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Doctoral candidate wins UD's Joel L. Silver Award
10:33 a.m., June 1, 2006--Lisa Haines, a UD doctoral candidate considered a natural in the lab and in the classroom, finished first in the 33rd annual Silver Award Symposium held Thursday, May 18, in Brown Laboratory. Ironically, the namesake of the Silver Award, the late Joel L. Silver, was very different than Haines. “Joel was not a Lisa Haines. Joel got to where he was by dint of hard, hard work, and he had succeeded,” John L. Burmeister, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Silver's doctoral mentor, said. “He had persevered, and the end was in sight. “ Unfortunately, Burmeister said, Silver was killed in 1971, just when his future appeared brightest. Silver had completed his graduate research studies, and had started to write his doctoral dissertation. He had just purchased a brand new sports car and was engaged to marry. He was killed instantly when his new car was crushed in a collision with a dump truck. “It was simply awful,” Burmeister said. “I was so distraught over what had happened to Joel that I tried to think of something to do.” Burmeister took the extraordinary step of completing Silver's dissertation so Silver could receive a posthumous doctoral degree. “I'm probably one of a very small number of people who have written two complete doctoral dissertations in chemistry,” he allowed. Burmeister, who remembered that he had won a similar award during his graduate studies at Northwestern University, took another step that honors his late student even 33 years later. He sought contributions to endow the Silver Symposium, a fixture in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry since 1973. This year's competition, involving 12 presentations, was the largest in symposium history and four awards were made. “The presentations were so extraordinarily good that, even with four awards, the judges labored extremely long before they were able to make a decision,'' Burmeister said. The jury, composed of academic and industry representatives of each major research area, judged the participants on the basis of research quality and presentation. Haines, the first place winner, was awarded $300 for her research presentation titled, “Light Activated Hydrogel Formation via the Triggered Folding and Self-Assembly of a Designed Peptide.” Her adviser is Joel Schneider, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. Christopher Micklitsch, another Schneider advisee, was the second place winner. He was awarded $100 for his presentation, “Hydrophobic Residue Identity Modulates beta-Hairpin Hydrogel Properties” William Dougherty, the third place winner, was awarded $50 for his research entitled, “Synthesis, Structure and Reactivity of Nickel-Nickel Complexes for Understanding the A-cluster in Acetyl Coenzyme A Synthase.” His adviser is Charles Riordan, department chairperson. Honorable mention was awarded to Shalini Balakrishnan for her presentation, “Design of New Protein Kinase Probes Using Lanthanide Binding Peptides.” Neal Zondlo, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was Balakrishnan's adviser. Each year, Burmeister said, he mails a copy of the symposium program to Silver's sister in upstate New York. “ It's a good end derived from a bad beginning,” he said. Article by Kathy Canavan |
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