opportunity to be near three of our seven grandkids. As many of you recall, our oldest child (Janet) lives in Birmingham, AL, about 30 minutes from

Samford. We feel very fortunate and blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of their lives. Carolyn is four, and Elias and Eleanor are two. They are great kids!

During my last year at Trinity as chemistry professor and chair of the department, I did my best to manage the department’s affairs while continuing my teaching and research efforts. It was a good year, but somewhat bittersweet. We really love San Antonio and Trinity University, and so the decision to leave was very hard. Nonetheless, we are confident that this is what God planned for us and we are grateful. We do miss our friends, university colleagues, and students. I am pleased that I continue to text, email, and talk with former Trinity students.

In terms of our family, Kathy and I are doing well and the move to Alabama went smoothly. Our kids and their families are doing well. We enjoyed visiting them all during the summer for a Pursell family reunion. Our youngest son Jacob (25) and his wife are living in Leeds, England, while he works on a master’s degree. Janet and her family are in Birmingham, AL, and Tim and his family are in Quantico, VA (U.S. Marines). All in all, God continues to bless the Pursell family!



Dr. Wei Li Reeves I started to teach General Chemistry Lecture

CHEM 1318 and General Chemistry Laboratory CHEM 1118 in the Fall semester. This is my first time to lecture a team-taught course, CHEM 1318. It has been a very positive learning experience and self-growth opportunity. I am passionate about maintaining a high quality, engaging, student-centered learning environment. I have learned so many teaching methods from my colleagues

and collected feedback from my colleagues and students, and I have started to form my own teaching style. At the end of the semester, I received a “thank you” card from my student saying, ”you are a great teacher, Dr. Reeves! I feel like I learned so much and I actually came to enjoy chemistry by the end of semester.” I keep a high standard in the General Chemistry Laboratory, CHEM 1118. I motivate and challenge students to think and conduct experiments as scientists do. I always spend short but quality time lecturing on the chemical theory in order to guide students to understand the chemical properties underlying the experiments. I like to pop up random questions related to the experiment during the session and challenge them to think by using their chemistry knowledge. On the course evaluation, students comment: “Dr. Reeves is the GOAT!” “Dr. Reeves is an amazing teacher and does a wonderful job not only in lecture but also in lab!” “Dr. Reeves is very good with questions and provides explanations in a way that both help you learn and don’t just give you the answer.”



Dr. Jason Shearer Hi everybody! 2019 was an exciting year. I

was fortunate to teach an excellent group of first years, juniors and seniors over the past year in general chemistry and two advanced topics courses (bioinorganic and physical organic chemistry). Concerning my research group, the biggest news is that we recently moved into new digs. Formerly a classroom, in September of this year renovations were

completed on CSI 441, which now houses biological, synthetic and spectroscopic operations for my group. Students in my group have begun expressing and purifying enzymes and peptides, recording spectroscopic data, going on trips to synchrotron sources, and performing electronic structure calculations. 2019 also was the year that the Shearer group published its first article with a Trinity undergraduate researcher as a co-author. Our research continues to be well funded; we maintained our current grants through the NIH and NSF, and acquired new funding through the NSF in collaboration with Prof. Nicolai Lehnert (University of Michigan) studying apparent violations of a well-established fundamental bonding scheme in transition metal chemistry (the “oxo-wall”). My wife Athena, son Eoin (12), and the animals (the dog Gussie and cat Alika) are doing well, and continue to be very happy living in the area.



Dr. Kristy Treviño Hello alumni and students. I have been at

Trinity now for 3 years and I still love coming to work every day. I continue to teach organic chemistry I and II labs along with introductory chemistry. The lab courses are so much fun to teach because we can see the students working through what they are learning in lecture and applying them in practice in the lab. The introductory chemistry course gets better every time I teach it, we incorporate fun activities for the students, we have them working in groups, and we get a chance to see our students grow in this course. I have added

a brand-new course to my list of specialties, Chemistry in Everyday Life, a course for non-chemistry majors. This course was offered as a trial run during the summer and it was a huge success. The course had 13 students enrolled, we went on a field trip to a local brewery, and I had very positive feedback from the students about the course overall. Additionally, in the summer I worked with Dr. Marilyn Wooten as co-lead scientists on a reoccurring ozone study that measures the level of ozone in our region. The study was a collaboration with St. Edwards University, the University of Houston, and The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The study was led at Trinity with the help of about 15 undergrads who aided in sample prep, release of the weather balloon, and data collection. This past year I have also had the opportunity to work with new people in our department and it was very enlightening because I learned so much from them and I am grateful to have such supportive coworkers.

On a more personal note, I have a 15-year-old son named Kily who attends Central Catholic High School. He boulders (rock climbs with no ropes) competitively and competed in regionals in December. I too climb with him and have gotten pretty good if I don’t say so myself. We love hiking and playing outside, doing anything with water or snow, relaxing and watching movies, and going out of town whenever we have free time. I volunteer on the weekends as a master wildlife rescuer in and around the San Antonio area for Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation. We have two dogs, Buster and Benny, and a cat named Larry. I have had yet again another fantastic year at Trinity and I look forward to 2020 and all the possibilities that Trinity offers.



Dr. Adam Urbach In so many ways, this was a terrific year.

In April, I hosted a workshop at the National Center for Physics to train physical sciences faculty on student career mentoring. In July, I co-hosted the 6th International Conference on Cucurbiturils (ICCB2019) in Athens, Ohio. The entire Urbach group attended! I guest-edited a special collection for Chemical Communications on the topic of “Cucurbiturils and Related Cavitands.” I was appointed to the selection committee for the

Cottrell Scholars program, and the editorial board of Frontiers in Chemistry. My research group has been exploring several new directions with funding

from the NIH and the Welch Foundation. Emily Babcock, Zoheb Hirani, and Hailey Taylor all graduated in May and started PhD programs in the Fall. Hailey and Zoheb finished honors theses! I have been fortunate over the past 16 years at Trinity to work with so many talented and dedicated research students. This year I received the Trinity University Faculty Award for Outstanding Research, and I owe this once-in-a-career honor entirely to my students.

Summer brought a few adventures. At the Telluride Workshop on Aqueous Supramolecular Chemistry, I took a day-hike to the summit of Mt. Sneffels (photo, 14158 ft), and the following week I day-hiked the 17-mile Narrows in Zion National Park. Dana and I celebrated 25 years, and Sebastian (13), Violet (8), and Kai (2) continue to thrive and to make our lives rich and wonderful. I am truly grateful for my family, friends, students, and colleagues. I hope this report finds you all safe, healthy, and happy.



Dr. Marilyn Wooten It was a busy and exciting year. In both

spring and fall semesters I taught General Chemistry lecture and Organic Chemistry 1 Lab courses. In the spring we implemented some new activities as part of the Starting Strong QEP course revision grants. It greatly improved keeping the students on track with the course. Over the summer, I got to travel to Belgium and visit family I had not seen in decades. In the summer and fall, I again had

the wonderful opportunity to work with Paul Walter, from St. Edwards University, The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and Kristina Trevino, a visiting assistant professor in chemistry, involving the determination of ozone. We investigated ozone levels with balloon bearing ozone-sondes, in columnar fashion from troposphere through the stratosphere to determine air quality. Our students as usual did a great job.



Faculty Emeriti

Dr. Steven Bachrach Welcome from cold New Jersey! 2019 was as

usual a very eventful year. Professionally, I was able to shepherd through the creation of a new Masters program in Data Science and furthered our plans to build a marine and environmental field station. I published four papers and have a number of interesting projects in the works. I

traveled with a colleague on a recruiting trip to China in November. It was a fascinating trip, full of amazing cultural and economic contrasts. All those years eating at Chinese restaurants, particularly in San Francisco, served me well; I impressed many of our hosts with my chopstick-wielding ability.

Carmen and I traveled to Paris for the IUPAC meeting – this time I got to be the “plus one” and was able to enjoy museums and afternoons lingering over a glass of wine. We also visited Brussels and Ghent and came back with some fantastic Belgian chocolates. Our yearly driving trip to Vermont this year included some great craft breweries. We visited Dustin and Erin in Los Angeles twice, once to participate in Erin’s doctoral graduation. And the four of us met in Minneapolis for my niece’s wedding.

Carmen is now the part-time General Manager for the US operations of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center, and she still works with the Pistoia Alliance. She remains totally devoted to her yoga.

We continue to thoroughly enjoy living on the east coast. Being only a 1.5 hour train ride from NYC means that we have been able to see fantastic shows, like the Ferryman and Hamilton, and eat at some amazing restaurants. Nonetheless, we miss San Antonio and all of our friends and great students at Trinity University. Be sure to be in touch if you happen to be visiting NYC or Philadelphia. (In fact, Carmen was able to meet up withSharon Kwee in Philadelphia this past November!) All the best!

STEVEN M. BACHRACH Dean School of Science

o 732.571.3421 f 732.571.4422 400 Cedar AvenueWest Long Branch, NJ 07764 monmouth.edu



Dr. Michelle Bushey Michelle Bushey continues to work in the Division of Chemistry at the

National Science Foundation. She lives in the Washington, D. C. area. If you are visiting and would like to catch up, you can reach her at [email protected]

Dr. Bill KurtinI am enjoying retirement in San Antonio.

In June of 2017, my wife Lyn became president of the San Antonio Art League, the city’s oldest arts organization. I accepted the position of Executive Director. We have enjoyed bringing some new ideas and programs to the organization. We were able to obtain city funding for the operational budget for the first time, and this spring will see the completion of our effort to provide a new storage facility for the permanent collection and new gallery space for

permanent display of the museum’s most important paintings by Texas artists.

I continue to be interested in the chemistry of essential oils, particularly as involved in treatment for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Lyn is an aromatherapist, and we occasionally give lectures together to a variety of organizations.

We live very close to the Trinity campus, and we enjoy going to lectures in the Trinity series. I attend an occasional function in the chemistry department. I still sing in the choir at University Presbyterian Church.

We enjoy traveling, and plans for this year include a fly-fishing trip with one of my grandsons to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a small ship adventure cruise around the UK.



Dr. Nancy Mills This retirement life is pretty fun. I keep my

organizational skills up to date (Chair of the Eugene Science Center Board of Directors, Chair of the Music Selection Committee for the Women’s Choral Society, head of the Undergraduate Award in Organic Chemistry /ACS, chair of the External Advisory Committee for the South Carolina INBRE program, an NIH program that is like

EPSCOR), but I have time for attempting to understand the political scene (League of Women Voters, Indivisible), crafty things (twin bed quilts for my two grandsons), lots of knitting, and reading, and possibly catching up on all the TV I missed when I was working.

My traveling has been primarily to San Antonio, including 5 weeks in April taking care of baby Mark, to differentiate him from his grandfather Mark. My only “international” travel was to Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces, fish every night! We also did a 50th Anniversary Tour to each coast to see college friends and family. We haven’t been married 50 years but it was the 50th anniversary of our first date and who knows if we will get to the wedding anniversary. Mark had more interesting travel: he did the southern half of the Continental Divide Trail in 2018 and was planning to do the northern half. There was excessive snow in Colorado with impassible trails so he road hiked, he dislocated his shoulder twice, but put it back in since he is a doctor. This resulted in injury that should have required surgery but by the time he got to civilization, he effectively cured himself. He had to stop just outside of Glacier so he will go back and finish the 400 miles he has remaining, and then plans to start the Appalachian Trail which he will do in sections, not a thru-hike, or as much of the trail as he can do as he gets older.

As I have said before, Eugene and the Pacific Northwest is a wonderful place to be. The city is very walkable, to plays, concerts, and restaurants, and is particularly lovely in the fall (amazing trees, canopies of color) and spring (early daffodils defying winter, multitudes of flowers including flowering trees). Life is very good and if you are in the area, you must let me show it to you!



Dr. Ben PlummerBen Plummer finds it

difficult to believe that he retired from the Chemistry Department at Trinity more than 20 years ago. He has watched the Department evolve both in personnel and physical facilities. He makes an occasional visit to the Department to relish in the new facilities that he only dreamed about and fought for. Now Gail and he are enjoying their long retirement by spending time with children and grandchildren. This year one of the twin grandsons is a first-year student at Trinity and proposes to be a chemistry major. The other grandson is a first-year student at Southwestern University in Georgetown TX.

Gail and Ben recovered from a significant remodel of their master bath and their deck as the year ended. They enjoyed visits from their graduate school friends with whom Gail and Ben travel frequently. This past year the four of us took a Danube River cruise from Bucharest to Budapest. Land tours at convenient ports offered the opportunity to visit Serbia, Croatia, Romania and Hungary.

In September he and Gail flew to Omaha to travel to Glenwood IA where Ben celebrated his 65th High School Class reunion. It was also a momentous occasion as his sister returned from Chicago to celebrate her 55th class reunion. Ben’s brother also traveled from Kansas City to attend his 45th class reunion. So the siblings enjoyed a mini family reunion during the celebrations.

Ben and Gail look forward to a more extensive travel year in 2020.They realize that time waits for no one and they intend to travel while both are healthy.



Postdoctoral Scholars and Research Associates Dr. Jimmy Bruno was busy managing the alkyne partial hydrogenation studies, developing a new reactor system, and getting the alkyne hydrogenation studies written up and out the door. He has now moved on to greener pastures and an industry position in Oklahoma. Ok, so maybe not greener in the grass sense, but definitely in the greenback sense. Thanks for all your hard work, and good luck in the new job!

Dr. Addie Embry has worked as a postdoctoral research scientist for the past 2.5 years in the lab of Dr. Corina Maeder studying protein-protein interactions between factors that play key roles in pre-mRNA splicing. She instructed a section of Introduction to Biology lab in the Spring 2018 term and guest-instructed two course periods of Biochemistry lab in the Fall 2019 term. Her teaching roles in these courses along with my instructional role with undergraduates performing independent research led me to apply for the Master of Arts in Teaching program at Trinity University. She plans to transition from primarily research work into high school science education.

Todd Whittaker (‘17) continues working on H2 oxidation and has become our go-to guy for catalyst synthesis. He’s continuing to take classes at Trinity as he prepares for graduate school in Chemical Engineering.

Cristina Hofman (’19) graduated from Trinity in May and then joined the Urbach group as a full-time research associate. Cristina led the controlled release subgroup and helped mentor two students. She will begin the PhD program in biomedical science at UT Southwestern this Fall.

Grace Lee (’19) graduated from Trinity in May and spent the summer and fall purifying proteins and conducting experiments to analyze data to determine the reactivity of electron transport chain protein, Rieske, with an endogenous chemical modifier using circular dichroism, UV-Vis and mass spectrometry. Her role as a laboratory technician also includes keeping inventory and purchasing supplies as needed in addition to attending group meetings to discuss the progress of various projects and examining data.



Alumni Connections Please stay connected with us! We have a LinkedIn group called “Trinity University Chemistry Department”. Please join!

We also have an email distribution list called [email protected]. Please contact Dr. Urbach ([email protected]) to join.

Finally, if you would like to contact any of the chemistry faculty directly, here are their email addresses. We love to hear from you!

Dr. Bert Chandler, Professor [email protected] Dr. Christina Cooley, Assistant Professor [email protected] Dr. Ryan Davis, Assistant Professor [email protected] Dr. Marie El-Arba Pino, Visiting Assistant Professor [email protected] Dr. Kyralyssa Hauger-Sanchez, Lecturer [email protected] Dr. Laura Hunsicker-Wang, Professor and Chair, [email protected] Dr. Joseph Lambert, Research Professor, [email protected] Dr. Brittany Long, Lecturer [email protected] Dr. Corina Maeder, Assistant Professor [email protected] Dr. Wei Li Reeves, Visiting Assistant Professor [email protected] Dr. Jason Shearer, Semmes Distinguished Professor [email protected] Dr. Kristy Treviño, Visiting Assistant Professor [email protected] Dr. Adam Urbach, Professor [email protected] Dr. Marilyn Wooten, Lecturer [email protected]



Gifts and Donations As most of you know, for over 40 years our summer research program has been supported primarily by external funding agencies. The funding environment has become ever tighter, and so we increasingly rely on donations from alumni and friends of the Department to continue offering one of the best undergraduate chemistry research experiences in the country.

We very much appreciate the generosity of the donors who contributed to the Chemistry Department this year. As gifts come in and we are able, we transfer these donations to an endowment so that your gifts will help to serve students for years to come.

We would particularly like to thank the many recent graduates – many of whom are still in graduate school – who have contributed to the Department. We understand the realities of graduate school, and your support shows that your time at Trinity was important to you.

Your gifts and donations allow us to further support Trinity students and their chemical education. Please consider “giving back” and making a gift today or becoming a “regular giver” (using the link below). We appreciate your commitment to Trinity University and the Chemistry Department.

http://new.trinity.edu/advancement

On the Origin of Summer Research at Trinity Dr. Ben Plummer, Professor Emeritus

It was the summer of 1969, and John Burke and I were trying to figure out how to finance a few undergraduates for summer research stipends. John, being a Texan, had developed a rapport with Tex Taylor. Tex was President Laurie’s right hand man and pretty much made determinations about University operations. John approached Tex Taylor to tell him about our needs. Tex said that the University didn’t have any money for that kind of support, but we were welcome to try and raise the money ourselves. John had met a representative of the King Ranch family through a Trinity function, and so John and I set up an appointment with him at the Frost Bank. We journeyed downtown and met him in his luxurious office. We had written a proposal to present to him about our need for student support. We asked for a sum of about ~$2000. After a convivial discussion, he said that a check for $2000 would be sent to the University for use for student research. We returned elated with our success and hoping to achieve more in the future.

Chemistry laboratory in the Moody Engineering Building, circa 1976

"If you need help with accessing this PDF or need someone to talk this PDF through please contact Adam Urbach at [email protected] or call them at 210-999-7660.

2019 Annual Report - inside.trinity.edu · feedback during faculty searches. We are grateful for...

Documents

Transcript of 2019 Annual Report - inside.trinity.edu · feedback during faculty searches. We are grateful for...