CONGRATULATIONS - 2012 Graduates

John Abdou Stanley Hiew

Margaret Abercrombie Allen Kim

Jennifer Brousseau Sarah Ludwig

Ryan Cheu Ryan Lynch (Dec)

Charles Denault Andrew Martinolich

James Ellis Megan Morisada

Carmelino Galang Elena Naderzad

Rachel Gate Marc Nakashima

Max Giammona Fritz Seidl

Paul Henry Dustyn Uchiyama

Jessica is second from right, front row

Chemical Connections

www.scu.edu/chemistry The official newsletter of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053

EMAIL: jgilbert@scu.edu TELEPHONE: (408) 554-4799

SCU graduate Jessica Koehne - among recipients of the Presidential

Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Editor’s Note: We are delighted to congratulate Jessica for her accomplishment and award, and greatly appreciate her

generosity in sharing her career highlights

Since graduating from the SCU Department of Chemistry in 2000, my career has led me on an

exciting journey. Although I have experienced some

challenges along the way, my foundation in

chemistry from SCU has given me the skills and confidence to adapt and seek

opportunity.

I am currently a research scientist for the NASA Ames Center for

Nanotechnology where I develop biosensors for crew health and water quality

monitoring applications. My research is truly interdisciplinary giving me the

opportunity to work closely with electrical engineers, chemical engineers,

materials scientists, biologists and medical doctors. I also support many

programs through the NASA Office of Education, where I am given the

opportunity to mentor students who are often unsure of career paths in

science. Working with students frequently reminds me of myself at that stage

of my career. In the SCU Department of Chemistry, we are so fortunate to

have the most dedicated group of faculty who are eager to guide and mentor

young aspiring scientists on everything from experimental design to career paths to proper ethical conduct for scientists.

I aspire to pass on the same guidance and values to students coming through my lab.

2012 has been the most exciting year of my professional career thus far. In July, I was awarded a Presidential Early

Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), which took me to the White House to meet President Obama and

White House Science and Technology Advisor John Holdren. After getting the news that I was receiving the award, I

immediately shared the announcement with the SCU Department of Chemistry through an e-mail to Dr. Shachter. Much

of my career path and values are rooted in the education and experiences I had while in the department. For the official

White House press release, go to http://wh.gov/Cxdm

2012 GRAND REUNION

The department thanks the following alumni and guests for

joining us at a wine and cheese reception on Grand Reunion

weekend:

Frank DeLorenzo Keoni Murphy Jean Sugikawa Fujiki Peter Reck Cynthia Gonzalves Richard Saita Patty Hora John Takla

A BIG thank you to Keoni Murphy for encouraging his

friends from the class of ’82 to attend the department

reception. Hope you will join us at future Grand Reunions.

Vol. 9 December, 2012

In this issue Award Winner 1

Chair’s Corner 2 Chem Club 3

Sigma X 3

Awards 4

New Courses 5

Faculty News 6

Alumni Corner .9

Donations Report 9

Seminar Program 10

From the Chair’s Corner Jack Gilbert

The past year has again been an

exciting time for the faculty, staff,

and students of our department. I

hope that this column serves to share

some of that excitement with you.

New Faculty From the stand-point of

faculty news, we are delighted to

welcome Paul Abbyad to the

department as a tenure-track assistant professor. Paul is a

biophysical chemist who joins us after earning his Ph.D. at

Stanford University and doing postdoctoral work at the Ecole

Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, for several years. More

information about Paul’s background and research interests is

provided elsewhere in this newsletter.

The addition of Paul brings the number of our tenure-stream

faculty members to 11. Three are full professors, four are

associate professors, and the remaining four are assistant

professors. In addition, two full-time administrators, Dennis

Jacobs, University Provost, and Atom Yee, Dean of the

College of Arts & Sciences, hold positions as full professors

in our department as well.

Department Majors In last year’s newsletter, I noted that

the number of our chemistry/biochemistry majors was 119, an

all-time high. This figure continues to increase, as it now

stands at 141, about two-thirds of whom are majoring in

biochemistry. We are beginning to bulge at the seams in the

truest sense, but are making every effort to accommodate our

majors not only in classrooms but in research laboratories as

well. Although we don’t truly understand the basis for the

increase, it may be associated with renewed emphasis on

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

majors. In this context, we see growing numbers of students in

our service courses (general and organic chemistry).

Comparing enrollments from five years ago with those this

fall, for example, the number of students in general and

organic chemistry has risen from 411 and 138 students,

respectively, in 2007 to 547 and 238 this year.

Once they graduate, what are our students doing?

The way to find this out is to visit

http://www.scu.edu/cas/chemistry/students/Senior-

Brochure.cfm and read the documents that are there. For

example, what you’ll see for last year’s 21 seniors who appear

in the brochure, most are planning to continue on to graduate

or professional school after working (or resting!) for a year or

more. The career plans include a law degree and an MBA, an

indication that a degree in chemistry/biochemistry can lead in

a number of directions.

Award Winners As you know, our faculty place a high priority on quality teaching, so we were particularly pleased

that Elisabeth Thomas, an academic staff member, received

the Dr. David E. Logothetti Teaching Award from the College

of Arts and Sciences this year. This award is given “In

recognition of having established among colleagues and

students a well-deserved reputation for an energetic,

engaging, and effective teaching style, and having

demonstrated the ability to motivate other teachers and

learners.” Elisabeth fits this description to a tee, having been

an outstanding instructor in our general chemistry program for

some 20 years, and thousands of students have benefited from

her caring instruction. I would note that this is the first time

that a staff member has received this teaching award!

Our alumni and students have been garnering awards too. As

noted above, Jessica Koehne (2000) was one of 96 recipients

of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and

Engineers. Emilee Sena (2011) won an NSF Graduate

Research Fellowship in this year's competition; Stan Hiew

(2012) was awarded an Honorable Mention. I'm delighted to

tell you that Stan has been named as the winner of the Gerald

and Sally DeNardo Senior Prize in Science Research and

Brett Yurash is one of this year’s DeNardo Science Scholars.

Please join me in congratulating them as well as Amelia

Fuller their research mentor.

External Review Finally, the department is engaging in

preparations for an external review, wherein two or more

faculty members from other universities will assess our

program and provide feedback, pro and con, to ourselves and

administrators. The assessments can be of considerable value,

as reflected in the last time such as review was performed.

One of the key recommendations was that we offer more

upper-division electives for our majors. Fortunately, the

administration agreed to this, and we are now able to offer

two such electives, up from one, each year. We need to

increase this figure to at least three, and efforts are underway

to do so.

Parting Note This year marks my last as chair of the

department. It has been a great pleasure for me to serve in this

capacity since January 2007, as it has brought me into contact

with a number of faculty, staff,

and administrators from

throughout the university as well

as our alums. I look forward to

supporting my successor, who

will be selected by the end of the

spring quarter. I am confident that

whoever it is will provide

exceptional leadership during

her/his term as chair. For my own

part, I thank you for all the

support you provide to the

department.

Chem Club Accolade:

Kudos to Dr. Linda Brunauer for her mentorship of the

SCU Chem Club. The SCU Chem Club continued its

20-year uninterrupted string of awards from the

American Chemical Society this year, adding a

Commendable Chapter Award to our collection of

plaques!

This year, besides sponsoring a new “Sweetest Day”

pie event and a TRP Turkey (sandwiches) Break for

the department, Chem Club members continue to

volunteer their services to the community, such as

presenting hands-on scientific activities at MLK

Library during National Chemistry Week. Members

also participate in the scholarly ACS Undergraduate

Research Conference, held at Mills College in Spring

2011.

Seemed like everyone who came was rewarded in one way or another!

Photos courtesy of Drs. Linda Brunauer & Korin Wheeler

Left: Hands-on Activities at MLK Library

Below: Mills College ACS Undergraduate Research Conference,

Spring 2012 (Megan Morisada and Erick Castellanos Jimenez)

Sigma Xi Twelve students were recognized for their substantial research

accomplishments in collaboration with faculty in Chemistry &

Biochemistry through their induction to Sigma Xi, the honor

society for scientific research: John Abdou, Ryan Cheu, Rachel

Gate, Stanley Hiew, Nathaniel May, Megan Morisada, Meagan

Nakamoto, Marc Nakashima, Vincent Nguyen, Fritz Seidl, Emily

Tran, and Dustyn Uchiyama. Newly inducted members presented

their research at a poster session held on campus in the spring quarter.

Clockwise: Stan Hiew, Fritz Seidl, Rachel Gate

Photos Courtesy of Dr. Steve Suljak

SCU DeNardo Awards In case you missed it in the Chair’s Corner, we’re proud to reiterate here that Chemistry/Biochemistry majors swept the DeNardo Awards. Stan Hiew (2012) has been named as the winner of the Gerald and Sally DeNardo Senior Prize in Science

Research. Brett Yurash (2013) is one of this year’s two DeNardo Science Scholars, as is Emily Robinson (2014).

DEPARTMENT NEWS The Sweetest Day is the third Saturday in October. To

celebrate, we had the pre-sweetest day pie social on the

preceding Friday afternoon. Faculty, club officers, and

students came together to share their love of pie!

Do you like pie?

I like pie!

I like pie!

I like pie!

I like pie!

I like pie!

Phi Lambda Upsilon Nominees

Fritz, Stan, Sarah & Megan

NSF Awards As noted in the Chair’s Corner, Emilee Sena (SCU Chemistry '11) won an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in this

year's competition. Stan Hiew received an Honorable Mention.

Chemistry 2012 Award Winners

CRC Freshman Chemistry Achievement Award

Awarded to a freshman student for outstanding

performance in General Chemistry

Recipient: Scott Kravitz

American Chemical Society Polyed Award

Sponsored by the Polymer Education Committee of the

American Chemical Society to honor outstanding

achievement in Organic Chemistry

Recipient: Courtney Holmes

American Chemical Society Award in

Analytical Chemistry Given to an upper-division student for excellence in both

lower- and upper-division analytical chemistry courses

Recipient: Nathaniel W. May

American Institute of Chemists Foundation Award

Awarded to an outstanding senior chemistry major in

recognition of a record of leadership, ability, character,

and scholastic achievement

Recipient: Stanley Hiew

American Chemical Society Award in

Inorganic Chemistry

Awarded to an undergraduate student who has demonstrated

excellence in inorganic chemistry and whose future plans

include a career in chemistry.

Recipient: Stanley Hiew

Phi Lambda Upsilon

Membership-at-large in this National Honor Society in

recognition of a record of leadership, ability, character,

and scholastic achievements.

Nominees: Stanley Hiew, Sarah Ludwig, Megan

Morisada and Fritz Seidl

Joseph Deck Award

Established in 1973, this award is given by the Chemistry

Department faculty to the outstanding student majoring in

chemistry who has excelled in studies and undergraduate

research, extracurricular activities, leadership and

generous tutoring of fellow students, while maintaining at

least a B average,.

Recipients: Max Giammona and Megan Morisada

New Upper-Division Electives in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

In the past year, the department has introduced two new electives to the curriculum. In spring 2012, Dr. Suljak taught a

seminar style course in Bioanalytical Chemistry, and in winter 2013 Dr. Hoggard will be teaching an upper-division elective

focusing on Environmental Chemistry.

Environmental Chemistry (by Patrick Hoggard)

For many years our department has

taught Chemistry 1, Chemistry and the

Environment, to non-majors, who take

it to fulfill a core requirement, but

we’ve never offered a course on

environmental chemistry for students

who actually know some chemistry.

This will change in the winter quarter

of 2013, when I will be offering this

as a Special Topics course (Chem

190). One theme that runs through

many aspects of environmental

chemistry is that so much of it consists

of free-radical reactions. Most of the

reactions taking place in the

stratosphere, including those that

affect ozone formation and depletion,

are free radical reactions. That yellow

layer you see covering Los Angeles as

the plane descends, or as you drive

down into the valley on Highway 395,

develops all over again every day

through free-radical reactions. The

decomposition of many organic

pollutants in the soil – free-radical

reactions. Water purification by

chlorination – more free radicals. In

Chemistry 1, you can scarcely even

mention the term free radical, much

less go into mechanisms, rates, steady

state concentrations, and

photochemical yields, but those are

precisely what make the subject so

interesting.

And then there’s global warming. It’s

one thing to talk about changing all

your light bulbs to compact fluorescents

to save the environment or, on a grander

scale, to pledge to reduce carbon

dioxide emissions to 1990 levels. It’s

another to look at the models that

predict anthropogenic warming, to look

at the equations, to see how many

variables there are, and to evaluate what

the range of variability is for each. As

an example, we’ll look at “radiative

forcing” and “relative instantaneous

radiative forcing” and how they affect

predictions for the future of the climate.

Finally, we’ll examine the problem of

where energy will come from in the

future and what chemistry research is

offering to the solution of that problem,

particularly in the design of cheaper

photovoltaic materials and solar energy

storage possibilities.

I’ve never enjoyed talking about the

chemistry of the environment to

nonmajors. I always feel like I’m

pontificating, that whatever I say the

students have to accept because I’m the

instructor. I’m eagerly awaiting the

chance to teach this special topics

course where students will be able to

see the science behind the issues,

including even the uncertainties in areas

where our knowledge is less than

perfect.

Bioanalytical Chemistry (by Steven Suljak)

Since my arrival at SCU in 2004, I have

looked forward to the opportunity to

teach a course focused on current topics

in bioanalytical chemistry. The

biological realm provides a vast array of

challenges to the analytical chemist.

Biological samples tend to be complex,

unstable, and available only in small

amounts. Modern analytical methods

have been pushed to remarkable limits

by the motivation to gain quantitative

information about the chemistry of

living systems. With each improvement

in instrument sensitivity, spatial

resolution, and temporal response, new

truths about biological systems at the

molecular level have been revealed. The

tandem progression of analytical

methods and biological insights was the

central theme of this new course.

The class was conducted seminar style,

with each lecture session focused on the

discussion of one or two articles from

recent literature in the field. Students

read extensively on topics including

separations of single vesicles,

proteomics (and metabolomics and

peptidomics), microfluidic systems, in-vivo voltammetry, microdialysis, bio-

barcodes, and nanoflares. In addition to

learning about the science itself, a

significant portion of each discussion

was directed at skills in reading

scientific literature – students had the

opportunity to critically evaluate how

effective the papers were in

communicating the science through the

writing, figures, and tables, while also

considering how convinced they were

by the experimental results presented.

Each student also wrote an extensive

review article on a bioanalytical topic

not featured in the course, with subjects

ranging from magnet-activated cell

sorting to single molecule analysis via

electrochemical detection in nanofluidic

devices. In response to student feedback

from this spring, I am also excited to

note that Bioanalytical Chemistry has

recently been approved as a course to

satisfy the Advanced Writing core

requirement at SCU!

New Assistant Professor

Paul Abbyad

Paul Abbyad joined our faculty in

September after

spending four

years at the

Laboratory for

Optics for

Biosciences and

the Laboratory for

Hydrodynamics,

which are located at the Ecole

Polytechnique near Paris. As you might

imagine, it was no mean task to lure

Paul away from that location, but we are

delighted that we managed to do so with

strong support from Dean Yee and his

staff.

Prior to his sojourn in France, Paul

earned his Ph.D. with Steven Boxer at

Stanford, after completing his B.S

(Honors) in Chemistry at McGill

University in Montreal. While at

Stanford, he not only excelled in the

research laboratory and the usual array

of required science courses, but also

took “Science Course Design” and

“Issues in Science Education for

Science and Engineering Grad

Students”, both of which will serve him

well as a faculty member here. He is

currently teaching our upper-division

course in biophysical chemistry and will

continue to offer additional courses in

physical and general chemistry.

Paul has an impressive publication

record, already having 12 papers as a

co-author. These have appeared in

prestigious peer-reviewed journals such

as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Biochemistry, and

Journal of Physical Chemistry B. In

addition, he has made numerous

presentations at international

conferences. We are confident that Paul

will continue his outstanding

scholarship here at SCU.

Speaking of scholarship, Paul’s research

interests are in the field of

microfluidics, studies of the flow of

liquids in micrometer-sized channels.

Within this area, he is particularly

interested in microfluidic droplets, an

emerging technology that expands

applications by confining reagents and

cells in small droplets that do not mix

and therefore represent “test tubes” of

nanoliter volume. Applying this

approach to biological and chemical

assays results in a reduction in the

volume of reagents required and a

concomitant decrease in the costs of

such assays.

We are pleased to welcome Paul as well

as Barbara Stübner, his recent bride,

who is a talented musician and linguist

in her own right.

FACULTY NEWS

The 2012 graduating group Kyle, Paul, Vince, Marc,

Emily, John and Charles

Suljak’s Research Group

Steven Suljak’s research group continues its efforts to develop

aptamers to distinguish between protein variants with specific post-

translational modifications, currently focused on a cancer-linked

protein called thrombospondin-1. In addition, a collaboration with the

Birmingham lab (SCU Physics) and Kim lab (Bioengineering)

involves investigating the changing levels of biogenic amines in crab

hemolymph using a combination of bioanalytical techniques ranging

from LC-MS/MS to micro- fabricated chip electrophoresis with

electrochemical detection (funded by a grant from Research Corporation).

Four group members (Megan Morisada, Nate May, Ryan Cheu, and Dustyn

Uchiyama) presented posters on their research at PittCon 2012 in Orlando.

In addition, several members presented posters at this year’s ACS

Undergraduate Research Meeting. Megan, Ryan, and Dustyn graduated

from the lab this past May;

As seen in the picture Megan clearly won the award for the largest

collection of leis!

Lab alumni report

that they are doing

well. Christian

Paquet and Rob

Pivec are in

residency programs,

seven others are

continuing medical

school, and five alumni are immersed in doctoral research programs.

Chappy Huang recently began pharmacy school at California Northstate University near Sacramento. And in more

personal news, Mary Lucas became Mary Oransky after getting married to David Oransky in July! Wendy and I have

enjoyed meeting with alumni both in Santa Clara and during our travels in the past year.

Updates from the Adalsteinnson Group

Last academic year, the unusual situation came up that

every group member Kyle Tubbs (biochemistry), Paul

Henry (biochemistry), Vincent Nguyen (biochemistry),

Marc Nakashima (biology), Emily Tran (biology), John

Abdou (chemistry) and Charles Denault (Chemistry), were

scheduled to graduate in the spring. This meant a complete

turnover of students, which started in the winter quarter.

The group published one article last year in the Journal of

Physical Chemistry B; "Phase transitions of n-hexadecane

in nanoencapsulated binary solutions of n-hexadecane and

1-octanol." by Kyle W. Tubbs, Vincent T. Nguyen and

Thorsteinn Adalsteinsson.

Other contributions made by this group included a joint

publication with Dr. Barber (physics) and Dr. McNelis

(chemistry and biochemistry) this last academic year;

"Transport and Spectroscopic Studies of the Effects of

Fullerene Structure on the Efficiency and Lifetime of

Polythiophene-based Solar Cells: by E. L. Sena (2011) et

al.; presentations at the local ACS undergraduate research

symposia and the Sigma Xi symposium at SCU.

Emily Tran continued working on her research project

during the summer months. She was joined by a fellow

graduated biology student, Amar Sandhu, in order to

complete the research project.

In October 2012 Dr. Adalsteinsson submitted his petition

for promotion to tenure and the rank of associate professor.

In the spring quarter, Dr. Adalsteinsson recruited and

trained three students to continue the research projects.

New group members are Connor Lynch (bio-engineering),

Kaitlyn Trillo (chemistry), Aakash Agarwal

(biochemistry). Bianca Khishaveh (chemistry) and Julia

Courtney

(Right to left): Andy Martinolich (’12),

Dr. Wheeler, and Meagan Nakamoto (’12)

at graduation.

Nguyen (biochemistry) joined the lab during the Fall

quarter. This current group is working on two new research

projects, one journal article and two research proposals,

which will hopefully serve to maintain the high level of

activity in the group. The hope is to contribute material to

the Gordon conference and to the American Physical

Society meeting this year in addition to the regular

contributions to the ACS meetings. Given these activities,

there are no vacations planned this year.

News from the Fuller Lab

The Fuller lab is continuing research on peptoid structure,

and we’re making slow but steady progress. Last fall the

department bought a new mass spectrometry system with

funds from a grant from the National Science Foundation,

and that’s been a useful instrument in our research.

Currently, three students are doing undergraduate research

on projects in the Fuller lab: Courtney Holmes (’14), Erik

Schaumann (’13), and Brett Yurash (’14). We also

welcomed Belem Avila this fall. Belem is a postdoc who

got her Ph.D. from UC Davis. In addition to teaching a few

courses here at SCU, Belem is working in both the

Carrasco and Fuller labs and starting to get familiar with

peptoids.

In the past academic year, Fuller lab researchers made a

number of research presentations. Both Stan Hiew (’12)

and Fritz Seidl (’12) made oral presentations at Mills

College at the Northern California Undergraduate

Research Symposium last spring. These

two also presented on campus at the

Sigma Xi poster session and gave a

research talk at our final departmental

seminar. In addition, Courtney, Erik

and Brett all attended the 8th Peptoid

Summit in Berkeley, CA with Dr.

Fuller this past August, and Brett

presented a poster.

Several of our lab members earned some

impressive honors for their scientific

excellence this past academic year. Courtney Holmes won

the American Chemical Society Polyed award for

excellence in organic chemistry, Brett Yurash was

recognized as a Gerald and Sally DeNardo science scholar,

and Stan Hiew was awarded the DeNardo Senior Prize in

Science Research as well as the American Institute of

Chemists Foundation Award. Fritz and Stan were also

inducted into Sigma Xi, the science research honor society,

and Phi Lambda Upsilon, the national honor society for

excellence in chemistry.

Fuller lab alumni are doing really well too! Paul Bruno

(’10) is now officially a Ph.D. candidate at the University

of Michigan in Michigan in Anna Mapp’s lab, so congrats

to Paul on passing that milestone! Kanwal Palla (’10) has

joined Matt Francis’s lab at UC Berkeley and will have her

preliminary exams this spring. Lauren Sartor (’11) is

putting the finishing touches on a publication as a graduate

student at CSU Northridge. Marisa Plescia (’11) is teaching

science at a high school nearby.

We bid farewell to three awesome graduates this past June.

Although we’re sad to see them go, I know they’ll do great

things after SCU. Stan Hiew is in the chemistry graduate

program at UC Irvine, and Fritz Seidl just started in the

chemistry graduate program at Stanford. Kasey Conklin is

applying to medical schools this year. You can look

forward to hearing about their accomplishments in future

editions of this newsletter!

News from the Wheeler Lab

We’ve had a busy year in the Wheeler lab. Our research group grew in

the fall with the addition of two new members, Erick Castellanos-Jimenez

(‘13) and Kristian Borofka (‘14). With a total of six members, the lab was

always full and buzzing with activity.

In 2012, our first paper was published! This initial chapter of our research

focused establishing the impact of silver nanoparticles on the structure

and function of copper proteins essential to healthy cells. Since silver

nanoparticles are being incorporated into many new consumer products as

an antimicrobial, this research provides insight into the antibacterial

effects of the particles, as well as potential routes of toxicity. The work

was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Andrew Martinolich (‘12), Meagan Nakamoto (‘12), Grace Park (‘13),

and Rachel Gate (‘12) all made their debut in the scientific literature as

undergraduate coauthors on the paper.

To present the next phase of our work, Rachel Gate and I attended the American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego

in March. Rachel presented a poster on her work in the bioinorganic chemistry poster session. I gave an oral presentation

in the inorganic chemistry session. We both had a great time exploring new restaurants in San Diego. We also met many

great researchers in the field and came back to SCU excited to test new ideas in the lab and expand our research to new

areas.

In the spring we were both proud and sad to see three of our group members graduate. Meagan Nakamoto is headed off

to vet school at Colorado State University. Meagan is still doing research in one of the labs in the vet school during her

spare time. Andy Martinolich and Rachel Gate both stayed in the field of biochemistry and are working closer to their

SCU homes. Andy is at Innova, a small bioenergy start up in the East Bay and Rachel is in Dan Minor’s lab atup

UCSF.Our other group alumni, Alyssa Lampe (2011), left her research position at Lawrence Berkeley Labs this year to

attend medical school at University of Southern California. Although the group is now scattered around the country, it is

great to see everyone find success in their different fields.

We are a smaller and quieter research group this year. Grace (’13), Erick (’13), and Kris (’14) are all working hard and

keeping the instruments in constant use. We are looking forward to sharing an exciting set of new results in the next

installment!

A hearty THANKS to all for the news you sent us! To

our readers: we love to hear from you. Please send us

your stories

Lisa Guzzo (1984) wrote from the mountains in

Switzerland:

I graduated in 1984. Dr Yee arrived

at SCU my junior year and sparked

some life into the department. After

SCU I participated in the wave of

start-up biotech/ medical devices in

the Silicon Valley for almost 20

years. Six years ago adream

prompted me to venture to Europe. I

landed in Belgium (not Italy as intended) in a big company.

In BE I found my path to energy/plants/spirits/healing et

mon amore. Two years ago, Switzerland/Lausanne became

our home... A stunning natural beauty with immediate

access to nature/outdoor sports and activities and work in a

small medical device start-up. My focus is on the

energy/plants/spirits/healing and part-time at the start-up

medical device company. Life is good and full.

This past summer, we asked Emilee Sena (2011) to

share more on how she won the NSF Graduate Research

Fellowship and what she planned to do with it, she

responded:

I have spent the last year as a first-year physical chemistry

graduate student at UC Berkeley, where I worked on

magnetometry in the lab of Alex Pines and taught CHEM

1A to college freshmen in the fall. My proposed graduate

research project was a novel miniaturized NMR

spectrometer that integrates an optically-pumped diamond

magnetometer and remote detection techniques on a

microfluidic device. This was proposed to be done in the

lab of Dr. Pines, my advisor at UC Berkeley, who is known

world-wide for his work in solid state NMR spectroscopy.

A couple of weeks ago I learned that I

was awarded an NSF fellowship.

NSF has some basic guidelines on

how I may use it, for instance I must

be getting a research-based graduate

degree in science or engineering. It is

transferrable with NSF approval. I

intend to use it to get a Ph.D. in Chemistry or Chemical

Engineering, and I am striving to combine my love for

chemistry, math, physics, and materials science. I hope to

use my fellowship and education to encourage young

women and minority students to pursue careers in science

and engineering. This is especially important to me

because I am half Hispanic, even though my red hair

makes that hard to see. ;)

Congratulations to Shawna Hengel (2002) upon her

completion of her Ph.D. She shared her story with us:

I was in the 2002 class at SCU. While at SCU I worked in

Dr. Carrasco's lab, and took many classes from Dr. Nathan

with Dr. Brunauer being my course adviser for the

first few years. I am happy to hear that Dr. Sweeney is still

active in the program, I have fond memories of his lectures.

I worked in biotech in South San Francisco for two years

before going to grad school in the Medicinal Chemistry

department at the University of Washington. I worked for

David Goodlett whose lab primarily focuses on proteomics

using high resolution mass spectrometry. I did global

proteome profiling, but a large majority of my thesis work

was on characterizing the post-translational modification

ADP-ribosylation using mass spectrometry.

After completing my PhD at UW, I did a post-doc at

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the

ALUMNI CORNER

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory. It's a

national laboratory through the Department of Energy,

where I worked with high resolution mass spectrometry. It

is located in eastern Washington, in Richland

http://www.emsl.pnnl.gov/about/

I just started a new job as a staff scientist at Seattle

Genetics in the Bioanalytical Development group, where I

use mass spectrometry to characterize both small and large

molecules. So far so good, but I still feel like I just started!

We recently learned that Jason Tarver (1997) is a

defensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders.

Congratulations, Jason. Good luck to you and the Raiders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Tarver

This is a gentle but important annual reminder that donations you make as a means of giving back to Santa Clara

University and the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry provide resources to support a variety of needs, many

of which are directed toward students. Included among the diverse uses we make of your contributions are defraying

the expenses of students who are attending scientific conferences, purchasing equipment to support teaching

laboratories and scholarly research, and paying banquet expenses for our majors when they are initiated into honor

societies such as Sigma Xi.

A contribution this fiscal year assumes particular significance because the Leavey Foundation will donate

$1,000,000 to the university if 9,000 undergraduate alumni make a contribution prior to July 1, 2013. We are

confident that our grads have special memories of their experiences at SCU and in the department, so in that

context, please seriously consider making a tax-deductible contribution for the betterment of our program and the

university.

In the newsletter next year, we would dearly like to be able to report a large increase in the number of individual

gifts made. As you can see from the table below, we seem to be “stuck” in the low 20s! Rest assured that no

contribution is too small to provide us with a benefit so please consider making a donation.

Thanks in advance for helping us meet our financial needs and creating an even more vibrant department as a

result!

Fiscal Year No. of

Individual Gifts

Amount ($) No. of Special

Gifts*

Amount ($) Total

Amount ($)

2007 21 4,080 2 46,530 50,610

2008 21 6,025 1 61,201 67,226

2009 20 10,580 2 104,325 124,907

2010 23 11,530 2 110,708 122,238

2011 22 10,440 0 N/A 10,440

2012 22 4,934 0 N/A 4,934

*Sources: Deck Family Trust, Ted Welp Science Fund, Mary Johnson Trust

You can make your gift by mailing it to: Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry,

Santa Clara University

500 El Camino Real

Santa Clara, CA 95053

Attention: Lourdes Barretto

Or you can also make a gift online at:

http://www.scu.edu/give/how-to-give/make-your-gift/index.cfm. Follow the link to the “Online” menu, select

“College of Arts & Sciences” in the box provided, and then under “Gift Information”, specify an amount for the

gift and then either select “Joseph F. Deck Fund” or “Other” in the “Designation” box; for the latter, enter

Chemistry Gifts in the box provided. Finally, click on “Add Donation” Then scroll down to complete the

information requested.

Sounds more complicated than it really is and it’s a very convenient way to donate to us.

Gifts

Seminar Program

Our seminar program features speakers who cover a wide range of scientific topics of interest to our faculty and students.

Overseen by Dr. Korin Wheeler (2011-12)

Term Speaker/Affiliation Title Fall, 2011 Dr. Matthew Francis, UC Berkeley. Using Biological Molecules to Make New Materials

Dr. Jen Heemstra, University of Utah. Small‐Molecule‐Dependent Split Aptamer Ligation

Dr. Babak Sanii, Molecular Foundry Knobs Formanipulating Biomaterials: Bending Lipid Membranes and Buckling Peptoid Monolayers in 2D Nanosheets

Dr. Keir Fogarty, University of Minnesota Fluorescence Fluctuation Spectroscopy to Study HTLV‐1 Virus

Dr. Paul Abbyad, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris Sickling of Red Blood Cells in Microdroplet Arrays

Winter 2012 Advanced Biosciences Initiative Symposium Keynote speaker: Prof. Matt Bogyo, Stanford.

Small Molecule Probes of Protease Function: Applications to Molecular Imaging and Drug Discovery

Dr. Gareth Butland, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Assembly and Functional Characterization of Etalloproteins and Their Cofactors

Dr. Matt Law, UC Irvine. Developing Earth Abundant and Quantum Dot Materials for Thin‐Film

Photovoltaics

Dr. Monika Sommerhalter University of California State, East Bay.

Acetylcholinesterase from Tritonia diomedea

Spring, 2012 Dr. Evan Powers, Scripps Research Institute. The Enhanced Aromatic Sequon for Protein N‐Glycosylation.

Dr. Paul Weiss UC‐Los Angeles.

Designing, Measuring, and Controlling Molecular and Supramolecular Devices

Dr. Matthew Sazinsky Pomona University.

Insights into the Regulation of Enzyme O2 Use and Diabetic Iron Acquisition

Dr. Hilary Godwin, UC‐Los Angeles. Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology

SCU Students Various