Arsalan was born in Portland and went to Aloha High School. He came to OSU because of the high quality of education available here for a “fraction of the cost of other places.” During freshman orientation, he was initially registered as a biology major. When Dr. Chris Pastorek walked into the College of Science orientation and announced “All chem majors come with me,” he felt a spontaneous desire to follow her and has never looked back. His favorite instructor is Emile Firpo due to his incredible generosity. His interest in organic chemistry was sparked during the CH 334/335/336 series and he considers doing research with organic chemistry professor Paul Blakemore his best experience at OSU. His favorite course was CH 435 Spectroscopy with Chris Beaudry. After graduation, he intended to go to grad school to obtain a PhD in Chemistry and hopes to be a university professor one day. OSU and the Chemistry Department are so lucky to have talented students like Arsalan.
Monica Best has been selected as an undergrad chem major of the quarter for Fall 2012. Monica grew up in Portland, OR and attended La Salle High School. Her junior and senior-year chemistry courses in high school solidified her interest in Chemistry. When she visited OSU, she was impressed with the Chemistry Department and specifically credits Chris Pastorek with telling her all the great things going on here. She is in her junior year right now – working in Adjunct Chemistry faculty member Jennifer Field’s laboratory. She is unsure if she plans to attend graduate school, but hopes to stay in Oregon (or the Northwest) after she graduates. She is a fan of the TV crime dramas such as NCIS (particularly the lab tech Abby Sciuto) which has inspired her interest in the forensic science-chemistry option (with a toxicology minor). She has enjoyed participating in the Chemistry Club within the Department – particularly the laid back feel and the expectation that the students do the work. Her favorite courses so far have been Experimental Chemistry with Emile Firpo and John Loeser where she tells us that the student gets to be the “brain of it” – deciding what they are going to do. She is taking Physical Chemistry this term and really has enjoyed Professor Glenn Evans’ passion and enthusiasm in the classroom. Outside of chemistry, she likes going to OSU football games, swimming and waterskiing in the summer time and crafting ”everything” from picture frames to scrapbooks. She also recently joined the OSU Flying Club to learn how to fly. It is talented and diverse students like Monica that help to make the OSU Chemistry program so strong!
Josh Holmes has been selected as an undergrad chem major of the quarter for Fall 2012. Josh was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts , but grew up in Wilton, New Hampshire. Josh took a non-traditional path to OSU. While excelling in math throughout high school, he was unsure what career path to take. Consequently, he decided to work in the construction industry after graduating from high school in 2002. During that time, he became interested in snow skiing and began working as a ski lift operator. His interest in skiing ultimately brought him to the west coast (California) were he met his wife. In 2008, his wife enrolled in graduate school at OSU in geology. Josh took the opportunity to re-engage with his education and starting taking classes at LBCC in 2009. Within a year, he had matriculated to OSU where he has excelled ever sense. He enjoyed taking math classes at OSU, but it was his General Chemistry course with Dr. Phil Watson that really caught his attention – commenting that he was “blown away by it.” His interest in the fundamental aspects of chemistry drove him to work for emeritus Professor Ken Hedberg because he “wants to known deep down inside what is happening” in chemistry. Josh has enjoyed the personal attention and friendly attitude that OSU offers – providing easy access to faculty. Both of those attributes he associates with the Experimental Chemistry courses run by Emile Firpo, John Loeser and Chris Pastorek. He is unsure exactly what he wants to do after graduation, but he feels that he would like to teach in some capacity. Josh still likes to snow ski and is an accomplished musician – playing guitar in the band called the Psych Country Revue (rock and roll with a country twist). Our Department is lucky to have wonderful students like Josh who will surely inspire the next generation of chemists through their passion and enthusiasm about science!
If you ask Richard Nafshun, he’ll say that one of the quickest ways to get teenagers interested in chemistry is to put on a good show. The idea was foremost on his mind when he collaborated with local middle school teachers and Oregon State graduate students to put on the “Chemistry Show,” at the LaSells Stewart Center this spring.
And when upwards of 1200 middle-schoolers and their families showed up, he was glad he had made things interesting. The senior instructor of chemistry at Oregon State is passionate about teaching and outreach.
“We had lots of fun with exploding balloons,” he says. “So you take an uninflated balloon, hook it up to the hydrogen tank, and tie it off. You have it on a string, tape a candle to a meter stick, put the candle underneath the balloon… and BOOM!”
It wasn’t the only time sparks flew during the show’s 20 demonstrations, but for Nafshun, who holds both a master’s degree in science education and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Oregon State, the spectacle is only part of the process—learning is the other.
For the past 15 years, Nafshun has dedicated himself to creating better chemistry classes for students, especially in the lecture setting. He’s pioneered online chemistry education at Oregon State, created outreach programs for K-12 students and mentored the next generation of chemistry teachers and professors.
And he has been successful, too. Not only has Nafshun won numerous teaching awards, Oregon State students regularly approach Nafshun and tell him they remember his outreach events from their grade school or middle school years. Some even come back to volunteer with programs they experienced as grade schoolers.
“That’s a real cyclic thing,” he says. “To say, ‘Wow. You were in this program, and now you’re teaching where you’ve been taught. And you’re going to be a teacher in the future.’ It makes me feel wonderful.”
A Collaborative Experience
Nafshun discovered his passion for teaching when he was a chemistry undergraduate at California State University, Stanislaus. He was one of the few students there asked to serve as a teaching assistant—a rare thing at a university with no graduate program.
“I absolutely fell in love with being a teacher,” he says.
That love was further cemented when, that summer, Nafshun took a job working for a group that did cholesterol testing in eggs and dairy products. Although he saw value in the work, he wanted to be a part of something more collaborative.
“While the chance for development and research was there, it seemed very independent and isolated,” Nafshun says. “It didn’t seem as though I was going to be part of an institutional process to make something happen.”
Bringing passion to a profession
Now, Nafshun focuses his research on instructional methods for the large classroom, and teaches general chemistry. Many of the lessons he creates for the lecture hall reflect what he loved about chemistry as a high school student—group projects that rely on teamwork and exploration rather than rote memorization.
“It was all that time after school meeting with fellow students, and accomplishing a project and doing scholarship that I found fabulous,” he says.
Nafshun also mentors students in CH 607, his college chemistry-teaching seminar. He wants them to have the experience of engaging students in the lecture setting as well.
“We develop curriculum and labs. And then the beautiful part about it is these graduate students take over the class from one week,” Nafshun says. “So they work on a unit. They prepare. We talk about what demonstrations to do, teaching methods, everything.”
Since 1997 Nafshun has mentored nearly 20 students in the seminar setting—some of whom have gone on to use some of the methods Nafshun taught them at institutions like Evergreen, The Ohio State University, the University of Portland and Seattle Pacific, to name a few.
“I hope they’re bringing engaging instructional techniques, doing good student questioning and application-based instruction,” he says. “I hope that they’re focusing on students working in small groups. I honestly think there’s a balance in the lecture hall.”
A Home for Science
Nafshun’s input into the classroom experience isn’t the only thing that works for his students—the new Linus Pauling Science Center, which was completed in 2011, does as well. There are only seats for 178 students in the building’s lecture hall, which helps facilitate the application of some of Nafshun’s lecture content in introductory chemistry classes.
And because some of the Center’s cutting-edge research facilities like the electron microscopy lab and the nuclear magnetic resonance facility are on the main floor and encased in glass, students get a more immediate and exciting view of research in the moment.
“This year they’re coming out of the woodwork and asking about undergraduate research opportunities,” Nafshun says. “You walk down the hall and see fundamental research, stuff that matters today. Students see it, too.”
Access for Everyone
One of Nafshun’s more recent projects has been collaborating with colleagues in chemistry and computer science to develop a curriculum of general chemistry labs that are delivered online. They are currently being used in Oregon State’s Ecampus chemistry program, and Nafshun hopes that other universities might use the curriculum, too.
For Nafshun, online labs are the way of the future, and online education is a way for people to have access to education who wouldn’t otherwise, like deployed military personnel and people living in rural areas.
“I started the Ecampus chemistry program nine years ago, and saw the enrollment in the online program go from two students to 600 a term,” he says.
As for the next Chemistry Show, Nafshun is trying to figure out if there’s a venue in Corvallis that will hold an even bigger crowd.
Popular Mechanics’ prediction took considerably more than 10 years to come true, but today’s flat-panel screens have gone well beyond that early vision. Some of them are nearly as big as a living room wall. They bring us unimaginably sharp detail, from the spots on butterfly wings to the grimace on a linebacker’s face.
This technology — whether hooked up to your cable feed, DVD player, wi-fi or computer — is also becoming integral to daily life. It increasingly provides the platforms on which we shop, share photos, read books, keep up with friends, play games, manage finances and work. In 2011, the global flat-panel screen industry shipped more than $120 billion worth of products, enough to cover nearly 16,000 football fields.
However, our love of flashy high-res has a dark side. Manufacturing the semiconductors behind these electronic systems produces waste, lots of it. “The electronics and solar industries build devices where the materials input is very high relative to what ends up in the product. There’s tremendous amounts of waste and very high energy input,” says Doug Keszler, Oregon State University chemist.
Keszler and a team of scientists and engineers at Oregon State and the University of Oregon are leading a national consortium bent on greening the flat-panel display industry. In their future, windows, mirrors, walls and counters could display messages and harvest solar energy. “We’re trying to turn this industry into a truly zero-waste proposition while improving performance,” says Keszler, a principal scientist in the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry (CSMC). “We’d like to do electronics the size of a wall. The question is: How do you do that efficiently without producing even more waste?”
Startups Provide Jobs
The CSMC has already produced significant results: a metal-insulator-metal diode (a kind of electronic switch) that outperforms the fastest silicon-based semiconductors; water-based manufacturing techniques that reduce waste and improve productivity; high-resolution fabrication processes that forge thinner electronic components. With research roots going back more than a decade at OSU and UO, the center has spun off two startup companies, generated more than a dozen U.S. patents and developed an educational partnership to inspire more Oregon high school students to attend college. It also helps graduates to create their own careers. In cooperation with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, CSMC students join business leaders in the chemical and electronics industries to identify commercial opportunities stemming from research.
“About two-thirds of all Ph.D. graduates in the physical sciences now find their first job in a startup company,” says Keszler. “There is very little education to prepare students for that career path. We train them to recognize market value in their research, so they can work effectively with entrepreneurs and business development people.”
Two startups have already hired the center’s graduates. Amorphyx (www.amorphyx.com) is commercializing a new electronics manufacturing process that limits the production of unwanted industrial byproducts. Moreover, it trims a six-part process to two steps, offering the possibility of tripling production capacity in an existing facility.
In collaboration with another spinoff, Inpria (www.inpria.com), the center has broken a barrier in high-resolution circuitry, going below the 20-nanometer scale and enabling computer chips to accommodate more functions at higher speeds.
These achievements reflect gains reported by Oregon State engineer John Wager, physicist Janet Tate, graduate student Randy Hoffman and other researchers as early as 2003. They noted that transparent thin-film transistors made of zinc oxide could lead to new kinds of liquid-crystal displays, the dominant type of flat-panel screen. In 2006, HP licensed the technology and has been developing applications in collaboration with OSU.
At UO in 2003, researchers in Darren Johnson’s chemistry lab discovered a solution-based process for making nanoclusters, leading to the possibility that new semiconductors could be made without hazardous chemicals. Jason Gatlin, the UO graduate student who discovered the process, instigated a new UO-OSU collaboration when he shared his findings at a conference sponsored by the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute.
“We’re pushing the boundaries of science and seeing things no one has ever seen before,” says Keszler. “There’s a lot of joy in the intellectual exchanges in such a diverse group.”
To attract more young scientists to their journey, CSMC students will begin working with Hermiston High School teacher Lisa Frye and her chemistry classes this fall. They will provide support, advanced instruction and resources to inspire high-school students to consider careers in science.
“What we’re after over the next 10 years,” says Keszler, “is to put the (industrial) ecosystem together that allows you to print electronics on flexible glass. They will be high performance, durable, and include applications such as solar collectors.”
We’ve come a long way from the futuristic idea of hanging TV screens like paintings on the walls of our homes.
Sam Bartlett has been selected as an undergrad chem major of the quarter for Spring 2012. Sam was born in Sunnyside, WA but was raised in Lake Oswego, OR until 4th grade when he moved to Corvallis. He attended Crescent Valley High School. Sam picked OSU because of its strong reputation, the in-state tuition costs and wanting to stay close to home. He initially was a biology major, but the first term of Organic Chemistry from Dr. Daniel Myles showed him that his real interests were in Chemistry. Sam cites Prof. Carter (for CH 336) and his current advisor, Chris Beaudry (for his instruction in CH 471 and CH 535) as his two favorite professors. Sam has conducted extensive undergraduate research during his time at OSU. In fact, Sam and Professor Beaudry have published a paper on his research in the Journal of Organic Chemistry – a major accomplishment for an undergraduate student. Sam is very grateful for this experience – particularly commenting that Professor Beaudry’s insights were valuable and he is very grateful for his help in getting into grad school. Sam has really enjoyed the community in the Department – feeling that it is like a close knit family. Sam will be starting graduate school this summer in Organic Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Professor Jeff Johnson. UNC-Chapel Hill is regarded as one of the top programs in his field and we congratulate Sam on all his accomplishments to date. It is students like Sam that make OSU Chemistry as strong as it is today!!
Matthew Stolt has been selected as an undergrad chem major of the quarter for Spring 2012. Matt was born and raised in Oregon – growing up in the Beaverton area. He attended Jesuit High School. He cites his big brother as a significant influence in his life including encouraging him to attend Jesuit High School as well as Oregon State University. While he came to OSU initially to be a Chemistry Engineering major, one of his friends, Evan, got him interested in becoming a Chemistry major. Matt has been conducting undergraduate research with Mas Subramanian since his sophomore year. He initially worked closely with senior graduate student Geneva Laurita-Plankis; however, he is now working on an independent project within Professor Subramanian’s lab. He specifically mentioned emeritus professor Glenn Evans as his favorite teacher. He described Dr. Evans has “unbelievably challenging,” but he did a wonderful job of making sure that the students really “know” the material. Matt plans to continue his education after graduation – likely getting a PhD in materials / inorganic chemistry. He would like to thank all the faculty and students he has worked with during his time here as well as his study group and friends for their support. We congratulate Matt on all his accomplishments to date and he is a wonderful part of the Chemistry program at OSU!
Mai Doung is a senior undergraduate student in the Chemistry Department at Oregon State University and has been selected a Winter 2012 Chem Major of the Term. Mai grew up in Portland, OR and graduated from David Douglas High School. When applying for college, she selected OSU after having been awarded the first Sally Runes-Hicks Scholarship (http://osufoundation.org/campaignupdate/2010/apr/impact.htm). Her interest in chemistry was sparked by her high school chemistry teacher Renee Gibb. Since her time at OSU, her favorite chemistry courses have been in the area of organic chemistry because, as Mai is quick to point out, “it made the most sense to me.” She is currently conducting research in Claudia Maier’s laboratory where she works with mass spectrometry instruments. For fun, Mai enjoys hiking and hanging out with her friends. She is a chemistry major with an education option and hopes to become a high school chemistry teacher when she graduates. Students like Mai will help to inspire the next generation to focus on the sciences and we are honored to have her as a Chemistry major in our Department and a student at OSU!
Corey Wright is a senior undergraduate student in the Chemistry Department at Oregon State University and has been selected a Winter 2012 Chem Major of the Term. Corey grew up in Dallas, OR on a small farm. His interest in chemistry started during high school and he has had a long standing desire to become a medical doctor. He hopes to enroll in medical school in Fall 2013. Corey has excelled in his courses with his favorite chemistry classes to date being “Organic chemistry lab with Emile” and Quantum Theory with Professor Wei Kong. This unusual combination of favorite courses likely contributed to his current research project which is a collaboration between emeritus faculty members Joe Nibler (a physical chemist) and Jim White (an organic chemist). In his spare time, Corey likes to play soccer and music as well as interact with new international students. He has been to Mozambique twice to do charitable work – once with an orphanage and once with street boys. Corey feels he is blessed to have the education and opportunities he has had at OSU and we are honored to have such high achieving students amongst our ranks!
When Sam Bartlett, an Oregon State University senior in chemistry, put on his lab coat, goggles and latex gloves in the summer of 2010, he didn’t expect to wind up helping organic chemists around the world.
OSU undergraduate Sam Bartlett, right, used the tools of organic chemistry — reflux condenser, thin-layer chromotography, nuclear magnetic resonance — to develop a new synthetic chemistry method. He works with Assistant Professor Chris Beaudry in the new Linus Pauling Science Center. (Photo: Karl Maasdam)
With guidance from Chris Beaudry, assistant professor of chemistry, he developed the most efficient and productive method yet reported for a fundamental step commonly used to synthesize new molecules.
Bartlett and Beaudry published their findings in October in the Journal of Organic Chemistry. The research has already drawn the attention of pharmaceutical scientists and has potential in fields from nanotechnology to biochemistry.
“If you’re a synthetic chemist and you want to build complicated molecular architectures – a pharmaceutical, a new material for nanotechnology, a new probe for a biological system – you need to make new chemical bonds,” Beaudry said. “This oxidation is convenient to do, very mild, operationally simple and high yielding. It is the solution to this problem.”
Bartlett’s discovery started with a chance meeting. The student from Corvallis, Oregon, was taking an advanced chemistry course from Beaudry and happened to meet the professor in the Interzone, an off-campus coffee shop. “I asked him if he had any research opportunities in his lab,” Bartlett said.
“I suggested that Sam look into this problem,” Beaudry recalled. “There was some indication that we had a lead hit on how to solve it. Sam took it and ran with it.”
The problem was to convert one commonly used compound (beta-hydroxyketone) to another (beta-diketone). Both are fundamental starting points in the synthesis of more complex organic molecules. Previous methods produced unwanted byproducts and only 30 to 35 percent of the desirable molecule, says Beaudry.
Bartlett found that an oxidant called IBX (o-iodoxybenzoic acid) converts nearly 100 percent of the beta-hydroxyketone to the beta-diketone, thus saving chemists time – and simplifying the synthesis process.
Bartlett, who graduated from Crescent Valley High School, is applying for graduate school, where he intends to focus on synthetic organic chemistry.
“I just like the search for new knowledge,” said Bartlett. “There’s a lot we still don’t know. There are problems out there we still need to solve. Even if I don’t find a solution, I’m contributing to the scientific community.”
Bartlett had support for his research from two programs: the Undergraduate Research, Innovation, Scholarship & Creativity program sponsored by the OSU Research Office, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship. He is continuing to work in Beaudry’s lab in the new Linus Pauling Science Center on steps to make a natural plant compound that has potential anti-fungal and anti-inflammatory properties.
