David G. Alberg, 1993-, Professor and Chair. B.A., Carleton College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
Now in my second year as chair of the department I’m starting to get the hang of the job. My admiration and appreciation of the work of past chairs is continually growing. It really is an honor to serve as chair of a department with such a wonderful staff and outstanding students.
I enjoyed another great year working with those outstanding Carleton students. In the fall I taught my upper-level Chemical and Biosynthesis course. This was the third time I have offered this course and, for me, the third time’s the charm for teaching a course. I love this course because I learn so much every time I teach it. During the winter I taught Organic Chemistry II. As a result of the quirks in staffing and scheduling, it had been some five years since I had taught the second half of organic chemistry so it was refreshing for me to get back into this material. I also worked with a terrific group of senior comps students last winter, studying the work of chemical biologist Kevan Shokat, from the University of California, San Francisco. The group focused on Professor Shokat’s work on protein kinases. In the spring, I taught Spectroscopic Characterization of Chemical Compounds, a lab course focused on NMR and mass spectrometry.
It was also a good year in the research lab. My group continued to pursue the synthesis and evaluation of inhibitors of trypanothione reductase (TR). TR is an enzyme unique to the metabolism of trypanosomes and related parasites, which are the causative agents of a number of diseases, including African sleeping sickness and Chagas’ disease. This past year I worked with Wade Johnson (’07), Shayna Simmons (’07), and Michael Duyzend (’08). I was also grateful to Anna Larson (’06), a two-year veteran in my lab, who helped us out early in the summer getting Shayna, Wade, and Michael up to speed in lab. Over the course of the past year we wrapped up the synthesis and evaluation of three inhibitors. Michael presented some of this work in a poster at the 233rd ACS National Meeting in Chicago in March. I also got the chance to present our recent research results in a seminar to the Chemistry Department at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. In addition, I wrote up our results on a series of TR inhibitors in a paper that appeared in The Journal of Organic Chemistry in May. That paper reports on the work of five students: JoAnn Czechowicz (’04), April Wilhelm (’05), Maroya Spalding (’03), Anna Larson (’06), and Linnea Engel (’04). Our research efforts this past year continued to be supported by an NIH-AREA grant.
On the home front, Gretchen and I continue to struggle to keep up with son Sam (13) and daughter Eleanor (9). Sometimes we feel as much like chauffeurs as parents, as we shuttle the kids from activity to activity. Sam continues to provide us with plenty of opportunities to watch him play on the traveling basketball and baseball teams. Ellie is getting more involved in organized sports, too, and I had the pleasure of coaching her basketball team last winter – it was a blast! Between work, kids, and projects around the house, my life is full.
Alexander Barron, 2006-2007, Visiting Instructor. B.A., Carleton College, Ph.D., Princeton University.
I was very lucky to experience an alignment of the planets that resulted in simultaneous openings in both chemistry and biology this past year, just when I was looking for something to tide me over while I wrapped up my thesis on “Patterns and Controls of Nitrogen Fixation in a Lowland Tropical Forest, Panama” in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. In the fall, I taught Ecosystem Ecology in the Biology Department (with a lab that you might call Analytical Chemistry for Nature Lovers). Winter Term, I had the opportunity to re-learn all of the chemistry I had forgotten in the last few years by teaching Principles of Environmental Chemistry. It was tremendous fun to revisit kinetics and quantum and to be back in the lab playing with the FTIR and the AA. Winter Term sampling was especially exciting as we needed pick-axes to get samples of the (frozen) soil. Chemistry 128 was also a great excuse to revisit all of my favorite demos, including thermite, hydrogen balloons, and the ethanol cannon (despite my best efforts to make acid-base chemistry exciting, students still seem to prefer explosions). Spring Term I returned to biology to teach Global Change Biology for non-majors. In the true spirit of interdisciplinary interactions, I also helped to advise two geology students on their comps. Teaching at Carleton has been a fantastic experience and echoes my undergraduate time here in being challenging, exciting, and incredibly exhausting. I can’t thank the chemistry faculty enough for continuing to be such fantastic mentors and tolerating my unending pedagogical inquires.
I spent the rest of my time cranking away on my dissertation. I’ve returned to Princeton this summer to put the finishing touches on things. I am also organizing a session on the biogeochemistry of nitrogen fixation at the annual Ecological Society of America meeting in San Jose. In September, I will be representing chemists everywhere as one of two American Chemical Society Congressional Science Fellows. After some training, I’ll be placed as a staffer in a Senator or Representative’s office, learning how science mixes with policy and hopefully working on climate change legislation.
Charles H. Carlin, 1966-2004; Charles “Jim” and Marjorie Kade Professor of the Sciences, Emeritus, 2004-. B.A., Carthage College; Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University.
This summer Carolyn and I purchased a hovel on the shores of Cedar Lake, about five miles west of Faribault. This provides us with a dock from which to launch our new pontoon boat artfully crafted for effortless fishing. This will, in all likelihood, become an obsession with me from mid-April to late October although Cedar is an aggressively eutrophic lake and summer doldrums may strike as the duck weed flourishes.
My Cannon Valley Collegium class on “Consumer Choices” didn’t take wing this year with a miniscule enrollment. Chemistry seems to be anathema to adults as well as to potential premed biology majors.
Reunion this year featured the class of ’67, my first advanced organic (353) class at Carleton back in the fall of ’66. A couple of the student “caretakers” for reunion ’07 were in my last class in the spring of ’05. Members of both classes seemed to regard their experience in organic with a great deal of relief that it was over.
Dick Cavett claims he “doesn’t feel old, he feels young with something wrong with him.” That’s about right. The whims and vicissitudes of aging provide a panoply of physical infirmities, but the mind and imagination remain those of a 30-year-old rookie professor, full of possibilities and excitement for the next adventure down the road.
Marion E. Cass, 1987-, Charles “Jim” and Marjorie Kade Professor of the Sciences. B.S., Fort Lewis College; Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder.
This year, I taught at Carleton two-thirds time. During the Fall Term, I worked and lived in Princeton, NJ, while my husband Steve commuted from Princeton to Philadelphia to teach a course in Operations at the Wharton School of Business. While in Princeton, I continued to work on my computational research on the non-dissociative molecular motions that racemize, isomerize, or scramble atom positions in small molecules. During this time, I completed an interactive Web Site titled “Visualizations to Examine the Structure and Symmetry of Metal Tris Chelates: Symmetry Operations, Chirality, and Mechanisms (Bailar Twist and Rây-Dutt) that Racemize the ∆ and L Isomers,” which I submitted to the Journal of Chemical Education for publication (currently pending). In October, I gave a seminar on my work at Princeton University in the lunchtime chemistry faculty seminar series titled: “Visualization of Real and Imagined Molecular Processes.” In November, I traveled once again to London to work with my colleague Henry Rzepa of Imperial College, London, while my husband was working on a project in the UK. In November and December we finished the computational work and animations for our publication on twist mechanisms that racemize chiral metal tris chelates. Our manuscript “In Search of The Bailar Twist and Rây-Dutt Mechanisms that Racemize Chiral Tris-Chelates: A Computational Study of Sc(III), Ti(IV), Co(III), Zn(II), Ga(III), and Ge(IV) Complexes of a Ligand Analog of Acetylacetonate,” has been accepted for publication in Inorganic Chemistry.
In the Winter Term, I taught Introduction to Chemistry (Chemistry 122), and I team-taught the Advanced Laboratory in Chemical Kinetics with my colleague Will Hollingsworth. Spring Term I had a lively and fun class of 22 senior and junior chemistry majors in Inorganic Chemistry and 8 of those majors in the Advanced Inorganic Laboratory course. This year Gretchen Hofmeister and I were awarded a Faculty Development Grant that will allow us to team-teach both Inorganic Chemistry and the associated laboratory in the spring of next year.
The highlight of my academic year was participating in the senior comprehensive exercise with seniors Caitlin Bowersox, Amy Gauger, Wade Johnson, Paul Klick, Matt Topeff, and Ellen Valkevich and my colleague Gretchen Hofmeister. Winter Term our group studied the published work of Professor Harry Gray (California Institute of Technology) on electron transport in proteins. Our study culminated in Harry’s visit to Carleton where he was hosted as the 2007 Frank G. and Jean M. Chesley Lecturer. During his two-day visit in May, Harry met with the comps group for two three-hour sessions to discuss science, he read us a few small sections of “Delta Star,” a novel that has a character named and modeled after him, gave an evening seminar on his research in solar energy, a Friday afternoon seminar on his work in electron transport in proteins, and still had the energy to celebrate with the students until 1:00 a.m. each evening. For me, the best part of his visit was the Friday afternoon seminar that gave that added touch of enlightenment to our study. For the students, I think the highlight of his visit was the Friday night of Karaoke and beer “On Harry at the Rueb” for all the senior chemistry majors where he gave a stellar performance of “I Walk the Line.”
Joseph W. Chihade, 2003-, Assistant Professor. B.A., Oberlin College; M.A., Ph.D., Columbia University.
This fall, I taught our last offering of the off-cycle section of Chem 234, Organic Chemistry II. The small class size (11 students) allowed me to also teach one lab section of Chem 233, Organic Chemistry I. The Winter Term offering of Chem 233 was a much larger section, with 57 students. We adopted a new text for the organic courses this year, and I took the opportunity to experiment with some new technology, including an on-line, ChemDraw-like system for assigning homework problems. The new text also inspired a rethinking of the lab portion of the course, so in the Fall and Winter Terms, Gretchen Hofmeister and I introduced two new experiments to align the lab more closely with core concepts covered in lecture.
Winter Term also brought the first ever joint chemistry-biology group comps. Susan Singer of the Biology Department and I led a group of five chemists and four biologists in an exploration of the literature of riboswitches, RNA structures that can fold up into different structures depending on the concentration of small molecules, usually metabolites, and thus act as genetic control elements. The group learned about topics ranging from bacterial genetics to stopped flow fluorescence based kinetics over the course of the term. The comps process culminated in an exciting visit by Ronald Breaker of Yale University in early April.
In the spring, I taught Chem 320, Biological Chemistry, and the associated Chem 321 lab course, where students continued to characterize and design site-directed mutants of cystathionine-b-lyase. Students this year were particularly ambitious, designing some mutants that will test the importance of a dimer interface and others that will attempt to convert the enzyme into a cystathionine-g-lyase. Next year’s group should have fun trying these out! In February, I got a chance to advertise the lab course at the Pew Workshop on Interdisciplinary Science Education in a talk I gave with Greg Muth, who teaches a similar course at St. Olaf.
Last summer, Ali Khaki (’07) returned to the lab for a second research stint. Ali continued to make and assay tRNA mutants in an effort to nail down the details of RNA recognition by the human mitochondrial alanyl-tRNA synthetase. Ali got a chance to present his work in early October at the International Conference on Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases, held at the Paradise Point resort in San Diego. I accompanied Ali, and gave a talk at the conference. Thayne Dickey (’07) joined the lab this past summer and took a different approach to understanding the protein-tRNA interaction by making protein deletion mutants. Thayne presented his work in May at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Washington, D.C. In other research news, I was pleased to have some work that I started a few years ago in collaboration with Karin Musier-Forsyth, now of Ohio State University, on the mechanism of amino acid editing by E. coli prolyl-tRNA synthetase published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. I’m looking forward to a productive research period this coming year, with seven new students in the lab this summer, and leaves in the Fall and Winter Terms.
This year I took on the directorship of the biochemistry concentration from Dave Alberg. It’s been fun getting to know the concentrators a bit more in this role. Biochemistry remains quite
popular – this year we graduated 13 concentrators. This year was also my first on the Health Professions Advisory Committee (the premed committee). Other campus activities included being the departmental representative to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Carleton Interdisciplinary Science and Math Initiative Advisory Committee and serving on the Academic Computing Advisory Committee.
William C. Child, Jr., 1956-1990; Emeritus Professor, 1990-. B.A., Oberlin College; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin.
After having been here for a year, Nancy and I thoroughly enjoy our new residence at Village on the Cannon. Earlier this year Jerry and Adrie Mohrig moved here, bringing the total number of retired Carleton faculty to four. This year I resumed attendance at the Montana Chamber Music Workshop and had the best experience yet participating in a variety of ensembles. Membership in other musical groups continued as in the past, and again I was both a student and a teacher in the Elder Collegium, the local educational organization for retirees. Our principal travel was a week spent in Florida with friends. It was a nice winter break, but on balance the Northfield climate and friendships suit us well.
Steven M. Drew, 1991-, Professor. B.A., St. John’s University; Ph.D., University of Colorado.
My teaching duties included Chemistry 123, “Principles of Chemistry,” in the fall and Chemistry 230, “Equilibrium and Analysis,” in the spring. These courses are in my regular teaching repertoire. However, I had the opportunity, thanks to the college’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, to team-teach a new advanced course with Deborah in the winter. The title of the course was “Bioanalytical Chemistry.” This course was taught at the 300-level for either chemistry or biology majors. A two-credit lab was also offered. It was wonderful to teach at the advanced level again and working with Deborah was very valuable. Our knowledge of the subject nicely complemented each other, and we laid a nice foundation upon which the course can further grow and improve. I hope to offer the course again when I return from sabbatical.
This past summer I continued to work on my American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund grant “The Synthesis and Characterization of Chiral Platinum(II) Extended Linear Chain Materials and Their Potential Application as Gas Sensing Transducers.” Ian Hill (’07) and Yui Takeshita (’08) joined me for the summer to work on the synthesis and characterization of some chiral extended linear chain solid-state materials based on platinum square planar metal-ligand complexes. These materials are of interest to me because they are highly colored and undergo significant structural and electronic change in the presence of solvent vapors thus altering the material’s UV-visible absorption and fluorescence characteristics. Ian and Yui made significant progress during the past summer and were able to synthesize several vapochromic chiral platinum materials, two of which appear to be enantiomerically selective in their solid-state fluorescence response to R- and S-2-butanol solvent vapor. Ian and Yui traveled to Chicago in March to present their results at the ACS meeting. Additional experiments are planned this summer with two new student researchers; Ryan Martinez (’08) and Matt Cich (’08) have joined the research group. Yui will also be back for four weeks of research in August after a cruise in the Pacific Ocean as part of a SEA semester. Ryan and Matt are already busy learning many new synthetic techniques and life lessons including the hazards of working with stinky isonitriles. In addition to my research, I am also working this summer with Will Hollingsworth and Kit Zall (’08) to construct a prototype of a pulsed LED luminescence lifetime spectrometer. If the prototype is successful, two more will be constructed to integrate into the physical chemistry laboratory in the junior year.
Other professional activities have kept me busy the past year. I attended the Chicago ACS meeting to present a seminar on my integration of advanced chemical instrumentation into introductory chemistry laboratories. My talk was titled “Modern Chemical Instrumentation in the Introductory Chemistry Laboratory: Examples of Multi-Week Inquiry-Based Projects that Illustrate the Power of Advanced Instrumentation.” In addition, I reviewed a Journal of Chemical Education manuscript. At the college I was on several committees this year serving as a member of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Advisory Committee on Health Professions Programs, the Emergency Preparedness Committee, and the Chair of the Academic Standing Committee.
Finally, I am very excited about an upcoming year on sabbatical. I plan to commute to the University of Minnesota and work in the laboratory of Kent Mann in the Chemistry Department. It will be a much-welcomed break from the daily grind of teaching and a chance to renew and revitalize.
Tricia A. Ferrett, 1990-, Professor. B.A., Grinnell College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
This year I taught only one course, Chem 304 (spectroscopy lab) with Will Hollingsworth. College-wide, I served on the Faculty Affairs Committee, the Writing Advisory Committee, and became an active member of Environmental and Technology Studies (ENTS). In addition to participating in numerous discussions about creating an ENTS major, I worked with Kim Smith (political science) and Doug Foxgrover (ITS) on an electronic portfolio project for future ENTS students. I was also involved in searches for the Director of Facilities, Assistant Director of Institutional Research, and Director of Intercultural Life.
Most of my time was spent administering Carleton’s 5th Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grant and the Carleton Interdisciplinary Science and Math Initiative (CISMI). I am grateful to CISMI Co-Director, Fernán Jaramillo, for his stellar work, wisdom, efficiency, and partnership this year. He will take over our next HHMI grant (if funded) and CISMI in 2008, with Arjendu Pattanayak as Co-Director. CISMI and HHMI highlights this year included a popular faculty/staff workshop in May on team-based learning led by Larry Michaelsen, creation of the new CISMI web site (http://serc.carleton.edu/cismi/index.html), and continued work with many talented faculty and staff on curriculum development, student-faculty research, and broadening access to science. We also worked hard, and with about two-thirds of the science and math faculty and over a dozen staff, on articulating a vision for the sciences in the next five years. This included intense work on our next (and 6th) four-year proposal to HHMI, which will include funds for a new neuroscience concentration and a large initiative in computational modeling and visualization. In February 2007, I helped lead a regional workshop on Interdisciplinary Science Education, funded by the Midstates Consortium for Mathematics and Science and HHMI.
On the scholarship side, I ended a year-long affiliation with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a 2005 Carnegie Scholar. With my Carnegie partner Joanne Stewart (chemistry, Hope College), I am working on a project that will help us understand how pre-disciplinary students (novices) engage in interdisciplinary and integrative thinking and practices. The focus of this work is on mapping creative and integrative work by students in seminars at Carleton and Hope Colleges on abrupt change in human and climate networks. This work, along with scholarship by others, will be included in an edited book I will be writing during my January-December 2008 sabbatical. I will be a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation as I work on this book and several articles. I plan to live in Northfield and visit the Foundation, which sits atop the Stanford University campus, monthly.
I gave talks on my Carnegie project at the conference for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL, November 2006, Washington, D.C.) and at the conference on Innovations in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at the Liberal Arts College (February 2007, Northfield, MN). I talked about my work at Carleton and Grinnell Colleges in spring 2007. The trip to Grinnell (my alma mater) hatched several collaborative projects for our next HHMI proposal. I thoroughly enjoyed giving talks on the “college of the future” at alumni reunions in June 2006 and 2007, where I had a chance to share the larger lessons from my research with alums.
I continue to spend much of my time with Adam (5), Alex (4), and husband Tom. I took the usual family trips to the North Shore of Lake Superior, Kansas City, and Green Bay, WI. I also took a week-long spring break adventure with good friends Sandra and Joanne in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. We stayed in an open-air palapa in the jungle, just minutes from a gorgeous beach. We basically spent a week lounging, sleeping, reading, talking, and eating on the beach. After a two-year recovery period from foot injuries, I started running again. I also won a free year of yoga. With my first sabbatical in ten years less than six months away, my new fitness routine is ramping up. I will be both fit and delighted to return to teaching in January 2009!
James E. Finholt, 1960-2001; William H. Laird Professor of Chemistry and the Liberal Arts, Emeritus, 2001-. B.A., St. Olaf College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
Life goes on in a calm and steady pace. Walking, biking, gardening, reading, and an occasional bridge game are all part of daily life. Rabbits decimated our tulip crop this spring, but moles were not a problem. Last August Northfield was hit with a terrible hail storm. Almost every house required a new roof. We installed a new roof last year and it escaped with only minor damage. Windows were broken in many cars, but we just acquired a few hundred new dimples. The new Guthrie Theater building is amazing. Anyone visiting the Twin Cities should definitely plan for a visit.
Last spring we visited tulip lover’s heaven. We saw hundreds of acres of tulips in full bloom in the Skagit Valley north of Seattle. During the fall we traveled to New Hampshire for an Elder Hostel course. We were very lucky because our visit coincided with the peak tree color development and the weather was great. I always thought Minnesota trees were beautiful in the fall, but I must admit that New England has us beat.
I continue to enjoy teaching computer courses for senior citizens. I find that teaching always involves learning by both student and instructor, and that is an important part of the fun of teaching anything. I have been helping to develop a web site for the Northfield Senior Citizens organization. It has been an interesting challenge which has required me to learn something about web design.
It is a treat to hear from former students. My email address is still jfinholt@carleton.edu, so send a message when you have a minute or two.
Deborah S. Gross, 1998-, Associate Professor. B.A., Haverford College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
This year has been in many ways a return to normal for me. I have taught a similar schedule to that I taught two years ago, and it almost feels like my sabbatical never happened. It has been a good, although busy, year, with some unexpected pleasures. First, and most fun, was having Alex Barron on campus for the year, teaching in chemistry in the Winter Term, and in biology and ENTS in the fall and spring, respectively. Those of you who are avid readers of this Annual Report will remember that Alex was one of my first two research students here at Carleton College, working with me and another student in the summer of 1999, long before we even had our own instrumentation. It was terrific to get a chance to work with Alex again, in his position as Visiting Instructor, and to see how his career is shaping up. A distant second was the fun of having the largest conferences in my field of aerosol chemistry merged and local: the joint International Aerosol Conference and American Association for Aerosol Research meetings were held in September, in downtown St. Paul. This meant that I had a chance to visit with many old friends, and many new friends that I made during my sabbatical last year. I also managed to give a talk and a poster, presenting aspects of work I did in Switzerland in the talk, and presenting the collaborative project I have been working on with Dave Musicant (Carleton College, Department of Computer Science) and others in the poster.
This year, my teaching schedule has included the old standbys of Chem 230 (Equilibrium and Analysis) in the fall and Chem 123 (Principles of Chemistry) in the spring. Both were lots of fun, and both kept me really busy. The winter was a very different experience, in that Steve Drew and I were funded by the College’s HHMI grant to develop and implement a course in Bioanalytical Chemistry. Thus was Chem 334 created, with its associated laboratory (Chem 335). Steve and I team-taught the course and the lab, and we had a great group of student guinea-pigs in both. I know we all learned a lot, and I look forward to the possibility of teaching this class again someday. Also in Winter Term, I worked with a comps group consisting of John Choiniere, David DeCresce, Ian Hill, and Rosie Molden, and assisted by Steve Drew. We studied the work of R. Graham Cooks, the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University. We studied the design and use of a variety of quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometers and the new Orbitrap mass spectrometer. The group did a terrific job and culminated with great discussions and seminars. First, the group went to the University of Minnesota to hear Professor Cooks speak at the Spring Meeting of the Minnesota Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group, and then we had the pleasure of hosting Professor Cooks at Carleton, where we had many hours of interesting conversation and heard another stimulating presentation which ranged over topics including the development of new mass spectrometry tools and the origin of homochiral life. We all had a great time, and the students did a really great job.
On the research front, it has been a busy year, as usual. My collaborative research program has grown with the addition of ongoing collaborations in Switzerland and new collaborative projects with the groups at the University of Minnesota with whom I have worked for a number of years. We are continuing to work on analyzing the data which I acquired while there on sabbatical last year, and we have much left to do. Throughout the 2006-2007 academic year, I had help from Katie Barton (’07), analyzing data from a field campaign in Switzerland. This work is being continued this summer by Claire Liepmann (’09). At the University of Minnesota, the theme for measurements was biofuel combustion aerosols. We measured particle emissions from wood-stoves, corn-stoves, an engine burning biodiesel/diesel fuel mixes, an engine burning gasoline/ethanol mixes, and meat-cooking (hamburgers, specifically). Analysis of this data is continuing, assisted this summer by Nick Brown (’08) and Juan Medrano (’09). While analyzing this data, we will collect our own data from the ambient air in Northfield, and also continue to work with Dave Musicant and collaborators at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, to develop and refine data mining tools to help with our analysis challenges. It promises to keep us all very busy.
On campus, I participated as an instructor and internship advisor in the Science Scholars Winter Break Workshop. I really enjoyed working with the students and faculty who participated in the program. I have been very involved in the development of a new program, which we will try out next year, to develop a cohort of students interested in science and in doing science in a diverse community (the Freshman Interdepartmental Science Cohort Experience, or FrISC-E!). I have learned a great deal about programs that work at other colleges, and those which don’t. I have had the opportunity to learn from others interested in similar issues at meetings in Seattle and Berkeley, which have been productive and interesting, and I have had the chance to be part of many interesting discussions and workshops at Carleton.
At home, Markus and I have been entertained greatly this year by the addition of two new cats, Ruthie and Moly (a mother-daughter
pair – a prize will be sent to the first reader of this Annual Report who emails me with a correct scientific explanation of their names! The hint is to think of the periodic table. Anyone who I told already is ineligible to win.). We have managed to travel a lot (Seattle, Switzerland, Tokyo, Indianapolis, and Berkeley so far for me, with a few more trips this summer), and are looking forward to a few quiet weekends to work on our newly expanded vegetable garden.
Gretchen E. Hofmeister, 2002-, Associate Professor. B.A., Carleton College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
In 2006-07 I taught Organic I in the fall, Organic III in the winter (with comps), and Organic II in the spring. The big change this year was that we switched textbooks for Organic I and II—the department had been using Vollhardt and Schore for more than a decade, and we thought it would be a good idea to shake things up a bit by making a switch to Paula Bruice’s text. Bruice’s book is organized by reaction type, rather than functional group, and the initial response from students and faculty is favorable. Changing the book meant that some of the labs needed to be changed, as well, and I spent a good bit of time in the fall developing new labs and modifying or trouble-shooting existing labs. I kept Julie Karg busy with last minute changes to procedures, but she kept everything running very smoothly. I look forward to repeating some of these experiments this coming year, when I hope to iron out the remaining wrinkles. We also switched this year back to the twice-yearly offerings of Organic I and II (the previous four years we had offered both courses during all three terms). The unexpected consequence of this change, coupled with a larger than average sophomore class, was that enrollments in Organic I and II went up to about 60 students each! In fact, our enrollments overall were significantly higher this year than last, and next fall we have over 80 students enrolled in Organic I. Naturally, these larger class sizes placed a high demand on my time.
I continued to teach Organic III using the model I established the previous year, in which we read papers from the primary literature as the motivation for learning concepts and models that are traditionally part of physical and mechanistic organic chemistry. I had a terrific class and it was a lot of fun to read new papers and learn new material along with them. Tim Trygstad, a graduate student involved in the Preparing Future Faculty program at the University of Minnesota, taught approximately two weeks of this course with me. Tim defended his Ph.D. thesis in June, and he plans to start a tenure-track position this coming fall at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth.
Our comps group this year had the great fortune to study the work of Harry Gray, who was also the first comps subject studied by a group co-led by Jim Finholt and Jerry Mohrig more than 20 years ago. Harry’s work is challenging to understand, but it is well designed, meticulously executed, and provides fundamental contributions to the field of electron transfer. What a thrill to have this opportunity to learn with a great group of seniors and meet with Harry over the course of two days. Harry was also the Chesley Lecturer this year, which contributed to the celebratory nature of his visit. The highlight of our time together was Harry and the comps group singing Karaoke at the Upstairs Rueb after the group comps dinner.
My research group continued to make good progress over the past year, and I enjoyed working with Ellen Valkevich (’07) and Bill Mitchell (’08). The goal of our research is to develop new metal-based reagents that will selectively control the outcome of organic transformations or polymerization reactions, similarly to how biological enzymes selectively control the transformation of biological metabolites or the synthesis of biological polymers. Ellen and Bill explored the catalytic role of titanium trisphenolate complexes in the preparation of poly(lactic acid), a biodegradable polymer. Ellen succeeded in obtaining our first good data for determining the reaction order with respect to titanium, and Bill studied the initiation of the active catalytic species by NMR. Both Ellen and Bill presented their results at the ACS National Meeting in Chicago this past spring. Bill is completing an internship at 3M this summer, and Ellen is back home in the Bay Area, looking for a job before she pursues graduate work in chemistry.
I attended the spring ACS meeting in order to begin work with the 2008 Organic Exam Committee. I just finished drafting a set of questions for this exam; writing multiple-choice questions that test fundamental conceptual understanding is a real challenge! It is fun to meet and work with other organic faculty from across the country, and I look forward to meeting with them twice more as we finalize this exam.
This summer, for the first time in seven years, I am not working with research students. I am spending some time shuttling my kids around to their various activities, and I am enjoying the freedom of being my own boss the rest of the time. I am planning my next research steps, which will hopefully include a sabbatical leave in 2008-09. Laboratory development, with a particular emphasis on reducing the “carbon footprint” of the organic laboratory program, is also a current focus. I look forward to updating you on these endeavors in future annual reports!
William E. Hollingsworth, 1986-, Professor. B.S., B.A., University of Texas, Austin; M.S., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
This was the unusual year that I taught physical chemistry all three terms (given that our department has three physical chemists): Chem 344 (Quantum Chemistry) in the fall, Chem 343 (Chemical Thermodyamics) in the winter, and my advanced elective Chem 354 (Lasers and Spectroscopy) in the spring to a spirited group of chemistry and physics majors. Along with these anchor courses, I taught the spectroscopy advanced lab with Trish in the fall, the kinetics advanced lab with Marion in the winter, and a small section of Chem 128 (Principles of Environmental Chemistry) in the spring. I also participated in comps activities to the tune of supervising Stephanie Vasko and Kestrel Schwaiger in their exciting paper-option comps exercises.
While not teaching, I was involved in other activities at Carleton, including participating on a few hiring committees, teaching high school chemistry teachers during June in the Summer Teachers’ Institute, and serving on the ENTS steering committee as well as attending their two-day retreat. In June, I moderated a session on the scientific basis of the greenhouse effect for a joint Carleton-St. Olaf climate conference.
For a second summer, I have been working on an HHMI-funded project to develop course materials for modeling rates and dynamics of systems in chemistry and environmental sciences classes. After coming up to speed with Vensim software last summer, I tried out a few completed models this year in the advanced kinetics lab and the Chem 128 lab. This summer, my focus is on preparing to use these and other strategies in a new first-year ENTS seminar to be offered this fall, “Painting the Environment by Numbers.” The hope is to better understand environmental issues by first considering magnitudes and timescales of matter and energy flow while learning about the background science and developing simple models.
Another project for this summer is to join the team of Steve Drew and Kit Zall (’08) developing some new advanced labs looking at how different levels of quenching affect the fluorescence coming from pulsed excitation.
Julie Karg, 1988-, Chemistry Technician. B.S., Mankato State University.
This past year, I continued to manage the chemistry stockroom – preparing laboratory experiments, supervising student workers, and providing assistance to laboratory and research classrooms. I worked with professors to develop and prepare new laboratory exercises for their courses and upgrade previously performed experiments. I improved guidelines and signage designed to assist professors, lab assistants, and students and generated improvements that allowed the lab floor to run more smoothly and efficiently. I continued to manage the electronic version of the Chemistry Department’s “Annual Report,” but turned over management of the electronic version of the Chemistry Department’s weekly newsletter, “The Weekly Beaker,” to Wendy Zimmerman during Winter Term.
Daniela Kohen, 2002-, Assistant Professor. B.A., Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Ph.D., University of Notre Dame.
Another good year has gone by for me. As usual, it was a very intense year, full of learning and fun times both at work and at home.
At work, the year was a bit unusual as I had the good fortune of spending most of Fall and Winter Terms working on the research program that my student collaborators and I have developed. My group’s research focuses on using atomistic simulations to understand and characterize at the molecular level how small gas molecules interact with pure CO2 in the pores of zeolites (molecular sieves), and how this interaction changes in the presence of other gases present in the atmosphere. The goal of these studies is to provide a basic understanding of the processes that underlie the use of molecular sieves as filters to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Last summer, David Selassie (’09), Felix Amankona-Diawuo (’08), and myself did research together and, as has become a tradition for my group, the summer culminated with our participation in the Midwest Undergraduate Conference in Computational Chemistry (MU3C) at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The MU3C meetings are usually very successful at providing undergraduates doing research in computational chemistry (a small field) with an opportunity to present their work to others who have a similar research background, creating an intellectual “support” group for the students, and this year was no exception.
During the following Fall and Winter Terms I was able to put some of my group’s work in perspective and develop tools that we will need to further our investigations. Since doing research in my group only requires a powerful computer, I was able to spend those terms in my home’s basement. I had a blast working long hours, developing new computer code, reading journal articles, and reflecting about the results my group has already obtained – all in my sweatpants! This time dedicated exclusively to research culminated by sharing my results at Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as I had the privilege of being invited to give talks at both universities. This summer, David and Felix continue to do computational work in my group, although Felix is doing so from Ames, Iowa. Felix is working with Mark Gordon’s (a renowned quantum chemist who we met in last year’s MU3C) group on a collaborative project as we try to develop a more sophisticated description of the zeolite/gas interactions. Research in our group is progressing nicely, and we are looking forward to continuing a productive summer, full of challenges, learning, and discovery.
I went back to teaching in the Spring Term. It was amusing to realize that as much as I had loved the time doing research on my own the previous two terms, by spring break I was itching to go back to interacting with Carleton’s students closely! And that I did, as I taught Principles of Chemistry (Chem 123) with problem solving and Statistical Mechanics (Chem 345). “Chemistry 123 with problem solving” has additional class meetings for problem solving and review and is appropriate for students who want to have more scheduled time to work with a faculty member on developing their scientific reasoning skills and understanding of the foundations of chemistry. Statistical Mechanics is an upper-level course, where we met twice a week to discuss the readings and go over the complicated topics together. Despite being so different, both classes are great classes to teach, and the students tell me they are good courses for them as well. It was quite remarkable to teach these two groups of really motivated students, and I learned a lot from their questions and comments and had tons of fun seeing them grow and mature intellectually as the weeks went by.
Life at home, like at Carleton, continues to be a source of pleasures and challenges. Margo (almost 5 years old) and Sofia (almost 3 years old) keep us (me and Joe Chihade) smiling and growling, as we keep learning how to best be their parents.
As I said earlier, and it has become usual since starting at Carleton, it was a good year, and I am certainly looking forward to another year like the one that is just ending.
Brian T. Mars, 1983-, Laboratory Manager. B.A., California State University, Chico; M.Th., Andersonville Theological Seminary.
This year I helped several other departments compose chemical hygiene plans.
Jerry R. Mohrig, 1967-2003; Herman and Gertrude Mosier Stark Professor of the Natural Sciences, Emeritus, 2003-. B.S., University of Michigan; Ph.D., University of Colorado.
It was a year of changes for the Mohrig family. Adrienne and I moved in November to a new condominium in Northfield, and we love it, even though getting resettled was a major job. We were able to sell our house on Hillside Court before moving, which was no mean feat in the depressed real estate market here. I also sold my condominium on the North Shore of Lake Superior. We look forward to more diverse travels in the future. Later this summer we will spend four weeks traveling in Washington state and British Columbia. In January I had heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic to repair a faulty mitral valve. Although the operation was a success and I am fully healed, I’m hoping to declare 2008 as an operation-free year.
The first in the series of my post-retirement research articles was published this year. It was a challenge to write, as it spanned 20 years of research using substantially different experimental methods. It covered our first research on the stereochemistry of base-catalyzed 1,2-elimination reactions, that of isotopically-labeled β-acetoxy esters and thioesters, which was completed in the 1980s. The second part was the elimination reactions of the more sterically-hindered β-trimethylacetoxy esters and thioesters, completed in 2004. By comparing these two sets of data we found evidence for a new intramolecular pathway for syn-elimination. Four of the Carleton alums who were co-authors have probably never met the other four.
Another paper concerned my crusade for bringing guided-inquiry organic chemistry experiments and projects into mainstream use in American colleges and universities. It summed up most everything I know about the topic. Last August, for the second time, I was a
co-organizer of a workshop at the University of California, Irvine, on teaching guided-inquiry labs.
Some of you will remember Brian Bent (’82). He was a truly remarkable person, who died suddenly at the age of 35 in 1996. It was my pleasure to work with him on a number of occasions while he was a Carleton student. At what would have been his 25th reunion in June, Brian’s stellar career as a chemist was the subject of a lecture. It reminded me of the joy I have had teaching so many talented and good people during my 36 years at Carleton.
I continue to be a member of the selection committee for the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching Chemistry, as well as a member of the Congregational Care Council and the Manna Task Force at the First United Church of Christ, Northfield.
Richard W. Ramette, 1954-1990; Laurence M. Gould Professor of the Natural Sciences, Emeritus, 1990-. B.A., Wesleyan University; Ph.D., University of Minnesota.
We enjoyed a University of Minnesota alumni trip to Sardinia, Corsica, and Rome. Life in the Sonoran desert continues to be a welcome change from Minnesota winters, and I enjoy league shuffleboard, swimming, walking, weight training, and web surfing.
It was a nice surprise to see my Journal of Chemical Education article featured on the January cover, a photomicrograph of silver chromate precipitation. I spoke to the Green Valley Forum on “Atmospheric Passion: How ‘Ordinary Air’ Turned out to be Rather Special” with emphasis on the 1890s discovery of the noble gases by Ramsey and Rayleigh.
Wendy J. Zimmerman, 1970-, Administrative Assistant.
Working with me in the office this year was my student assistant, Matthew Fink (’10). I continue to be the editor of this report and “The Weekly Beaker,” the department’s weekly newsletter. During winter break I took a class in Reason, Carleton’s content management system for the web, so I can help manage the department’s web site.
FACULTY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Czechowicz, J. A.; Wilhelm, A. K.; Spalding, M. D.; Larson, A. M.; Engel, L. K.; Alberg, D. G. “The Synthesis and Inhibitory Activity of Dethiotrypanothione and Analogues Against Trypanothione Reductase,” J. Org. Chem. 2007, 72, 3689-3693.
Rzepa, H. S.; Cass, M. E. “In Search of The Bailar Twist and Rây-Dutt Mechanisms that Racemize Chiral Tris-Chelates: A Computational Study of Sc(III), Ti(IV), Co(III), Zn(II), Ga(III), and Ge(IV) Complexes of a Ligand Analog of Acetylacetonate,” Inorg. Chem., in press June 2007.
Cass, M. E.; Rzepa, H. S. “Visualizations to Examine the Structure and Symmetry of Metal Tris Chelates: Symmetry Operations, Chirality, and Mechanisms (Bailar Twist and Ray-Dutt) that Racemize the D and L Isomers,” J. Chem. Educ., manuscript/Webware materials have been reviewed and revised.
Hati, S.; Ziervogel, B.; SternJohn, J.; Wong, F.; Nagan, M. C.; Rosen, A. E.; Siliciano, P. G.; Chihade, J. W.; Musier-Forsyth, K. “Pre-transfer Editing by Class II Escherichia coli Prolyl-tRNA Synthetases: Role of Aminoacylation Active Site in ‘Selective Release’ of Noncognate Amino Acids,” J. Biol. Chem. 2006, 281: 27862-27872.
Ferrett, Tricia A.; Stewart, Joanne “Integrative Science Learning by Novices: Portraits of Creative and Emergent Thinking and Practice,” Conference Proceedings for Innovations in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at the Liberal Arts Colleges, Northfield, MN, 2007.
Anderson, B. J.; Gross, D. S.; Musicant, D. R.; Ritz, A. R.; Smith, T. G.; Steinberg, L. E. “Adapting K-Medians to Generate Normalized Cluster Centers.” Proceedings of the Sixth SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, Joydeep Ghosh, Diane Lambert, David Skillcorn, Jaideep Srivastava, editors, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Bethesda, MD, 2006, 165-175.
Hall, B. D.; Olson, M. L.; Rutter, A. P.; Frontiera, R. R.; Krabbenhoft, D. P.; Gross, D. S.; Yuen, M.; Rudolph, T. M.; Schauer, J. J. “Atmospheric mercury speciation in Yellowstone National Park,” Sci. Total Environ. 2006, 367, 354-366, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2005.12.007.
Gross, D. S. “A Model for Collaborative Undergraduate Research: Integrating Disciplines and Institutions to Better Understand the Earth’s Atmosphere,” in C. Rutz and M. Savina (Eds.), Building intellectual community through collaboration (pp. 105–120). Northfield, MN: College City Publications.
Gross, D. S.; Dutcher, D. D.; Pagels, H. J.; Stolzenburg, M. R.; Franklin, L.; Bika, A.; Kittelson, D. R.; Drayton, M.; McMurry, P. H. “Biomass Combustion Aerosols Studied With Single-Particle Mass Spectrometry.” Poster presentation and published abstract, June 2007, 55th Annual ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics, Indianapolis, IN.
Gross, D. S.; Schauer, J. J.; Chen, L.; Ramakrishnan, R.; Ritz, A.; Smith, T.; Musicant, D. R. “Enchilada: A Data-Mining Application for the Analysis of Atmospheric Mass Spectrometry Data.” Poster presentation and published abstract, September 2006, International Aerosol Conference, St. Paul, MN USA.
Gross, D. S.; Gälli, M. E.; Kalberer, M.; Prevot, A. S. H.; Dommen, J.; Alfarra, M. R.; Duplissy, J.; Gaeggeler, K.; Gascho, A.; Metzger, A.; Baltensperger, U. “Real-Time Measurement of Oligomeric Species in Secondary Organic Aerosol with the Aerosol Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer.” Oral presentation and published abstract, September 2006, International Aerosol Conference, St. Paul, MN USA.
Gross, D. S.; Gälli, M. E.; Kalberer, M.; Prevot, A. S. H.; Dommen, J.; Baltensperger, U. “Online Real-Time Detection of Oligomers in Secondary Organic Aerosol with the ATOFMS.” Poster presentation and published abstract, June 2006, 54th Annual ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics, Seattle, WA.
Mohrig, J. R.; Carlson, H. K.; Coughlin, J. M.; Hofmeister, G. E.; McMartin, L. A.; Rowley, E. G.; Trimmer, E. E.; Wild, A. J.; Schultz, S. C. “Novel Syn Intramolecular Pathway in Base-Catalyzed 1,2-Elimination Reactions of β-Acetoxy Esters,” J. Org. Chem. 2007, 72, 793-798.
Mohrig, J. R.; Hammond, C. N.; Colby, D. A. “On the Successful Use of Inquiry-Driven Experiments in the Organic Chemistry Laboratory,” J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 992-998.
Ramette, R. W. “Exocharmic Reactions Up Close,” J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 16-19.
Back to Annual Report for 2006-2007 Academic Year