Summertime – and ‘easy living’ is not the first thing that comes to mind as I survey the surroundings from the Chair’s office. The storm clouds of the current economic downturn loom ominously, and we are selectively battening down the hatches. However, there is also good news; herewith then, an update on happenings in Chemistry and Biochemistry and its environs.
Chemists continue to serve in the University’s administration. With the appointment of our colleague Prof. Tom Apple, Ph. D. ’81 to the position of Provost, the top academic job at the University is once again occupied by a chemist. Tom served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for the past four years, and we anticipate that he will take his agenda for ‘education as a transformational experience’ to the next level. As we embark on the dual experiment of ‘responsibility based budgeting’ (RBB) in tough economic times, it is reassuring to have the sympathetic hand of one of our own at the helm and we look forward to continuing on the University’s Path to ProminenceTM. As part of the attendant change of leadership at the College level, Prof. Doug Doren will now serve as Interim Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences and as Associate Dean for Research. Prof. John Koh has accepted an appointment as Associate Director of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute; his charge is to facilitate and support the research activities of the life sciences community at UD.
Time marches on, and with it changes the group of people keeping the research enterprise alive. Given the widespread occurrence of hiring freezes at academic institutions this last year, I am particularly pleased to announce the arrival of two new assistant professors in the area of organic chemistry. They are Profs. Mary Watson and Donald Watson, and they arrived on campus on July 1. Both Watsons completed their
graduate work at UC Irvine, with Prof. Larry Overman; Mary went on to postdoctoral work with Prof. Eric Jacobsen at Harvard University, while Don completed his postdoctoral studies with Prof. Stephen Buchwald at MIT. Here at UD, Mary is going to build a research group focusing on the discovery of new stereoselective methods for organic synthesis using the power of both transition metal and Brřnsted acid catalysts.
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Mary P. Watson, Assistant Professor, Organic Chemistry; Ph.D. University of California, Irvine
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Don’s research will be concerned with the development of transition metal catalysts for applications in organic synthesis and alternative energy. These two young scholars add exciting new avenues to our organic chemistry division, and I look forward to seeing them prosper.
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Donald A. Watson, Assistant Professor, Organic Chemistry; Ph.D. University of California, Irvine
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On the other hand, we are inevitably losing some of our long-serving colleagues to retirement. As I mentioned in last year’s letter, Prof. Mahendra Jain will retire after 35 years as a biochemist at UD. Currently enjoying a year’s leave, Mahendra will formally retire on August 31, 2009. In addition, Roberta Colman, the Willis Harrington Professor of Biochemistry, has elected to retire at the end of 2009, after 36 years of service as a faculty member. Roberta will remain active as a researcher in biochemistry until her current students graduate. Profs. Jain and Colman have made distinguished contributions to biochemistry and to this Department. We are thankful for their dedication and collegiality and we wish them all the best in the years to come.
Unavoidably, there have been some comings and goings among our excellent departmental staff. We were sad to lose senior secretary Tracy McQueen, although the occasion was a happy one; Tracy has been accepted into the English Department and hopes to finish her degree after a ‘short hiatus’. Our search for a new machinist – to replace Jack Kelly - was finally successful;
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last October, we welcomed Mr. Derrick Allen to the Department. Derrick has 10 years of experience as a machinist and will provide crucial support to our research groups. Last, but not least, last November saw the arrival of Mrs. Judy Dellose, who has taken on the ever more important role of a grants management person in our business office. Judy came to us with a wealth of experience from the Research Office and she has hit the ground running.
 The third class of Alumni Undergraduate Research Fellows, made possible by Mr. David Plastino, announced during a dinner in their honor at the Blue and Gold Club on April 29th (from the left): Charles J. Polotti, Jr., Andrew J. Meyer, Patrick J. Straney, David Plastino, Aditya P. Bose, Valerie W. Shurtleff amd James L. White
The Department, or members thereof, have scored some notable successes in the recent past. Thus the NIH has funded a COBRE grant (ca. $10 Million over 5 years) entitled ‘Molecular Design of Advanced Biomaterials’ and centered in this Department (Prof. Thomas Beebe, PI), and very recently we learned that the long-standing ‘Chemistry Biology Interface’ training grant will be renewed for another five years. As Prof. Colman will be retiring soon, Prof. John Koh will serve as the new director of this program. Several of our faculty have been honored with prizes and awards. Thus, Prof. Svilen Bobev was awarded both the 2009 ‘Margaret C. Etter Early Career Award’ by the American Crystallographic Association and the ‘Exxon Mobile Faculty Fellowship’ in Solid State Chemistry from the American Chemical Society (a $10,000 prize). Also this past year, Prof. Murray Johnston was selected for the Benjamin Y.H. Liu Award from the American Association for Aerosol Research. We hope to build on this momentum in the year ahead.
My favorite task in this annual missive is to acknowledge the support that the Department has received during the past year from its alumni and friends. As usual, Associate Chair Prof. John Burmeister has provided more extensive coverage in a separate section of the Blue Hen Chemist, but I do want to brag about some of the high points. In what is now a tradition, Mr. David Plastino, B.S. ’78, has once again made a substantial gift to the University, underwriting both the ‘David A. Plastino Scholars Program’ at the University level and the ‘Alumni Undergraduate Research Fellows Program’ in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The latter funds the summer research of six undergraduate students, as of this writing. Also continuing a tradition, the David Lipp Family Foundation has continued its unrestricted support of the Department. This year we have used these precious funds to appoint six ‘Lipp Family Foundation Teaching Fellows’, thereby aiding our growing needs for teaching assistant positions. As a result of a substantial endowed commitment from the family of the late Dr. Brennie Hackley Jr. (M. S. ’54, Ph. D. ’57), this March we were able to award the first ever ‘Brennie E. Hackley Jr. Award’ to graduate student Juan Carlos Rodriguez-Reyes. Finally, a substantial gift from Dr. C. Frank Shaw III (B. S. ’66) has established an endowment to be used in perpetuity for an ‘Undergraduate Inorganic Research Fellowship’.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the contributions and support by so many of you who send donations throughout the year. To my delight and chagrin, the list of names is too long to be included here. However, be assured, we could not do what we do without your help. Please keep up the good work. I will close by offering a chance to reconnect personally. During the ACS meeting in Washington, DC (August 16-20) we will organize a get-together for alumni and friends of this Department (see separate announcement on p. ii). If you are going to the meeting, please stop by, say hello and meet some old friends. I look forward to seeing you there.
With best regards,
Klaus Theopold
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