Back to the 2018 Annual Report
David G. Alberg
1993-, Professor and Chair. B.A., Carleton College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
It’s now been one full year since we vacated Mudd Hall. In its place stands a lot of bare concrete and steel. The steel work has progressed very quickly and just this week (on June 27), the last iron I-beam was put into place on the emerging science complex. The beam was displayed during reunion week, collecting the autographs of all passers-by before being raised into place.
Despite the inevitable hiccups involved with moving into temporary accommodations, everything has worked out surprisingly well. I like my spacious office in the Old Music Hall, except for the very loud window air conditioning unit. I’d turn it off and open the window but it’s 95 degrees and humid as I write to you! I’ve also adjusted to our temporary organic chemistry lab in Hulings Hall. We’ve squeezed into somewhat tight quarters, but we have everything we need and all of the lab projects, in both Organic Chemistry I and II, ran very smoothly this past year. I would venture to say that the organic students might not even have known that the labs were temporary, had they not been aware of the science center project. Of course, we have our terrific staff of Lanhao Yang and Julie Karg to thank for making sure everything worked out.
After a lost research summer last year, we moved into temporary research space during the academic year. The three synthetic chemists, Matt Whited, Gretchen Hofmeister, and I, are sharing what was once the geochemistry lab in the basement of Olin Hall. Like the teaching labs, it’s not spacious, with sometimes up to 9 nine people working in a fairly small space, but it’s working fine. Gretchen and I have two terrific students working with us this summer. David Byun (’20) is working on our ongoing project involving the organocatalytic desymmetrization of achiral anhydrides, and Tess Sevetson (’20) is working on a project developed in collaboration with an old Carleton friend, Sarah Hamm-Alvarez (’86), from the Department of Ophthalmology in the USC Roski Eye Institute. Sarah visited the chemistry department this past winter to give chemistry seminar on her work studying Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease that targets the tear and salivary glands. As a result of her visit, we began a collaboration focusing on the protease enzyme, Cathepsin S. Cathepsin S activity is correlated with the disease and Tess is preparing an inhibitor of this enzyme, which we will send to Sarah’s group for testing in a mouse model that develops the disease.
This past year I twice taught Organic Chemistry I, and covered a lab section of Organic Chemistry II when enrollment pressure this spring pushed us to expand the size of this course. This spring, I also had fun teaching Spectrometric Characterization of Chemical Compounds, which primarily focusses on advanced NMR techniques. I’m still amazed at how our now 4-year-old 400 MHz Bruker Avance spectrometer has facilitated the teaching of this course. Long gone are the tedious hours of shimming by hand, and with the automatic sample changer, no one has to come to the NMR room late at night or on the weekend to set up experiments! The highlight of my year was working with a very talented group of 8 senior comps students. My group studied the work of Professor Nick Hud, from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. We all had a blast learning about Professor Hud’s fascinating research in prebiotic chemistry – the search for the origins of the earliest chemical systems that may have led to life on earth. The group did a fantastic job and enjoyed riveting discussions with Professor Hud when he visited this spring.
On the home front, Gretchen and I are still getting used to being empty-nesters, with only our aging cat, Rascal, to feed and look after. Our son Sam, now 25, lives in Oakland, California, working at a biotech start-up company called Benchling. Our daughter Ellie (20) is a rising senior at Occidental College, majoring in Religious Studies and Spanish. She is spending the summer at Oxy working on her senior comps thesis.
Christopher Calderone
2012-, Assistant Professor. B.S., University of Chicago; M.Phil., Cambridge University; Ph.D., Harvard University.
This past summer my lab moved into its new permanent space in Hulings, shared with Joe Chihade and Rou-Jia Sung, the newest member of the Biology Department. Being able to share space with the other biochemists on campus has made the dislocation of losing Mudd (RIP) much more palatable. On that front, some work done by Margot Manning (’17) and Eli Danson (’15) came out in publication form, as well as posters describing work on a new project co-authored with Aditya Vaze (’18) and Kitty Miao (’19) that were presented in New Orleans at the American Chemical Society Spring National Meeting.
I got to teach my usual stable of courses this past year (Biological Chemistry and Biological Chemistry Laboratory, Principles of Chemistry, and the Chemistry and Biology of Antibiotics). I also was fortunate to co-lead a comps group focusing on the work of Andy Ellington from the University of Texas with Joe Chihade (shout out to Wisdom Akpan, Brittany Brookner, Ben Byun, Isaac Donnell, Lydia Hanson, Hiroshi Nakajima, Phuong Nguyen, Austin Rae, Malu Suresh, and Aditya Vaze).
Finally, life on the homefront moves on….Simon (8) and Frances (5) got to come with us to New Orleans for the ACS meeting and discovered voodoo and beignets, but declared the trip a failure because they didn’t see any alligators on the swamp tour.
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 was NOT an eventful year for me. Pain, therapy, becoming a great-grandfather, grandchildren galore at home during the summers, avoiding TV political news, poker games with fellow geezers, monthly gamma globulin infusions to keep the CIDP at bay, and physical exams that reveal the ravages of age but not much disease-related decay — yet.
My brightest moments come from occasional email comments sent by Chemistry alums – where you are in life, memories of Carleton, your joys and dreams, and what is afoot in your world.
Marion E. Cass
1987-, Charles “Jim” and Marjorie Kade Professor of the Sciences. B.S., Fort Lewis College; Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder.
The 2017-2018 academic year involved much traveling back and forth between Northfield and Lyme, NH. Over Labor Day weekend Steve, Ada and I traveled back to Northfield from Lyme to settle in to teach Introduction to Chemistry (Chem 122) during the fall term to a very fun class of 19 Carleton students that ranged from first year students to seniors. After finals week, we returned to Lyme where I began preparing to teach Inorganic Chemistry at Dartmouth College, a course very similar to the Inorganic Chemistry course that Matt Whited and I teach at Carleton. Filling in for Professor Dave Glueck who was on research leave, I taught the Inorganic Chemistry Course and Lab for 28 students with a large range of backgrounds and majors, ranging from graduate students in chemistry, to art, physics, econ and geology students (completing the last course required for a chemistry minor) to sophomore chemistry majors.
Dartmouth has essentially the same calendar as Carleton (which is what allowed me to step in and teach there one term), however unlike Carleton, there is one (optional) extra day of class per week which almost all chemistry professors use. It was fun to have an extra day per week to expand on some topics and provide some optional lectures. Unlike Carleton, the labs are primarily taught by graduate students and it was a very interesting experience to stand back and provide support to help budding teachers teach rather than to take the reins myself. I was fortunate to have two excellent teaching assistants; graduate student Alyson Michael and undergraduate chemistry major Lauren Mendelsohn which made the experience intellectually interesting and fun. Winter term in NH we also had three major blizzards with heavy snowfalls and I was fortunate to be able to stay at my parents-in-law house in Hanover a few nights so that I could walk (wade through deep snow!) to Dartmouth campus.
After finals at Dartmouth, Steve, Ada and I returned to Northfield where I taught Inorganic Chemistry (Chem 351) to fourteen great junior and senior chemistry majors. I also taught Chem 352, the Advanced Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory to seven majors in the new adapted space in Olin that serves as Matt Whited’s research lab. Senior Paul Peterson served as my TA for that course to lend his expertise in glove box work and to help students run NMR experiments. He was a fantastic TA! The students in Chem 352 were enthusiastic and collaborative. They seemed to have great deal of fun working together. After finals were complete in spring term, it was back to Lyme NH again for the second round of the energy efficient building project.
When in NH, I continue to interact with Dean Wilcox’s research group at Dartmouth College. In Dean’s group, I participate in group meetings and attend seminars. I also work with Dean’s graduate students to construct interactive web images to help visualize the active sites of metalloproteins. When in New Hampshire I also work remotely on-line as a reviewer and contributor to the (Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource (VIPEr) website.
On a personal note, we had beautiful snow in NH this winter which made for great cross-country skiing. Last summer, Steve and I started open water swimming in nearby lakes in NH which was great. In the fall and spring it was back to indoor swimming at the Northfield YMCA and Carleton pools. Steve continued to travel extensively with his work at the Rocky Mountain Institute working on comprehensive plans for energy efficiency and electrical grid management/construction in Nigeria and Ethiopia with some consulting in Puerto Rico as well. Within the US, he is heading a group at RMI to continue to bring down the cost of solar energy while Ada and I hold down the fort in Lyme or Northfield.
Joseph W. Chihade
2003-, Professor. B.A., Oberlin College; M.A., Ph.D., Columbia University.
It’s been a particularly eventful year, despite the fact that I only really taught full time during one of the three terms. Chairing the department, research, and campus service kept me plenty busy.
Last summer, the five students in my research group – Isaac Donnell ’18, Sam Diaz de Leon ’18, Jacob Heath ’19, Jessica Makori ’19, and Hannah Kennicott ’20 – made considerable headway in the lab, working on various projects related to the human mitochondrial alanyl-tRNA synthetase. This was the first summer in the new biochemistry research space in Hulings Hall that I share with Chris Calderone and Rou-Jia Sung. It was fun to break in the new space and great to share ideas and equipment with biochemists and biologists doing related research. Having our lab in Hulings did bring an extra level of excitement to the building; we managed to evacuate the building one day when what was probably trace tar from campus roofing projects gave false positive readings due to chemiluminescence on the instrument we use to count radioactivity during a routine check. We ended up wipe testing the shoes of every person working in the Hulings before finally realizing that no radioactive materials had ever left the lab. Better safe than sorry. In any case, the results we got last summer played a key part in a presentation I gave at the 11th International Meeting on Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases, a conference which got me to Florida in late October.
In the Fall, I was part of an interdisciplinary team put together by Jon Olson, a visiting professor in Political Science, that co-taught POSC 248 – Studies in Weapons of Mass Destruction. I got to lecture and learn about both chemical and biological weapons and sat in on the rest of the course. Although many of the things we discussed were pretty terrifying, it was a lot of fun to interact with faculty from Classics, Computer Science, and Physics, and with Jon, who is a retired Navy officer with much national security experience. One of the highlights was meeting Michael Osterholm, a professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, as well as a frequent Minnesota Public Radio commentator and New York Times opinion writer. In contrast to what one might expect of someone who spends his time worrying about infectious disease epidemics, he was tremendously engaging and gracious.
In the Winter Term, I taught an Organic I lab section and co-directed a large comps group with Chris Calderone that studied the wide-ranging synthetic biology work of Andy Ellington. I finally taught a “real” course in the Spring, our new CHEM 224 – Principles of Chemistry II course. It was certainly a learning experience for me to figure out how to teach about acid/base, redox, and some coordination chemistry to a more general audience than I have seen in previous courses. While there’s a lot to tweak and improve upon, I am very excited to add this course to my teaching repertoire and to explore how lay the groundwork for students to make better connections to upper-level courses in chemistry and other sciences.
Aside from being department chair, the other reason that I taught relatively few courses this year was my role as faculty co-chair of CEDI, Carleton’s Community, Equity, and Diversity Initiative. This large committee has an expansive purview. This year we dealt with things like assessing campus bathrooms, with a view to creating more all-gender facilities, thinking about the uses of Common Time and Convocation, dealing with how the administration lets the community know about bias incidents like racist graffiti, and so forth. I also played a role in the administration’s response to CarlsTalkBack, a student group that held protests and created a long list of demands during Winter Term. All of this resulted in a lot of time spent in meetings with Tuesday Group, the administrative group of deans and vice presidents of the college and also a lot of time learning about the Student Life division of the college. I also attended an Associated Colleges of the Midwest meeting of chief diversity officers and an American Association of Colleges and Universities meeting on diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence. Lots of interesting new territory for me, but it is work that feels important.
At home, we’re very much in the teenage years. Margo was a freshman in high school this year, and really enjoyed the academic challenge. She did a foundations of science course that included chemistry, biology, and physics. It was a joy to watch her curiosity about science blossom. Sofia finished up 8th grade with a project about mitochondria. The analogies she made while unpacking what is meant by “the powerhouse of the cell” was a lot of fun. We did manage to get away a bit this year, too. We spent my 49th birthday watching the total eclipse in Idaho, where the weather was perfect. On the drive back home, we spent several days hiking and camping in Glacier National Park, our first such trip as a family. Gorgeous views from the continental divide and encounters with mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and moose were among the highlights. Our ski trip to Lutsen over Christmas break was colder than usual. Even hardy Minnesotans balk at downhill skiing when the wind-chill is -20°, so we spent a lot of time in the cabin playing complicated board games like Pandemic. All in all, a year full of new learning, challenges, and growth. I’m looking forward to more of the same this year.
William C. Child, Jr.
1956-1990; Emeritus Professor, 1990-. B.A., Oberlin College; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin.
A milestone for Nancy and me this year was the graduation of our granddaughter from Carleton in June. With a major in computer science, she had no trouble landing a job with Google in New York. She gave us insight into campus life that we had not had for many years.
While I hope to continue playing the bassoon, I decided to retire this spring from the Cannon Valley Regional orchestra, of which I had been a member for 38 years. It is time for a younger person to take over. As for future plans, travel is high on our list, with three Road Scholar programs on the calendar during the coming year. These and some local trips should supply good opportunities for photography.
Steven M. Drew
1991-, Professor. B.A., St. John’s University; Ph.D., University of Colorado.
Life in “transition” is good. Our offices in Old Music are comfortable and the temporary labs we have in Hulings and Olin are functional. Still, I can watch the new science building being erected outside my Old Music office window and pine for a year from now when we’ll get to move again. Of course, we’ll have spanking new spaces to occupy, so it should be quite “bougie,” as my three daughters say.
This year I taught all 100- and 200-level courses, meaning I worked with quite a few students. In the fall I taught Principles of Chemistry II (CHEM 224) for the first time. This is the replacement for Equilibrium and Analysis (CHEM 230). Deborah and I now teach analytical chemistry at the 300-level. In the winter I taught Principles of Chemistry I (CHEM 123) for the first time in seven year then followed up with Concepts of Chemistry (CHEM 113) in the spring. In addition, I worked with two students on their individual comps papers. The development of Principles of Chemistry II (CHEM 224) was a long process, so I’m glad our first year of the change went smoothly. My next challenge is to develop a 300-level materials chemistry course. The plan is to have the course on the 2019-2020 course schedule.
Last summer I did research and taught in the Carleton Summer Science Institute with the help of Alex Battiste (’19) and Keaton Mertz (’18). Alex and Keaton have helped me reconfigure the focus of my research to the materials chemistry of water splitting and thin film solar cells. They continued to work on the construction of a 2D photocurrent scanning station and an inexpensive spin coater. During the academic year Phuong Nguyen (’18), Cullen Irving (’19), and Tristan Pitt (’19) joined in on the research excitement. Together they have developed an evaporative deposition method for making thin-film metal oxides for solar water splitting. As a test case they made thin films of a mixed metal oxide containing iron, chromium, and aluminum, then investigated the deposition conditions that led to either an n-type semiconductor or a p-type semiconductor. Cullen and Tristan did a great job correlating the photoelectrochemistry of the films with their SEM results. The next step will be to preform thin film XRD analysis to see if any detected crystallinity correlates with deposition conditions.
Tricia A. Ferrett
1990-, Professor. B.A., Grinnell College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
This has been a very good transition year in Old Music Hall (OMH) while the new integrated science facility is under construction. My office is the best I have ever had, OMH has lots of great student space, and it is exciting watching the new building emerge outside our windows. One more year in OMH and we can move into the new Chemistry space in summer 2019!
Fall term was fabulous – I had 15 students in my A&I course (ENTS 100) on Mining and the Environment, which I taught for the second time. I now have most of these students as academic advisees. We did case studies on US and international copper and diamond mining – digging deep into the science, history, economics, culture, war, politics, and environmental risks. As in fall 2015, I took the students — plus trip TAs (Liesl Helminiak ’19 and James Harren ’19) and my partner Gerard — to Ely MN in October for 3 days to immerse ourselves in the controversy around the proposed copper/nickel mines outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). We talked to employees at the mining company Twin Metals Minnesota, to environmental and wilderness activists and advocates, and we took an exciting tour of the deep underground Soudan iron mine. In this version of the course, I was able to move students more deeply into identifying and writing about wilderness and “critical issues” for Minnesota copper mining. We also articulated more and better “modes of analysis” for tackling messy, integrative problems; we applied them to our class work on diamond mining in Africa.
Next up, I will revise this seminar into a 200-level ENTS course, funded by an ACM (Associated Colleges of the Midwest) grant program. Revision of this A&I course and tuning of the Ely field trip itinerary were connected to this funding that I received through the “Wilderness in the Anthropocene” faculty SAIL seminar (ongoing). I spent 11 days in and near the BWCAW last summer with 17 ACM faculty experiencing (camping, canoeing, portaging…) the wilderness in person and through extensive readings and discussion. I incorporated new wilderness readings into the A&I seminar, added a class taught in the Arb by Nancy Braker, and revised the Ely itinerary to include more local people and perspectives.
Winter term I co-taught Chem 302 (Spec Lab) with Will. We had the usual good ride, adapting to new lab and classroom space in Olin and OMH. This year, we focused on helping student explicitly with project management and quality control of their data analysis and writing. More humorously, doing IR labs next to Matt’s research lab created some surprising (and loud) new experiences when his gas tanks vented.
Spring term began a period of 9 months without teaching. I have internal funding to revise my Chem 123 introductory course, which I have not taught for a decade. I am also working on an online SERC (Carleton’s Science Education Resource Center) teaching activity related to my ENTS 100 course and ACM SAIL project (above).
This year brought big changes at home. Son Adam (16) now lives with me full-time while son Alex (15) chooses to reside at his dad’s house. My partner, Gerard, just moved in with us and sold his house. His cat, Fanny, is now a wrestling partner with my cat, Jazz. I continue to stay happy and fit with biking, running, yoga, swimming, gardening…and Pilates. Travels this year have been to CO to see my brother, the Michigan UP to hike the Porcupine Mountains, up the MN Gunflint Trail to XC ski, and SE Utah in May to troll around canyons and arches and mountains for 11 days in a campervan. In about a week, I will do ~100 miles of the MN MS bike ride with Gerard, who will ride 300 miles.
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.
Travel still is a big thing in my life. This winter I traveled to Miami and Key West. I was surprised to discover that one of my Uber drivers could not speak English. This was not a problem since Uber provided the driver with my name, where to get me and where I wanted to go. I fed my love for trains by traveling from Minnesota to Florida by train. Later this spring I traveled again on the Agean Odyessy while exploring the Greek islands. Both trips were made with Road Scholar and were great fun.
In mid May my life changed when I fell and broke my left arm. Repair required surgery at the Mayo Clinic. Learning how to live with one hand has been a challenging adventure. The biggest head ache has been a ban on driving. Many good friends have eased this burden. Healing is going well and by July 1 I hope to regain the ability to use my car.
I still spend time playing duplicate bridge and helping seniors master modern electronic devices. Reading from paper books and ebooks on my phone is a pleasure. I enjoy being able to borrow ebooks from the Northfield library without leaving home.
I watched the destruction of Mudd Hall and the start of construction of its replacement. I haven’t heard what the new building will be called.
It is a treat to hear from former students. My email address is jfinholt@charter.net. Please send a message when you have a minute or two.
Deborah S. Gross
1998-, Professor. B.A., Haverford College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
The undisputed highlights of this academic year all occurred during the Winter Term: I was involved in team-teaching a new course, Instrumental Chemical Analysis, with Steve Drew, which reinvigorates our analytical chemistry curriculum; I had a whirlwind trip to University College Cork, in Ireland, to serve as an external examiner for a Ph.D. thesis; and I got to visit the Carleton off-campus studies program in Ethiopia. Each experience was exciting and useful in a different way.
This doesn’t mean Fall Term was uneventful – in fact, it launched the activities that generated the trip to Ethiopia. I taught my ENTS 287, Climate Science, course, in which I worked with a group of 18 dedicated students of climate. Two major activities of the course were piloting a curricular module developed by a team that I am part of, working through the InTeGrate project run by SERC. Our module is designed to help students develop skills in thinking about complex systems, in any context. We drew a lot of systems diagrams about many aspects of the climate system, and I think it impacted the way my class was able to think about the Earth’s climate for the better.
I look forward to continuing to refine this module, which will hopefully be published within about a year. We also did a large project to support the Winter Term off-campus program, looking into the impact of biomass cookstoves in the developing world, especially in Ethiopia. The students did an excellent job learning about the issues, developing a literature resource for the students going on the off-campus program (there were even a few who were in the class AND on the program), and even testing the efficiency and emissions of the prototype stoves that were being built by Tsegaye Nega (ENTS) and the students going to Ethiopia. I anticipate that this project will continue into the future, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with it on the experimental front.
My Winter Term experiences, as enumerated above, included designing and teaching CHEM 330, Instrumental Chemical Analysis, and an associated lab, to a group of seven students (sophomores through seniors), along with Steve Drew. We explored interesting and modern techniques and applications of analytical techniques, and students did great work in the lab, as well.
A highlight was a trip to my husband Markus’s company (TSI Inc.) for a tour of their elemental analysis facilities, following a brunch at our house. This class was interrupted twice by trips abroad (thanks to team-teaching and the generosity of Steve!). First, after reading a truly masterful Ph.D. thesis, I traveled to Ireland for a day of visiting a lab, having a few-hour long conversation with the student about her work, and then joining the celebration of her achievement afterwards! I got one day to explore the area, as well. It was a quick trip, but it was informative and interesting to participate in this part of the educational process that doesn’t exist at Carleton. A few weeks later, Melissa Eblen-Zayas (Physics) and I got on a plane to Addis Ababa, for a 10-day visit to the 14 students and Tsegaye. It was a fantastic trip – we learned a lot from the students about their work, visited urban and rural study sites, and took a four-day trip to historical sites (Lalibela and Gonder) and the Simien Mountains National Park.
This Spring Term has been busy with teaching the lab sections for Equilibrium and Analysis, which Steve is teaching. I have spent a lot of time planning to implement a large grant that the College received from the NSF, to support the FOCUS Program that I have been running since 2007. This term, as well as previous terms, has been full of discussions of the exciting new building, which we are planning for at a rapid pace. We are concurrently planning for where the Chemistry Department will be during the construction phase (Hulings and Olin, here we come!). There are a lot of issues to grapple with when moving a department. There will be a lot of changes in our department life in the next few years, that’s for sure!
Gretchen E. Hofmeister
2002-, Professor. B.A., Carleton College; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
I am now finishing year two of a three-year position as Associate Dean and my work in that role has taken me out of the classroom for a while. My responsibilities include oversight of academic budgets and academic facilities. In particular, I am deeply involved in construction of the new Integrated Science Facility. The science project is progressing very nicely, with the new addition scheduled to come online next summer (2019). After that, Olin will be emptied and almost completely (ca. 85%) renovated.
Some other projects I have been shepherding this year are (1) coordinating “maker” activities, related to courses and co-curricular activities, across campus; and (2) coordinating student-faculty research support and evaluation across campus. The work is very different from the teaching/research combination I am familiar with, but overall, it has been a straightforward adjustment. I have gotten to know many different staff, faculty, administrators, and board members. I now have a better appreciation for all of the roles that different constituents play at the college.
In research, Dave Alberg and I continue our collaboration in organocatalysis, which involves using small chiral organic molecules as catalysts for stereoselective organic transformations. This summer, David Byun (’20) and Tess Sevetson (’20) are doing research with us. David is helping to address some lingering questions regarding the mechanism of an organocatalytic desymmetrization of a citric acid derivative. Specifically, he is doing some experiments in order to confirm and interpret our observation of a linear correlation between enantiomeric ratio and the electronic character of the nucleophile in this reaction. Tess is working on a completely different project, which is a collaboration with Professor Sarah Hamm-Alvarez (’86) at USC. The Hamm-Alvarez group studies Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease that affects tear and salivary glands. Our role in this project is to synthesize an inhibitor of Cathepsin S, which the Hamm-Alvarez group has evidence is a good target for drug treatment. We are hoping to complete the synthesis before the end of the summer.
Associate Professor of Physics Marty Baylor and I are continuing a joint project with chemistry student Casey Lee-Foss (’19), using NMR to measure the gel point of photopolymers that Marty uses to create optical devices. Detecting the gel point, when using different pre-polymer formulations or polymerization times, is critical for identifying the optimal conditions to embed optical channels in the polymer. We are honing in on a method that seems accurate and reproducible. We hope to publish this work within the next year.
I started swimming this year with the Master Swimmers group, the Knightcrawlers. Fortunately, they welcome and support novice swimmers like me. It has been an adjustment to get in the pool at 5:15 AM three days a week, but it is a great workout and I still can get to the office by eight. Our children are both living in California right now—Sam is working for a biotech start-up in the Bay Area and Ellie is a rising senior at Occidental College, majoring in Religious Studies and Spanish. Although they are far away, we get to spend most of our holidays and vacations on the West coast. It would be great to see you if you return to campus. I would be particularly happy to give you a tour of the new science building in about a year!
William E. Hollingsworth
1986-, Professor. B.S., B.A., University of Texas, Austin; M.S., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
Given that this year was the first of two in transitional space, it was no surprise that a major theme was acclimating to the new digs. Although everything worked well given all the constraints, it remained a challenge to find things spread between three buildings. In particular, it was hard to prepare class demos since resources were scattered so far apart.
I was involved in two advanced labs in the transitional Olin space, working on the kinetics lab in the fall with Deborah Gross and the spectroscopy lab in the winter with Trish Ferrett. Other than having so little extra space in the kinetics lab that it was often hard to know where to stand, the space worked remarkably well.
In addition to the lab classes, I taught Chemical Thermodynamics in the fall in which I continued to incorporate more atmospheric applications involving weather and climate into the class. In the spring, I taught Principles of Environmental Chemistry to a lively group. To simplify things during transition, our department agreed to forgo the usual independent projects in introductory chemistry labs. As a compromise, I had the entire class exploring ways to perfect water-quality testing on nitrate and chloride ions using water from Lyman Lakes for samples.
It was a delight working on group comps on the topic of heavy-atom tunneling with a terrific group of 4—Carl Thomas, Keaton Mertz, Ellie Frank, and Sarina Chaiken. The group first learned about the larger body of work representing recent findings on the evidence of tunneling from elements heavier than hydrogen before focusing on a set of papers by Robert McMahon from the University of Wisconsin who visited at the end of the project.
My office on the south end of the third floor of Old Music afforded me with a ringside seat to all the sights and sounds of the construction of the new science building. I have to admit that I never got fully accustomed to all the jarring loud sounds or having the shadow of a construction crane pass across your window as well as seeing steel girders float by. Although this is a classy old building which only some of the time suffers from stifling heat, it will still be great to move into consolidated spaces next year in the new building going up right outside my window.
Julie Karg
1988-, Chemistry Technician. B.S., Mankato State University.
Academic year 2017-2018 was year 1 of a 2 year transition period occupying temporary spaces in Hulings Hall, Olin Hall, and Old Music Hall, after vacating Mudd Hall. Much time was spent unpacking, organizing less than ideal spaces, and coordinating usage of resources and space. Normal procedures regularly needed to be altered to accommodate construction schedules and space limitations, and I believe I and my student workers adapted well.
Daniela Kohen
2002-, Associate Professor. B.A., Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Ph.D., University of Notre Dame.
Teaching this year was truly a blast. I really do love all the classes I teach, but in 2017-18 I might have taught all my favorites. At least that is the way it felt. In the fall I taught “Chemistry 123 with problem solving.” This offering of intro. Chem. has additional class meetings to better support students that might benefit from this. This class is by design small (about 20 students), and this fall the group became a tight cohort of students working hard and having fun learning to appreciate “the wonders of chemistry.”
In the winter I taught Quantum Chemistry for the second time. Not only was it a privilege to share a subject that I love so deeply with many Carleton students but also, I was much better able than last year to help students learn to appreciate (and benefit from!) the manner in which concepts and math augment each other in this subject. It was surprising (at least to me!) to see how my past teaching experience allowed me to learn quickly from my mistakes and students’ feedback. To top it off, in the spring I taught “Introduction to Computational Chemistry” to a phenomenal group of students. It is such a treat to see students grow and mature intellectually as they work hard and do well in my classes!
But that is not all, those of you that know me might remember how much I love to mentor students. If so, you might appreciate how much I enjoyed teaching a first-year FOCUS Colloquium. FOCUS is a curriculum-based cohort program developed by Deborah Gross. It targets students interested in science and math who come from groups traditionally under-represented in STEM fields. As their teacher I was part of a team that provided community, support, and academic opportunities for its members while encouraging the pursuit of science and math careers. By the end of the year, it was quite clear to all of us that we had developed strong bonds that enriched everyones’ experiences. I look forward to working with all of the sophomores in FOCUS next year in their Colloquium.
Doing research with undergraduate collaborators has also been a pleasure. This summer Adam Nijhawan (’19), Brody Lynch (’20) and I continue to study zeolites (molecular sieves). 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. In some of these materials, cations act as selective trapdoors, allowing carbon dioxide but no other gases to diffuse through. Computer simulations are allowing us to gather microscopic insight into this interesting behavior. I also continue to directly collaborate with experimentalists as I venture into the world of quantum chemistry. Will DeSnoo (’19) is continuing to use computational methods to investigate mechanism and reactivity in the systems that the Whited group studies.
Family life is pretty good too. Margo (almost 16) and Sofia (almost 14) are wonderful teenagers (really — at least most of the time). Family trips and vacations help us stay pretty tight which is quite delightful.
Tamara Little
2016-; administrative assistant for Chemistry and Geology. 1996-2016 administrative assistant for AMST/ENTS/LING adding WGST(2007-2016).
Now that I have completed my second year in this position, one would think that I should be able to say I have established a routine. I don’t feel this will be true until we are finally moved into the new science building. Nothing routine about transitional spaces and moving. I did receive more assistance from Josie Arcuri ’18 when we moved into the Old Music Hall last summer. Her expertise helped set up a pretty good system for locating supplies in the shared supply room. Plus, she helped with signage and other odd jobs throughout the fall term. I will miss her skills when we move again next June.
In addition to regular office duties, I continue to be the compiler of content for this annual report and for “The Weekly Beaker”, the department’s weekly newsletter, I manage the department’s website and am the purchaser of a steady supply of cookies for the Chemistry Seminars.
My apologies for any errors you may find. I feel that I am still so new at this that each time I proof it, I find something either omitted or set up wrong. If you find errors and let me know, I would happily accept your assistance next year so that it is published correctly.
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.
The stroke is still with me. It’s been almost a year and one-half and I spend many of my waking hours using a walker. Now and again I use a cane. Cognition and speech aren’t affected much at all, but I still don’t write well. Physical therapy has been helpful. Until recently I lived alone at Village on the Cannon with two 4-hour shifts of home health care each week. A month ago I joined Adrienne at Millstream Commons, an assisted-living community. We have a nice albeit small apartment. There was a moving farewell celebration at Village on the Cannon before I left.
The Cannon Valley Elder Collegium (CVEC) was a major focus for me this year, as I continued on the Board and served on its outreach to Faribault. In the fall I taught my CVEC course on the history and chemistry of chocolate. While I couldn’t stand for two hours and sitting meant I read most of my notes, I was surprised that the course was more popular than ever. Maybe it was the spirited discussions.
Other activities during the year centered on the development of the land to the southern exposure of the Village on the Cannon. About one-third of the land will be a garden and I continued as Chair of the Board of the non-profit Cannon Village Gardens. We signed a purchase agreement in April so things should get moving in the near future.
In June I had a good time at the Carleton Reunion, having dinner with the class of 1978. I have had the good fortune to be able to keep up with many alums. In my spare time I reviewed articles for the Journal of Organic Chemistry and the Journal of Chemical Education. Conversations with good friends rounded out my activities.
Richard W. Ramette
1954-1990; Laurence M. Gould Professor of the Natural Sciences, Emeritus, 1990-. B.A., Wesleyan University; Ph.D., University of Minnesota.
Dear Classmates of 1958, at your 60th reunion,
I call you classmates because you and I were brand new to Carleton in the fall of 1954. I remember our first homecoming bonfire and the extraordinary success of the football team. While I was the newbie in Chemistry, Bob Reitz had that honor in Physics, Wayne Carver and Owen Jenkins in English, and Bob Matthews in Astronomy.
Reitz and I became lifelong pals, as did our lovely wives Joan and Lenora. We carry on as nonagenarians, sort of the Mount Everest of Aging. But while we’ve largely forgotten the Laws of Thermodynamics, we have enduring memories of the joy of teaching you in those early years, when all the faculty and students held a picnic after a full day of moving the library from Scoville to the new building, now known as Gould Library. We recognized President Larry Gould as perhaps the finest person we would ever know. I urge you to buy a copy of Hillemann’s masterful biography, “A Beacon So Bright.”
Gould used to say to incoming classes, “Carleton will always be a part of you, and you will always be a part of Carleton.” And here you are, 60 years later, to prove it! We relics wish you much happiness in your retirements from whatever you gave your all, while never retiring from the love you feel for your Alma Mater, knowing that the spirit of Carleton glows within you. rwramette@gmail.com.
Matthew T. Whited
2010-, Assistant Professor. B.A., Davidson College; Ph.D., California Institute of Technology.
This past year has been pretty different for me for a number of reasons, but no complaints. For starters, last summer was spent not doing research with students but moving my lab to temporary space in Olin that I’m sharing with Dave and Gretchen. The clock was ticking because in the fall I was fortunate to be able to teach an entirely new course: CHEM 300 – Chemistry Research. I worked with a great set of 8 students, many of whom had little experience with organometallic chemistry, and brought them in on 8 different but related projects in my lab. It really helped kick-start the research after moving, but it made for a crazy fall! Aside from always loving the research side of things, I have been working with collaborators at SERC, with support from my NSF-CAREER grant, to understand how students’ attitudes and problem-solving abilities change through course-based research experiences, so we were really excited to be able to test out some new things in that course. After that much novelty, you’d think I would have had enough, but you would be wrong. After six years, I finally weaseled my way into the Organic Chemistry teaching rotation, and I taught Orgo II twice (winter and spring). This was my first time teaching at the 200 level, and I must say it was really a phenomenal experience. I love the Orgo material and I especially love the labs.
Outside of class, I invested a significant amount of time in organizing and running an NSF workshop in March for early-career Chemistry faculty (I still feel like I should fall into that category, but alas…), with a focus on successful grant writing and strategies for blending teaching and research in authentic ways. I was helped by Gordana Dukovic (University of Colorado Boulder), a fantastic collaborator, and the workshop was a huge hit: we were forced to select only 100 PIs (from a wide variety of institutions) to attend, and we were joined by >30 NSF staff and several senior investigators who served as mentors. I suppose now I can add “event planner” to my resumé!
I also worked on a mid-career faculty development initiative at Carleton with the LTC and chaired the Admissions and Financial Aid Committee on campus, which led to my being selected to serve on the VP for Admissions Search Committee that is charged with the enormous task of replacing Paul Thiboutot (who will retire in 2019). Finally, I was privileged to have several opportunities to work with folks in the External Relations part of the College, talking with some alumni (including several chemists!) about our efforts in STEM education and how those will be supported by the new science facility that is under construction. I am working with the Campaign Launch committee right now to help plan a big kick-off to the public phase of Carleton’s campaign later this year. All in all, a super interesting (but sometimes exhausting) set of commitments!
As always, I have been thrilled to get a chance to work with a number of students in the lab (including several from my CHEM 300 class) during the past year: Senjie Ma, Paul Peterson, Jim Zhang, Isaac Martinez, Madeline Chosy, Ben Byun, Kitty Miao, Joseph Luther, Will DeSnoo, Anna Conley, Luke Westawker, and Claire Shugart. I will be continuing projects this summer with Joseph, Will, Anna, Luke, and Claire, as well as Jim Zhang who is staying on board as a 5th-year Educational Research Associate. We put out one paper last fall and are about to submit another, and I am very hopeful that my students and collaborators will keep me busy through this year and next with lots of stuff to write. Look for exciting publications from collaborative projects with Buck Taylor and Dani Kohen during the coming year as well as some very interesting first-row transition metal chemistry (a new area for us!). At least there will be plenty of time for writing when my lab is shut down for its (hopefully final) move into new space next summer.
On the home front, James just finished Kindergarten at Prairie Creek and Andrew is getting ready to start his last year of preschool. I can’t believe I have such big boys, but they are definitely a lot of fun. Charlotte continues to do excellent work in the Foundation Relations office, where she is also now in charge of compliance. We continue to love Northfield and Carleton and all that they offer personally and professionally, especially my wonderful colleagues in the Chemistry Department.
Lanhao Yang
2013-, Laboratory Manager. B.S., Henan Normal University; M.S., Wuhan University; Ph.D., The Ohio State University.
Looking back at this past school year, I have many things to be thankful for. First, I am thankful for the united effort in packing, moving, and unpacking last summer so that all lab supplies were moved out of Mudd Hall successfully and then re-organized in the current spaces timely. Thus, all labs in the fall term went well without apparent impact from the relocation. Second, I am thankful for the department’s generous support in many ways. One example is that in the past school year the stockroom was not required to be open during lab sessions (i.e., 8am-noon and 1-5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays), which granted me more flexibilities and fewer disruptions. Thanks to Julie Karg that she made lab supplies accessible in the lab areas so that students did not have to come to the stockroom for lab supplies.
Since chemistry department moved out of Mudd Hall last summer, McGough has been busy constructing the new science complex and assisting the settlement of chemistry department and others (e.g., installing power plugs, shelves, and safety stations in the temporary spaces). Certainly, it has been a new experience in the temporary spaces. In the end of the winter term, the link between Olin Hall and Hulings Hall was closed. Not until then, had I realized how little I have appreciated the link. With my office, the stockroom, and intro and organic labs located in Hulings Hall, I spent most of my days in Hulings and appreciated the opportunities to get to know people from biology department. I am grateful for biology department’s generosity in sharing their space and even lab supplies with chemistry department.
This past year I assisted labs taught by faculty who taught the labs many times and also for the first time (e.g., CHEM 224, 234, 301, 302, 306, 321, and 352). It was always a wonderful learning experience to assist professors who taught a specific lab for the first time. Each time when the lab was taught by a different instructor, the instructor brought new perspectives and approaches to various matters, which helped me discover things I overlooked before. Last year the department purchased a new GC-MS from Agilent. It was a joy to know that Agilent GC-MS has a built-in automatic tune evaluation and that some of its maintenance is simpler than the Shimadzu GC-MS we have had for many years. I’m grateful that last term and this summer I had time to learn about the instrument and wrote a few standard operation procedures–Shimadzu and Agilent GC-MS operate on different software systems.
It seems the campus is experiencing a birth pain. To prepare for the new science complex, not only construction was done in Hulings Hall and Olin Hall but trenches were dug in a few locations for geothermal plumbing. If everything goes well, next summer chemistry department will move into the new building, which I am very much looking forward to.