Prof. Paul Blakemore presenting plaque to Dr. Dale Boger
This year’s James D White Lecturer was Professor Dale Boger from the Scripps Research Institute. He is a world-renown synthetic organic and medicinal chemist who has successfully taken multiple compounds into advanced clinical trials. His talk was on the important anticancer compound vinblastine. Professor Boger’s lab has developed an amazing (and short) synthetic approach to make this compound. Equally impressive, they have discovered an analogue that is active in vinblastine resistant cell lines. The afternoon before the seminar, we had a wonderful gathering at Jim’s house where all the students got to interact with Dale in a casual setting over some great food. Dale is a wonderful, engaging individual and was a great choice for this event!
Dr. Dale Boger presenting his seminar at the White Honorary Symposium
General chemistry students in honors and majors-only laboratory courses are required to write a letter in lieu of a traditional laboratory report for one of their laboratory projects. The students use the letter to explain their results to a recipient whom they are told does not necessarily have background in science. This requirement to explain their laboratory results in nonscientific terms causes the students to think more thoroughly about the underlying concepts involved. Indeed, survey results indicate that 94% of the laboratory students polled felt they had gained a deeper understanding when they wrote the letter as opposed to a traditional laboratory report. The details of the assignment will be discussed along with students’ survey responses.
The laboratory activity chosen for this letter-writing project involved testing for lead contamination in urban soils via atomic absorption spectroscopy. This provided a viable means of incorporating a service-learning aspect into the project. Students indicated that they put forth a more substantial effort in writing the letter knowing it would be sent to an actual recipient, not only the student’s TA and/or laboratory instructor. Thus, this project combines the nontraditional laboratory pedagogical approach of letter writing with a service-learning component. How this leads to students attaining a deeper understanding and facilitates better student engagement and ownership will be discussed.
Today’s graduate students have a valuable set of both technical and creative skills suited for many technological industries. There are many avenues in this area for graduate students to consider and pursue when entering the work force and start-up companies can be the ideal setting. However, marketing one’s self to companies, developing networking skills, and choosing the right company with which to pursue a career pose challenges.
What are the pros/and cons of working in a startup? What are the right strategies to find, network, and land a job at a company?
The Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry (CSMC) will host a webinar titled: “Postgraduate Career Strategies: Start-up” as part of the ongoing series of Innovation Webinars. Panelists from start-up companies will discuss the current landscape of a start-up and the transition from working in an academic lab setting to working in a start-up company. Panelists will be available to answer questions regarding current expectations for recent graduates, points to consider when searching for jobs as well as alternative non-research opportunities within a start-up company.
Join our panelists, Dr. Bastiaan Driehuys (Duke University), Dr. Sean Muir (Amorphyx) and Dr. Calden Carroll (SupraSensor) as they discuss this important topic in a round table discussion.
Title:
CSMC Webinar “Postgraduate Career Strategies: Start-up”
Date:
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Time:
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM PDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 8, 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet
Marie Krysak, Intel Corporation – Monday, April 21, 2014, 3:00pm, 212 Kearney
Investigation of metal-oxide based nanoparticle resists for EUV lithography
Abstract:
The semiconductor industry has been driven by Moore’s law, which states that the number of transistors on integrated circuits will double approximately every two years. A key factor in the continued scaling of transistors is the use of lithography to pattern various device features. The industry has consistently developed new lithographic exposure tools, using shorter wavelengths to achieve higher resolution patterns. One promising candidate for next-generation lithography and the extension of Moore’s Law is extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). Resist materials innovation is required to enable the use of EUVL in production. This talk will focus on our efforts to assess metal oxide-based nanoparticles as novel EUV resists, and their potential advantages over organic-based chemically amplified resists. Spectroscopic techniques such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) were used to probe the patterning mechanism of these materials. Resist formulations have been evaluated using EUV exposures. These results and the mechanistic insights they provide will be discussed.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Krysak is currently a process engineer in the Components Research department at Intel Corporation. She is in the novel materials group, focusing on research areas essential to pushing the limits of innovation for the semiconductor industry. She received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry in 2007 from Rochester institute of Technology, and her masters and PhD in Chemistry in 2012 from Cornell University.
Weihong Tan will be presenting a seminar titled, “The Foundation of Molecular Medicine: A Chemical Biology Approach” in LPSC 402 at 4pm, Monday, March 31, 2014.
Dr. Lerner’s booth before the other staffers arrived. (photo courtesy of Mike Lerner)
I attended the 31st International Battery Seminars in March. One the one hand, I presented a short review of current academic research on graphene in energy storage applications. My conclusions were that “gen-2” graphenes, with tailored functional edges and basal surfaces, present a possible route towards dense, electrically and thermally conductive composite hierarchical structures for battery or supercapacitor electrodes. And also that this is no secret, there is a lot of research activity ongoing all over the globe.
On the other hand, I manned an OSU exhibitor booth extolling the virtues of our soon-to-be-offered online course called “Chemistry and Materials of Batteries and Supercapacitors”. There was an encouraging level of interest from large and small companies, governmental agencies, and other academics. I hope we’ll get a mix of students from these sources; among other advantages it will make for interesting class discussions.
Finally, the conference itself was fantastic. One could feel, almost palpably, the pull from industry for better batteries to meet the demands of the electric vehicle and smart grid markets. At the same time, we heard from many contributors that the existing technology and its logical extensions will not likely get us there — that major and fundamental advances in materials and chemistry are needed. What does this all mean? For one thing, it’s a very good time to be a battery chemist!
Professor Ognjen Miljanic of University of Houston will present a seminar entitled, “Self-Sorting and Compartmentalization in Dynamic Combinatorial Libraries” on Thursday, March 13th at 5pm in LPSC 402.
Mr. Andrew Ferreira will present a CH 633 Seminar entitled, “Preparation of 1,2,3,4,5-Substituted Cyclopentanes in the Total Synthesis of Natural Products,” on Monday March 10th at 4:15pm in LPSC 402.
