BARNARD COLLEGE
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NEWSLETTER
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NEWS OF THE FACULTY & STAFF
Last July, Prof. Chapman attended the XXI Conference on the Dynamics of Molecular Collisions in beautiful Santa Fe. Two of her research mentors, collaborators, and friends, Bill Miller (UC Berkeley) and Dick Zare (Stanford), were special honorees. In August, she was an organizer and speaker at a symposium on her ADVANCE project at the Boston ACS meeting.
Christian will be chemistry department chair beginning July 1 and is particularly interested in moving forward with construction of two new laboratories on the 8th floor in the space formerly occupied by the chemistry library. This fall he will be back to teaching the second-semester organic chemistry course. Christian and his wife, Christine, send greetings to former students and other friends of the department. Their children are growing up fast: Alice is now 7, in first grade, and just lost her front tooth. Sidney, a third-grader who turns 9 this month, plays Pedro in her class's production of “Tio Nacho.” Lewis, 3 ½, loves macabre stories like the Grimm Brothers' version of Hansel and Gretel and Poe's Annabel Lee.
For the upcoming summer, Xiao Yu Mo '09 returns to work on the computational aspects of chlorocarbene additions to cyclooctyne, a project begun by Sarah Bernard '07 that the Merrer group hopes to wrap up shortly. Xiao will be joined by new group members Jen Schloss '09, Linda Suen '10, and Stephanie Zaleski '11, who will assume the reins in the wet lab. Hopes are high for a fun and productive summer and year ahead. Finally, Dina wishes the new graduates a hearty congrats, and hopes all Chem/Biochem alums are doing well. Drop a line to say hello!
Prof. John Magyar joined the department July 1, 2007, and immediately began work with research students. Mira Atanassova '08 and Emily Miller '08 worked in the lab last summer and continued through the academic year. Alex Athan '08 joined the group in September and Lhamo Tshering '08 started in January. Mira completed a wonderful senior thesis on electron transfer in cytochrome c, presenting her work at the ACS spring meeting in New Orleans. Prof. Magyar is grateful to all four students for helping to get research off to a roaring start! This summer, four students have joined the Magyar group, Jenna Bass '11, Elizabeth Edwards '10, Nicole Mizrahi '10, and Sara Sasson '11, all studying aspects of microbial metal uptake. Prof. Magyar’s Petroleum Research Fund proposal was recently recommended for funding.
On a personal note, Olympia and her husband Shahe feel blessed to see their son and his family and daughter and her family being happy and doing well. Their four grandchildren, two from each couple, joyfully keep Shahe and Olympia quite busy during the weekends.
On the
home front, his wife Joanna has been invested as a chazzanit (Cantor)
at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and has taken a
position at Congregation Rodeph Torah in Marlboro NJ. This summer will be
frantic as the Alexanders make the exciting move to join many of our
students as New Jerseyans!
Last July, with support from a Barnard Faculty Travel Grant, Toby participated in the 16th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies in Trondheim, Norway, where she gave a paper “The Hall Family and Ethiopia: A Century of Involvement.” The paper is an outgrowth of Toby’s “academic hobby” connection with Ethiopian history. The conference was most interesting, in a beautiful setting. Toby (and her husband) enjoyed the trip. After hectic months of planning, Toby’s daughter Razelle '01, a first-grade teacher at P.S. 173 in Manhattan, was married in December to Dov Weinstein, the founder and director of the Tiny Ninja Theater, which presents Shakespeare and other plays using puppetry (tinyninjatheater.com).
Part-time faculty this year included veterans Frances Feerst, Craig Allen, and Grace Lee, and newcomer Jim Farmar. Student satisfaction in the multi-section lab courses is very high, in large part due to the dedicated work of these fine instructors. Frances Feerst is retiring this year. We thank her for all her excellent work in general chemistry and other courses over the last 20 years. We will miss her, and we wish her the very best. NEWS OF FORMER FACULTY We were very pleased that Ann Shinnar, Burt Goldberg, Steve DeMeo, and Dorothy Brand were all able to attend Les Lessinger’s retirement party. Linda Doerrer is finishing up her second year as an assistant professor at Boston University and enjoying it very much. This fall she taught Chem 101 (literally) to first-year undergraduates who were mostly biology majors. The department was pleased with her efforts such that she's been asked to teach the chemistry majors in general chemistry this coming year. Her research group has 4 graduate students, 4 undergraduates, and 2 high school students this summer. She and her partner bought a condominium in Cambridge this past year and are now coaxing morning glories to grow in window boxes. Linda can cycle to work about eight months out of the year, subject to traffic snarls around Fenway Park. Heidi Reese, who went to Law School a few years after teaching at Barnard, is now a patent attorney working in California. Not long ago, she ran into Rebecca Begley '97 in the Bay area. click here to continue on to the "Alumnae News" section |
Prof.
Sally Chapman enjoyed teaching Structure,
Bonding, and Spectroscopy to a record-size class this fall. The course
culminated with individual projects using PC-Spartan. Quantum calculations
that required a mainframe computer a decade ago, when she last taught the
course, are easily done on a PC today. In the spring she taught
Introduction to Thermodynamics and Kinetics to another large class,
along with the more advanced course, Methods and Applications in Physical
Chemistry. Prof. Chapman traveled to Yale this fall to attend a
chemistry graduate school reunion, where she was on a panel about the future
of higher education in science. She also participated in a review of the
chemistry program at Wesleyan. She continues work promoting women in
academic chemistry, through COACh and an NSF-ADVANCE grant.
Prof.
Leslie Lessinger taught General Chemistry
in the fall and Quantitative and Instrumental Techniques in the
spring. We are sorry to report that he is back on chemotherapy for his
pancreatic cancer. He loves teaching, but regrets that the uncertainty
about his future health compels him to retire at the end of this academic
year. He had fun at his retirement party, and much appreciates the many
expressions of support he has received from alumnae and students.
Prof.
Dina Merrer spent 2007-08 reacquainting herself
with the large Organic lecture courses, which she
hadn’t taught since 2004, and enjoyed them immensely. Her group continues
to flourish, with five students last summer and fall, and six this spring.
They finished the benzocyclopropene project with a full paper in J. Org.
Chem. [Khrapunovich, Marina; Zelenova, Ekaterina; Seu, Lillian; Sabo,
Alexis N.; Flaherty, Aidan; Merrer, Dina C., Regioselectivity and Mechanism
of Dihalocarbene Addition to Benzocyclopropene, J. Org. Chem. 2007,
72, 7574-7580]. This momentous occasion was celebrated by a
ceremonial cleansing of the dreadful BCP odors from the lab. Last June,
Dina was invited to give a talk on her group’s research at the Physical
Organic Gordon Conference, and she delivered a departmental seminar at
Columbia Chemistry in March; both talks were very well received. Thesis
students Denise Napolitano, Sonia Ortiz, and
Kaitlyn Suski (all '08)
presented their research on halocarbene additions to strained
Prof.
Matthew Birck has been busy this year. Most
importantly, his wife, Linda, gave birth to a baby girl in February: Sophia
Juliet. She has been keeping both of them tired but happy for the past few
months. On campus, he had another bumper crop of students take his
biochemistry lecture and he debuted his new laboratory manual in the
laboratory course with several new experiments and improvements on the old
ones. Prof Birck was also responsible for the coordination of the Senior
Honors Thesis program this year. With the continued help of
Rebecca Israel
'08
and Dara Wilensky
Olympia
Jebejian co-directs the General Chemistry
Laboratories with Dr. Jacob Alexander. She teaches in the laboratory,
grades reports, and supervises the overall preparations for the laboratory
experiments. Additionally she taught the problem-solving help class. In
the spring, Ms. Jebejian taught in the Quantitative and Instrumental
Techniques courses with Prof. Les Lessinger and the assistance of Mrs.
Suqing Liu. The enrollment was high and the grading of the elaborate lab
reports along with a lot of office hours kept Olympia rather busy. However,
teaching these rising chemistry and biochemistry majors makes her very
challenged and rewarded. In the summers Olympia teaches chemistry in the
Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). She is very gratified when
some of these students take chemistry during the academic year and do well.
She was so happy to see one of her previous HEOP students (a chemistry
major) win a prestigious Goldwater scholarship. Olympia also is a first-year
and sophomore academic adviser.
Dr.
Jacob Alexander continues as a co-director of the
General Chemistry laboratory program. He comments “This year’s delightful
class kept us on our toes and was a pleasure to supervise as they worked
diligently in the lab.” In the spring, Dr. Alexander worked hard with his
students in Molecules and Matter, preparing for general chemistry in
the fall. He was thrilled to be involved with several graduating seniors in
the Senior Seminar. Their hard work was reflected in presentations
of very high caliber. In between teaching, rumor has it that Dr. Alexander
joined Prof. Chapman and others in a rowdy songfest at President Shapiro’s
going away party. Who knew that chemists could sing and dance?
Dr.
Meena Rao writes: “Spring 2008 was one of the best
Introductory Organic Lab classes I ever taught. It was just a magical
semester. Modern Techniques Lab in the fall was also a great class.
Students chose an important drug and made presentations about its discovery,
brief synthesis and characterization. All instructors and students enjoyed
the process tremendously. On a personal note: My son Gautam is graduating
from high school as Valedictorian. A baby when I started teaching at
Barnard, he will be entering Columbia this fall. My daughter, Gowri, will
also be part of the Columbia community, starting her M.B.A. at Columbia
Business School this Fall. I am very happy to say that Gautam was selected
for the ACS Outstanding Chemistry student award, continuing the tradition
set by his sister. My husband is enjoying traveling all over teaching a
course that he developed.”
Dr.
Toby Berger Holtz '67 teaches
laboratories in general chemistry in the fall and organic in the spring, in
addition to laboratory office hours, organic lab preparation, serving as
department Safety Officer, and advising first-years and sophomores.
“Teaching and interacting with students is always exciting. You learn
something new every day,” she writes.
SuQing
Liu, who ably assists with the biochemistry,
integrated, and quantitative analysis labs at Barnard, has nearly finished
her Ph.D. studies at the graduate center at CUNY. She and her husband,
Anjing, are proud of our their daughter who just received her M.D. from
Columbia. She will do her general surgery residency at SUNY Downstate/Kingscounty
Hospital in Brooklyn.
Dr.
Jean Vadakkan taught Advanced Organic Chemistry
this spring, since Prof. Rojas was on leave. Students found the course
challenging and satisfying. Jean teaches in the organic labs.