Departmental Awards
Scholarships Awarded to Biochemistry and Chemistry Majors
Honors at Graduation
Honor Societies
National Meetings
Beloit College 26th Annual Student Symposium, April 11, 2002
The Beloit Biologist, Volume 21, 2002
No chemistry faculty were on sabbatical this year! Brock Spencer, Roc Ordman, George Lisensky, Rama Viswanathan, Laura Parmentier, and Charlie Abrams were all on campus (except when Brock, or George, or Laura were off campus giving workshops elsewhere about how we teach at Beloit). The shared preparation of General Chemistry continues to be something that unites us as five faculty taught sections of that course. An exciting new development was our first offering of a guided inquiry organic sequence.
It was great to have Brock back teaching full time after his many years as Director of the NSF ChemLinks project. Brock will also become Department Chair, starting this summer. Laura has been very busy, both in implementing the new organic materials and in developing experiments for our two brand new gas chromatographs (see covers). Roc continues his tradition of strong alumni involvement in his biochemistry course. Rama has been stringing wireless networks and developing his new pulsed laser system. George won this year's Beloit College Phee Boon Kang'73 Prize for Innovation in Technology-Based Instruction. Charlie was married in May and has moved to Chicago, where he will be teaching next year. Thanks to Charlie for his myriad contributions during his years at Beloit. We also much appreciate Bill Brown, who taught an advanced organic chemistry course this year. You can read more about these items in the Faculty Update section of the newsletter.
Chemistry will be actively searching to fill a tenure track Chemistry/Biochemistry position to contribute to the organic sequence and to augment the biochemistry program. This fall, Håkan Carlsson will be teaching Biochemistry. Christy Whiddon will be teaching General Chemistry. Both are currently doctoral students working at the University of Lund, Sweden. Håkan's advisor is Ebbe Nordlander'86, so they already knew something about Beloit.
This newsletter also highlights the accomplishments of our students. You can read more about their achievements in the Student Research Presentations, Student Summer Experiences, and MajorsClass of 2002 sections. We are proud of what they have done. We look forward to meeting new students in the fall and to hearing what everyone did over the summer. For those to whom it seems like they just turned in their senior paragraphs, remember to send in alumni notes in the future!
Editor's Note: George has decided to step down as Chair after
a five year tenure. Our sincere appreciation and thanks to George
for his dedicated and enthusiastic leadership!
When I was in college, "2001: A Space Odyssey" was in movie theaters. It represented the unimaginably distant future. Now that 2001 (and sequencing the human genome) are in the past, what does the future hold?
The accomplishments of biochemistry majors will lead us well. Joe Verdi'83 is involved in setting up a stem cell research facility for the United States. Kelly Johanson'98, in graduate school at Tulane University, may be sending an experiment using nucleotide polymerase up in the Space Shuttle soon. More examples are below. And thanks to Ken Katzen'80, who is one of many sending the next generation of students to Beloit. Nery Morales'02 won a prize for social activism!
A highlight for everyone here was the week of lectures and workshops led by Visiting Distinguished Scholar Brian Davis'81, who follows in the tradition of previous lecturers R. K. Boutwell'39 and Harry Broquist'40. Brian is now Director of Innovation Research for a top biotech company. To be the Director of Innovation in the most innovative field in sciencethat's where Beloit biochemists should be!
On the arthritis front, Beloit is paving the way, too. Brian Pfister'94 runs Rush University's entrepreneurial venture to cure arthritis, and Camille Fox'02 just wrote her senior thesis on a very promising lead to that cure, based on her summer research at Rush.
This fall, we expanded the biochemistry class to involve alumni. More than 20 alumni served as email investors in the biochemistry class "entrepreneurial venture," which was to improve the purification of alcohol dehyrogenase. Each alum was matched with a student in the class, and the class was divided into two teams competing to improve the purification over the way you probably did it at Beloit. These students came up with the best SDS gels I have seen in 25 years! Thanks to Joe Verdi'83, Peter Allen'96, Reno Novak'83, Chia Hung'91, Nicole Burton'01, Elizabeth Ryland-Caskey'90, Michelle Meyer'83, Wenyi Feng'95, Gregory Ehrendreich'97, Dean Rager-Aguiar'90, and Corinn Moore Rich'89 (and any I have missed). There will be another round soon. If you would like to get involved in Beloit College education, just email ordman@beloit.edu.
I also want to thank Brett Summers'95, Mark Brockman'95, George Rogge'99, Tara Sander'94, and Joe Verdi'83, for helping out as my telephone advisors. Teaching Molecular Biology this spring, I felt hard-pressed to keep up with all the rapid advances, so I recruited them to act as my "telephone consultants," calling them at 8 a.m. to ask questions about the state-of-the art for my 9 a.m. lecture. For instance, did you know that T-helper 1 and T-helper 2 cells still exist? Even asking that on-line is not easy these days.
Amy Knowlton'86 is doing exciting research in an AIDS project at Johns Hopkins, in which she has kindly allowed Bryna Dunaway'03 to intern. Bryna has carried on the tradition of Nicole Burton'01, maintaining the Health Professions Advisory Committee. Check out the new web site (https://www.beloit.edu/hpac/) that Bryna has built for our students who are headed for health-related careers.
As a final note, our students are reminded almost daily of how wonderful alumni are. Jeff Cleaveland'83 provided a donation that supported the purchase of the "Alumni Memorial Boombox" chained down in the biochemistry lab, so students working there can have music! And now there are CD players showing up in many of the laboratories (like Chem 117) of Chamberlin Hall. So as we enter the 21st century, it's lovely to reflect that Beloit biochemistry alumni are bringing music to the world. We shall overcome!
Congratulations to you all. If you have a student you want
to send to Beloit, let me know. I will be glad to try to help
students you recommend!
Charles Abrams
Assistant Professor
A.B. Washington University
A.M., M.Phil., Columbia University
At Beloit January 1998 - June 2002
The past year brought many changes to my life. Most importantly, I got married! The wedding was May 26th, 2002, just weeks after graduation. Abby (nee Kessler) and I honeymooned in Hawaii, and will be living in Chicago. Unfortunately this means that it is time for me to move on from Beloit. Abby works as a transportation manager for Chef Solutions in Schaumburg, and I will be teaching at Truman College, part of the City Colleges of Chicago.
In fall 2001, Laura Parmentier and I each taught a section of Organic Chemistry using an innovative "guided inquiry" text by Andre Straumanis. I also taught Senior Seminar and Bioorganic Chemistry. The latter was my first upper level course at Beloit, and I truly enjoyed working with outstanding students at this level.
In the spring, I taught General Chemistry, sophomore and senior seminars, and team taught an art classSpecialized Media: Multimediawith Abby Ward from the Art Department. Laura and I also received an NSF grant to upgrade the gas chromatography equipment. I helped with student projects in second semester organic lab. These multi-week laboratory projects have always been the most challenging and rewarding aspect of teaching chemistry at Beloit, and I will miss them very much. There are now more than 50 honorees and 20 molecules on the O'Chem Wall O'Fame (although I still have to paint a few)!
Outside of the chemistry class, I worked with Biochemistry and Dance double major Camille Fox'02 to bring Holocaust survivor Nesse Godin to campus for an extremely successful visitread more about it in the Spring '02 issue of Beloit College Magazine.
Wherever I go, I'll be able to teach chemistry, teach multimedia,
and work with excellent students, but I don't think I'll ever
have another opportunity to work with liberal arts students like
the ones who attend Beloit Collegestudents who can study
chemistry all day and then also give outstanding, deeply moving
dance performances in the evening. To all of my Beloit students
and colleagues, thank you for making my time here a delight.
Bill Brown, who retired in August 1999 with Professor Emeritus
status, taught an Organic Chemistry Advanced Topics course in
spring.
George taught Inorganic Chemistry and General Chemistry in the fall, and Chemical Equilibrium, Instrumental Analysis, and Scientific Glassblowing in the spring. This spring's glassblowers were quite creative. After making the traditional joined tubes, T-joints, and condensers, they branched out into producing colored marbles and vases from scrap glass.
Computers can provide the option of showing motion that a textbook cannot. A picture of a wave in a textbook fails to show the fundamental nature of a wave: waves move. Much of science is about change, and those changes can be better interpreted when they can be directly compared. Over the last ten years George has produced QuickTime-based instructional materials. Over 600 of his movies and animations are currently in use on campus and at many other institutions, distributed on CD (over 50,000 copies) and over the Internet.
George received this year's Phee Boon Kang'73 Prize for Innovation
in Technology- Based Instruction for the work described above.
He notes that a constant challenge is to make the material "minds-on"
and to avoid the conditioned response of passive video watchers.
He says the secret is to ask the student to use the computer video
controls actively to move back and forth in order to make comparisons.
Consider four examples that illustrate different types of media.
Since the point is the advantage of seeing and controlling the
motion yourself, we encourage you to use a web browser and go
to these links!
1. Changes in theoretical predictions, e.g., how are redox
equilibria affected by pH?
https://www.beloit.edu/Chem220/redox
At the web site, click on one of the thumbnails, and then click
on the expanded graph. Rather than simply playing the movie, grab
the slider bar and move it back and forth (or use the arrow keys)
to control the pH and see the effect of changing this variable.
The correlation is much stronger if you are the one making the
variable larger or smaller with your hand motion. (In upper level
courses Beloit students are asked to make this type of movie for
themselves.)
2. Comparison of different materials, e.g., which elements
conduct electricity?
http://chemistry.beloit.edu/BlueLight/pages/cond.html
After students use a conductivity tester for a few materials in
class, they are asked to explore the periodic table by finding
the dividing line between elements that conduct electricity and
elements that do not conduct electricity. The student makes choices
based on previous results. They are not asked to just play all
the movies (but even if they do that, they will still learn something
about the visual appearance of the elements.)
3. Changes in environmental data, e.g., is the concentration
of carbon dioxide increasing on the earth?
http://chemistry.beloit.edu/Warming/moviepages/CO2.htm
Again, be sure to click on the graph and then use the arrow keys
to move yourself around the planet and see the record of carbon
dioxide concentrations at that location. Is the concentration
the same everywhere? Are there any seasonal effects? There are
similar data for more than two dozen gasses that might cause global
warming http://chemistry.beloit.edu/Warming/pages/molecule.html
or affect the ozone layer http://chemistry.beloit.edu/Ozone/pages/molecule.html
.
We also have daily satellite data for the ozone layer since 1978
http://chemistry.beloit.edu/Ozone/pages/ozone.html
for both the northern and the southern hemisphere. This collection
of data is one of the best presentations of global environmental
data available anywhere.
4. Demonstrations of synthetic procedures, e.g., how can you
make a ferrofluid?
http://chemistry.beloit.edu/ferrofluid
We initially used long directions with so many details that students
lost the overall path of what they were doing. What has turned
out to work wonderfully is minimal written directions and movies
of each step. You can see more such web movies at
http://www.mrsec.wisc.edu/edetc/cineplex/index.html
.
This year Laura Lisensky graduated from Earlham College. She will spend the next two years in the Peace Corps as a community environmental person in Benin.
George continues to be associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Materials Science Research and Engineering Center (MRSEC) on Nanostructured
Materials and Interfaces.
* G. C. Lisensky and A. C. Payne, Incorporating Nanotechnology
into the Curriculum, Nature of Science Symposium, Fermi National
Lab, Chicago, March 16, 2002.
* A. B. Ellis, G. C. Lisensky, K. J. Nordell, and A. C. Payne,
NSF Nanotechnology Showcase, Washington, D.C., March 19, 2002.
* G. C. Lisensky and K. J. Nordell, Bringing Research into Science
Classrooms, National RET Conference, San Francisco, April 19,
2002.
* G. C. Lisensky and M. C. Condren, "Semiconductors and Metals,"
NSF Solid State Chemistry Program for Undergraduates and College
Faculty, Clemson University, June 2, 2002.
* G. C. Lisensky, S. M. Condren, C. G. Widstrand, J. Breitzer,
and A. B. Ellis, "LEDs are Diodes," J. Chem. Ed., 78,
1664A-1664B (2001).
* S. M. Condren, G. C. Lisensky, A. B. Ellis, K. J. Nordell, T.
F. Kuech, and S. A. Stockman, "LEDs: New Lamps for Old: A
Paradigm for Ongoing Curriculum Modernization," J. Chem.
Ed., 78, 1033 (2001).
Most of you have sat in my class and heard me declare that we are the lucky ones, having the privilege and opportunity to make this world a better place. And so, as we enter the 21st century, cell phones at hand, I am in the fortunate position to ask all of us, "Where should we be going?"
I think we need to reflect on the pace of life. I tell my students they need to work, produce, and consume to get started. But then I hope they will take time to find a proper balance between work toward achieving a goal and learning as an enjoyable exploration without goal. Every day offers a chance to be aware of family, friends, birds, flowers, and each moment.
My research continues, and Leta Moser'02 worked to develop a TBARS assay to test the effectiveness of a combination of 400 IU of vitamin E once a day and 500 mg of vitamin C twice a day to maintain serum antioxidant concentrations at an optimal level. An First Year Initiative (FYI) seminar last fall on "The Biochemistry of Youthful Exuberance" took us all into the latest research in neuroscience, which I expect will be the next triumph of biochemistry now that the human genome has been sequenced and Brian Davis'81 (and Gaoussou Diarra'95 and Jon Berkowitz'81 and...) from Beloit are sorting it out.
A final note is where my daydreams of research ideas are wandering.
"Mapping the Mind" (by Rita Carter) is a great book
used in my FYI seminar and describes the latest progress in understanding
how the brain functions. I hope you take a break and enjoy reading
it.
The big teaching news for me this year was the move to adopt the guided inquiry approach to teaching organic chemistry. Since we have been active at Beloit in restructuring the introductory chemistry course to be more student driven, an effort that ultimately led to the ChemLinks Coalition, it seemed an appropriate time to create a more student-driven organic chemistry course as well. The focus of the course is the work done by students in small groups, guided by materials developed by Andrei Straumanis as part of an NSF-funded project. "Mini-lectures" are then used to clarify concepts or to add depth to the material. Charlie and I each taught a section of Chem 230 (Organic Chemistry) in the fall, and I taught Chem 235 (Organic Chemistry II) in the spring. Student responses to these new materials seem extremely positive, and I look forward to refining the materials and our approach for the next year. Our timing in this effort was particularly appropriate given an article published by Maitland Jones and coworkers at Princeton in the April 2002 edition of the Journal of Chemical Education entitled "Teaching the Sophomore Organic Course without a Lecture. Are You Crazy?" The authors' answer to this query, supported by three years of student data, is "no."
We have been awarded an NSF-CCLI grant for "Enhancement of the Organic Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum Using Temperature-Programmable, Computer-Controlled, and Network-Accessible Gas Chromatographs." The new GCs are humming away down the hall now, and this summer's project is to design open-ended experiments to utilize their tremendous capabilities for inclusion in the organic lab courses next year. This project meshes nicely with my research on how students in their first two years of chemistry education learn the concepts of solubility and polaritya study I am conducting in conjunction with Jennifer Lewis, formerly of Beloit College and now at the University of South Florida.
I continue collaborative work with Jennifer Lewis in other
areas as well. She and I led a workshop last November at the University
of Wisconsin Women Studies Conference on the Interconnections
in Women's Studies, Teaching and Learning. Jennifer and I were
also invited to present a workshop on feminist pedagogies in the
sciences at the annual meeting of the American Society for Engineering
Education in Montreal this June.
Brock has returned to full-time teaching as the NSF ChemLinks grant has wound down in its final year. This past year he divided his teaching between Chemistry 117 and non-departmental contributions, including a First Year Seminar on water resource issues (which he will be teaching again this coming fall) and the capstone environmental studies interdisciplinary course, The Challenge of Global Change. The ChemLinks project and the four other NSF national systemic change initiatives in chemistry are focusing primarily on dissemination efforts through an NSF-supported Multi-Initiative Dissemination Project (MIDP) grant, for which he is a co-principal investigator. With MIDP averaging almost a workshop a month, Brock has helped this past year with ones at Raritan Valley Community College (NJ), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY), University of South Florida, and Ohio State University, as well as with workshops and/or symposia at PKAL Summer Institutes, the ACS Central/Great Lakes Joint Regional Meeting in Michigan, and the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education at Western Washington University. In the past year he has reviewed articles for the Journal of Chemical Education, was an invited participant in the Knight Roundtable on "Who Owns Teaching?" at Princeton University, and served on NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award and STEP (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program) review panels.
Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) is an informal alliance for undergraduate
science education reform that Beloit has been heavily involved
with since it began more than a decade ago. Very early, PKAL recognized
Beloit's Chemistry 117 course, BioQUEST Consortium, and Keck Geology
Consortium as PKAL Programs That Work. Within the past year, Brock
served on the planning committee and was a "village elder"
for the PKAL Faculty for the 21st Century annual convocation at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison last October, served as a
Keck/PKAL chemistry department consultant at Lewis and Clark College,
and presented MIDP chemistry workshops at the PKAL Summer Instituteslast
summer at Snowbird, Utah, and this summer at Williamsburg, Virginia.
In May 2001, I was awarded Beloit College's Phee Boon Kang'73 Prize for Innovation in Technology-Based Instruction for 2000-2001, based on my work in interfacing instruments to computers and in extending this concept to include wireless networks.
I spent the summer of 2001 continuing development of pulsed laser experiments for the physical chemistry laboratory curriculum with the help of a NSF-funded laboratory instrumentation (CCLI) grant. Christopher Morton'05 successfully modified and enhanced the apparatus and experiments developed by Roland Saito'02 during the previous summer. As a result, we have two experiments based on the pulsed YAG laser, an experiment that directly measures the nanosecond-scale lifetimes of quinine bisulfate in sulfuric acid solution quenched by chloride ions, and a pump-probe experiment that demonstrates how an optical delay line can be used to introduce a precise time delay between synchronized pump (YAG, frequency tripled to 355 nm in the UV) and probe (YAG, frequency doubled to 532 nm in the green) laser pulses. The time delay is measured with sub-nanosecond resolution using photodiode detectors connected to two separate channels on a 4 GigaSample/second digital oscilloscope. We are currently in the process of writing up the work for submission to the Journal of Chemical Education.
I taught Quantum Chemistry (Chem 245) this past fall, and Thermodynamics
and Kinetics (Chem 240) during spring. In addition, I participated
in the First Year Initiative (FYI) program, leading a very interesting
seminar titled "Shakespeare, Enigma and Carnivore: Topics
in Information Security," a course that examined the science
(and art) of cryptography from a multidisciplinary perspective
using Simon Singh's bestseller paperback "The Code Book"
as the primary resource. Participants found the material challenging,
interesting, and fun, and this was amply demonstrated in a series
of all-college poster presentations made by student groups (and
the seminar leader!) at the end of the course.
"Bioinorganic chemistry: What can we learn about urease?" Håkan Carlsson, Department of Chemistry, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
" 'Green' colloids: Investigating surfactants from natural products." Christy Whiddon, Department of Chemistry, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
"Computational modeling of the Hantzsch Reaction." Scott Morgan, Dana College, Nebraska.
"Tracking protonation events within the ribosome: toward a mechanistic understanding of peptidyl transferase." Gregory Muth, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University.
"A laboratory synthesis of Eleutherobin, an anticancer compound from the sea." Clare Gutteridge, University of New Hampshire.
"Using organic chemistry to probe the electrostatic preferences of alkaline phosphatase." Benjamin Burlingham, Department of Chemistry, Indiana University.
"Archaeological Chemistry." Kelly Knudson '97. Kelly is currently a graduate student in archaeology at the University of WisconsinMadison. Her research uses strontium isotope ratios in teeth and bone to trace historic migration patterns in the Andes of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile (where she was during the major earthquake in summer, 2001). Her seminar began with a general introduction to the uses of chemistry in archaeology, then focussed on her research. Kelly also talked about water rights and irrigation in the Peruvian Andes to two First Year Initiative (FYI) seminar classes.
Brian Davis '81Director of Innovation Research
for Incyte Genomics, Inc., was a Visiting Distinguished Scholar
at Beloit College from March 17 to March 22, 2002. He spoke in
numerous classes, gave a major presentation on "The Future
of Health Care: Medicine in the 21st Century," and ran a
three-day workshop using UNIX/Perl where participants downloaded
and analyzed the entire human genome. Dr. Davis has made major
contributions to the development of the field of proteomics from
the field of genomics, and was previously a principal scientist
at Proteome, Inc., until it was acquired by Incyte.
The twelfth annual Girls and Women in Science (GWS) Conference, supported by Beloit College, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and private donations, was held at Beloit College April 12-13, 2002, and as usual was a great success. GWS is a minds-on, hands-on science workshop weekend for sixth grade girls, along with their teachers and parents, and is designed to ignite enthusiasm for science in sixth grade girls. Jen Rumppe'03 was one of the organizers. In addition, many chemistry and biochemistry majors volunteered to serve as mentors for the girls during their visit, and also helped set up and conduct hands-on science activities.
FALL
| 117 | General Chemistry |
54 |
| 230 | Organic Chemistry I |
33 |
| 245 | Quantum Chemistry |
3 |
| 250 | Inorganic Chemistry |
6 |
| 300 | Biochemistry |
21 |
| 370 | Advanced Topics |
7 |
| 380 | Senior Seminar |
6 |
| 385 | Senior Thesis |
2 |
| 390 | Special Projects |
4 |
| 395 | Teaching Assistant |
3 |
| Total |
139 |
| 117 | General Chemistry |
40 |
| 220 | Chemical Equilibrium |
12 |
| 235 | Organic Chemistry II |
20 |
| 240 | Thermodynamics and Kinetics |
3 |
| 275 | Molecular Biology and Biotechnology |
6 |
| 280 | Professional Tools for Chemists |
13 |
| 360 | Instrumental Methods of Analysis |
5 |
| 370 | Advanced Topics: Glassblowing |
15 |
| 375 | Advanced Topics: Organic Chemistry |
5 |
| 380 | Senior Seminar |
8 |
| 385 | Senior Thesis |
5 |
| 390 | Special Projects |
3 |
| 395 | Teaching Assistant |
1 |
| Total |
136 |
JOHN H. NAIR AWARD
honors an alumnus (Class of 1915) and provides membership in the
American Chemical Society for one or more seniors who plan careers
in chemistry.
Kathryn Stettler '02
Leonard Tinker '02
WILLIAM J. TRAUTMAN AWARD in PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY
(Professor at Beloit 1921-1947) given to a student doing outstanding
work in physical chemistry.
Ezra Eibergen '03
EDWARD C. FULLER AWARD in CHEMICAL EDUCATION
was established by the majors of the Class of 1982 in honor of
Professor Fuller and is given to a junior or senior who has done
outstanding work as a teaching assistant.
Roland Saito '02
MERCK INDEX AWARD
is given to an outstanding senior and consists of a copy of the
Merck Index .
Johnny Franco '02
CRC PRESS FRESHMAN CHEMISTRY AWARD
recognizes outstanding work by a first-year student and consists
of a copy of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics .
Jacob Horger '05
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY JUNIOR ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY AWARD
recognizes a junior by providing a year's membership in the ACS
Division of Analytical Chemistry and a subscription to the journal
Analytical Chemistry.
Ezra Eibergen'03
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY AWARD FOR ACHIEVEMENT IN ORGANIC
CHEMISTRY sponsored by the Division of Polymer Chemistry recognizes
outstanding work in the introductory organic chemistry course
by providing a subscription to Organic Chemistry and a
video tape about polymers.
Nana Fenny'04
DAVID A. NORRIS '92 STUDENT RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
was established by David's friends and family in his memory and
provides endowed support for chemistry-related undergraduate research.
Johnny Franco'02
Clarissa Schumacher'03
June Baker Memorial Award (Music Department)
Matthew Heming'02
Professor Roxie Alexander Memorial Award, established in loving
memory of Professor Roxie Alexander and her interest in international
education.
Nana Fenny'04
Pat Dawson Award, established in honor of Pat Dawson'25 and
awarded to a senior athlete who best exemplifies the qualities
of athlete, scholar and leader.
Johnny Franco'02
Donald "Red" Janssen Award, established by classmates
and friends of Red Janssen'50, recognizes juniors (also previous
year) who are outstanding athlete.
Tatjana Kopylova'02
| Muyiwa Awoniyi '03 | Ferwerda Science Scholarship |
| Maylene Corpuz '04 | Wilson Scholarship, Eaton Scholarship |
| Emily Davis '04 | Eaton Scholarship, Eldridge Scholarship |
| Jonathan Demick '03 | Trustee Scholarship |
| Bryna Dunaway '03 | Ferwerda Science Scholarship, Presidential Scholarship |
| Ezra Eibergen '03 | Ericsson Scholarship, Presidential Scholarship, Ousley Scholarship, Porter Scholarship |
| Amy Eiler '02 | Storer Scholarship, Bradshaw Scholarship |
| Nana Fenny '04 | World Affairs Center Scholarship |
| Camille Fox '02 | Blayne Scholarship, Wilson Scholarship, Eaton Scholarship |
| Jimmy Franco '02 | General Fund Scholarship |
| Johnny Franco '02 | Ferwerda Science Scholarship, General Fund Scholarship |
| Emily Good '03 | Presidential Scholarship |
| Matthew Heming '02 | Presidential Scholarship, Marjorie Leff Scholarship |
| Margaret Hulse '04 | Global Partners Scholarship, Presidential Scholarship |
| Tatjana Kopylova '02 | International Student Scholarship |
| Danijela Maric '04 | World Affairs Center Scholarship |
| John Miura '04 | Eaton Scholarship |
| Nancy Nguyen '04 | Neese Scholarship |
| Vu Nguyen '03 | Sanger Scholarship, Presidential Scholarship, Winter Wood Scholarship |
| Alexandra Nicholson '05 | Eaton Scholarship |
| Gregory Peck '04 | Eaton Scholarship, Nancy Logan Hill Scholarship |
| William Ringland '04 | Presidential Scholarship |
| Roland Saito '02 | Educational Assistance LTD Scholarship, Ferwerda Science Scholarship |
| Clarissa Schumacher '03 | Judge William Hooker Scholarship, Porter Scholarship, Kohler Scholarship |
| Heather Seabury '02 | Boutwell Scholarship, General Fund Scholarship |
| Kathryn Stettler '02 | Victor Ferrall Scholarship, Wilson Scholarship |
| Leonard Tinker '02 | Presidential Scholarship, Zeltman Scholarship |
| Rebecca Zeni '04 | Presidential Scholarship |
| CUM LAUDE | Johnny Franco Matthew Heming Roland Saito |
| MAGNA CUM LAUDE | Amy Eiler Camille Fox Leta Moser |
| SUMMA CUM LAUDE | Leonard Tinker |
| DEPARTMENTAL HONORS | Johnny Franco Roland Saito |
| Phi Beta Kappa | Amy Eiler Camille Fox Leonard Tinker |
| Mortar Board | Matthew Heming |
Roland Saito '02
"Synthesis of Photo- and Radiolabeled Ginkgolides for Future
Ligand-Receptor Binding Studies," based on work that Roland
did during a summer internship in Professor K. Nakanishi's group
in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University.
Johnny Franco '02
"Comparison of Acetylcholine Receptor Specific IL-10 and
IFN-g Production in Experimental Myasthenia Gravis," based
on work done at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Bryna Dunaway '03
"A New Weapon in the Fight Against HIV: Directly Observed
Therapy," based on work done at at Johns Hopkins University
School of Hygiene and Public Health.
Nana Fenny '04
"VDJ Gene Diversification in Ligated Appendix Rabbits,"
based on research carried out at Loyola University Stritch School
of Medicine.
Johnny Franco '02
"Comparison of Acetylcholine Receptor Specific IL-10 and
IFN-g Production in Experimental Myasthenia Gravis," based
on work done at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Leta Moser '02
"Refinement of TBARS to Determine Optimal Dosage of Vitamin
C and E," work done with Professor Roc Ordman at Beloit College.
Nancy Nguyen '04
"Environment, Behavior, and Childhood Asthma in Beloit, Wisconsin,"
project mentored by Professor Marion Fass at Beloit College.
Kari Roettger '03
"Generating Specific Antiserum to Coronavirus Replicase Protein,"
based on research carried out at Loyola University Medical Center.
Roland Saito '02
"Synthesis of Photo- and Radiolabeled Ginkgolides for Future
Ligand-Receptor Binding Studies," based on research performed
during a summer internship in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia
University.
Justin Severson '04
"Unblot™ Chemiluminescent Technology and its Use on
Homemade Polyacrylamide Gels," based on his summer work at
Pierce Chemicals, Rockford, Illinois.
Ru Yi Teow '03
"Isolation of Membrane Proteins from Photosynthetic Bacteria
and Subsequent Derivation with Porphyrins," based on research
carried out during a summer internship in the Department of Biochemistry,
Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology at Northwestern University.
Glen Cronan'02
Unequal Replicational Fidelity and a Possible Second Essential
Polymerase:
A Case for Wholly Discontinuous Replication in Escherichia Coli
Johnny Franco'02
Comparison of Acetylcholine Receptor Specific IL-10 and IFN-g
Production in Experimental Myasthenia Gravis
Heather Seabury'02
CFTR and Heterozygote Advantage Against Cholera
Muyiwa Awoniyi'03 is spending the summer interning at Harvard University, researching Leukocyte Immunoglobulin Receptors (LIRs) with Dr. Jonathan Arm in the Immunology Department.
Maylene Corpuz'04 is helping with the immunization of low-income families on the Southern Texas border, working through the Texas A & M University Colonias program this summer.
Jonathan Demick'02 plans to spend the summer shadowing doctors and working on a farm.
Ezra Eibergen'03 is participating in the NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) summer program at Wichita State University in Kansas.
Nana Fenny'04 spent part of the summer interning in the Colonias Program, a community health program affiliated with Texas A&M University based in Harlengen, Texas. She is currently working with Laura Parmentier at Beloit College on a NSF-funded project developing experiments for the undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory using our new HP gas chromatographs. See newsletter cover for more details.
Jimmy Franco'02 has a summer internship at Rush University Medical School in Chicago.
Emily Good'03 is going to Christchurch, New Zealand to work on a 200 head sheep farm and increase her knowledge of veterinary practices in other countries.
Danijela Maric'04 will be working with Dr. Joseph Picirilli in a biochemistry laboratory at the University of Chicago. Her research will involve RNA and DNA modeling.
Leta Moser'02 is participating in a Bio-Behavioral Health REU at Pennsylvania State University.
Nancy Nguyen'04 spent part of the summer as a research assistant in the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where she worked with Dr. John Meurer, director of the Fight Asthma Milwaukee Allies coalition. She is currently working with Laura Parmentier at Beloit College on a NSF-funded project developing experiments for the undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory using our new HP gas chromatographs. See newsletter cover for more details.
Vu Nguyen'03 is working in a biomedical research/internship program at UCLA, located in Beverly Hills.
Nayani Pramanik'04 is in Dresden, Germany, performing biological research under Professor Herwig at the Dresden University of Technology.
Kari Roettger'03 is working for Pierce Chemical Company in Research and Development.
Jennifer Rumppe'03 is researching non-natural biopolymers with Professor D.Tyler McQuade in the REU program at the Center for Materials Research, Cornell University.
Roland Saito'02 is working for a pharmaceutical company in the Bay Area after graduation.
Heather Seabury'02 is a RA in the California Ballet summer program.
Clarissa Schumacher'03 will be working as an Environmental Claims Analyst for Kemper Insurances Companies, applying biochemical knowledge to assist in litigation and negotiation of environmental accident claims.
Justin Severson'03 is working for ProChem, Inc., synthesizing CHAPS and other organic molecules, and also helping set up a large-scale production facility.
Ru Yi Teow'03 has an internship at Northwestern University
with Dr Paul Loach, and is doing research on the photosynthesis
of membrane proteins and porphyrins.
| Muyiwa | Awoniyi | 2003 | Biochemistry | Chicago, IL |
| Maylene | Corpuz | 2004 | Biochemistry | Ewa Beach, HI |
| Emily | Davis | 2004 | Biochemistry | Wooster, OH |
| Jonathan | Demick | 2003 | Biochemistry | Beloit, WI |
| Bryna | Dunaway | 2003 | Biochemistry | Toledo, OR |
| Ezra | Eibergen | 2003 | Chemistry | South Beloit, IL |
| Nana | Fenny | 2004 | Biochemistry | Accra, Ghana |
| Emily | Good | 2003 | Biochemistry | St. Albans, VT |
| Margaret | Hulse | 2004 | Chemistry | Clayton, MO |
| Danijela | Maric | 2004 | Biochemistry | Belgrade, Yugoslavia |
| Lauren | Matzuka | 2003 | Biochemistry | Kailua Kona, HI |
| Karl | Mehta | 2004 | Biochemistry | Bangalore, India |
| John | Miura | 2004 | Biochemistry | Hilo, HI |
| Vu | Nguyen | 2003 | Biochemistry | Ontario, CA |
| Nancy | Nguyen | 2004 | Biochemistry | Beloit, WI |
| Alexandra | Nicholson | 2005 | Biochemistry | Wausau, WI |
| Gregory | Peck | 2004 | Biochemistry | Belvidere, IL |
| Nayani | Pramanik | 2004 | Biochemistry | Bangalore, India |
| William | Ringland | 2004 | Chemistry | Villa Park, IL |
| Kari | Roettger | 2003 | Biochemistry | Winnebago, IL |
| Jennifer | Rumppe | 2003 | Chemistry | Clinton, WI |
| Clarissa | Schumacher | 2003 | Biochemistry | Belvidere, IL |
| Justin | Severson | 2004 | Chemistry | Poplar Grove, IL |
| Ru Yi | Teow | 2003 | Biochemistry | Penang, Malaysia |
| Rebecca | Zeni | 2004 | Chemistry | LaGrange Park, IL |
Glen Cronan Urbana, Illinois. Biochemistry. Glenn developed an interest in molecular biology while at Beloit College. In particular, he was able to explore proteomics research thanks to the recent seminars of Distinguished Visiting Scholar Brian Davis'81. The combination of his biochemistry background and computer/proteomics experiences will be helpful in the future.
Amy Eiler Kansas City, Kansas. Chemistry and French. Amy plans to work in Kansas City.
Camille Fox Livingston, Montana. Chemistry and Theater Arts (Dance). Camille Fox spent last summer (2001) doing research at Rush St. Luke's Presbyterian Medical Center in the Biochemistry Lab of Susan Chubinskaya. The research was dedicated to the cure of osteoarthritis. Soon after graduation, she will perform "Wreath of Memories," Chris Johnson's dance piece in memoriam of the children of the holocaust, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Then she will move to Dallas, Texas. The beginning of her summer will be spent applying for medical school, which she hopes to attend the following year. During her year off, she will be working, earning money, and having as much fun as possible. She will be doing as much dancing on the side as she possibly can as well.
Editor's Note: An article featuring Camille and presenting an insightful and poignant description of the premiere performance of "Wreath of Memories" on campus appeared in the Spring2002 issue of Beloit College Magazine.
Jimmy Franco Las Cruces, New Mexico. Biochemistry. He transferred from New Mexico after his freshman year, and is interested in pharmaceutical chemistry, which he expects to pursue in graduate school. This summer he is doing an internship in biochemistry at Rush University.
Johnny Franco Las Cruces, New Mexico. Biochemistry. While at Beloit College, Johnny was a four-year letterwinner in baseball and a three-year letterwinner in football. He also earned All-Midwest Conference baseball honors as a sophomore and was the team's "Hitter of the Year" during the 2000 season. During the summer after Johnny's sophomore year he spent six weeks in the minority medical education program at Yale. The following summer, he did ten weeks of research at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and coauthored two papers on myasthenia gravis. Johnny also did research in psychoneuroimmunology with Roc Ordman and in proteomics with John Jungck. This coming fall, he will be attending graduate school at the University of Texas-Galveston in their MD/PhD program.
Matthew Heming Houston, Texas. Chemistry (Major) and Music (Minor). Matthew spent the summer of 2001 with Dr. Gabriella Cs-Szabo in the Departments of Biochemistry and Orthopedic Surgery at Rush University in Chicago, working on the possible involvement of proteoglycans in the repair process after cartilage damage.
Tatjana (Tanya) Kopylova Moscow, Russia. Chemistry. An outstanding tennis player, Tanya is a three-year letterwinner and a six-time All-Midwest Conference performer. She was a recipient of Beloit College's commemorative blanketthe College's highest athletic honorin May. This past year, Tanya worked as a Teaching Assistant for the Russian language program. After graduation, she will try to get her dream job, which is to work for the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) in New York. Another option she is considering is to work in the Public Health Care field, utilizing her language skills and experience in biology and chemistry. Next year, she plans to go home (Russia) or study in the Netherlands.
Leta Moser Danville, Indiana. Interdisciplinary Studies: Biosocial Nutrition. Leta spent the summer of 2001 in Washington, D.C., working with the Center for Science in the Public Interest on a project to require calorie-content labeling on fast-food restaurant menus. She is looking forward to participating in a Bio-Behavioral Health Research Experience program at Pennsylvania State University this summer. She will help analyze data collected in a study examining the effects of omega-3 fatty acids from walnuts on cardiovascular responses to psychological stress. Leta hopes to attend graduate school in preventive medicine, public health, or nutrition.
Roland Saito Honolulu, Hawaii. Chemistry. During the summer of 2001, Roland participated in a research internship in Prof. K. Nakanishi's group in the Chemistry Department at Columbia University. He presented the results of the research in a poster at the ACS national conference in Florida and at the Beloit College Student symposium in April. After graduating from Beloit College, Roland is now working in California as a research assistant in a quickly growing drug company and plans to pursue a career as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, he has no plans to attend graduate school, but nonetheless it is on his mind.
Heather Seabury Biochemistry (Major) and Performing Arts (Minor). North Weymouth, Massachusetts. After graduation, Heather plans to work for a laboratory temporary support agency. She will also be a RA for the California Ballet Company this summer. Her long-term plans are to work and dance in California or Boston.
Kathryn Stettler Chemistry (Major) and European Studies (Minor). Edgerton, Wisconsin. Kathryn spent a second summer (2001) working with Dr. Adnan Elfarra in the Developmental and Molecular Toxicology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, performing research on FMO determination in human kidney. After graduation, she plans several road trips and R&R on the shores of Rice Lake this summer. Starting in fall, Kathryn will be attending Vanderbilt University's Interdisciplinary Medical Biology Graduate Program as a doctoral student.
Leonard Tinker Chemistry (Major) and Environmental
Studies (Minor). St. Louis, Missouri. During the summer of 2001,
Lenny did independent research on superconductor synthesis at
Washington University in St. Louis. This summer, he plans to travel
around the US and then go to Europe. He hopes to find a job working
with fuel cells or possibly in materials science for a year and
then intends to go to graduate school.
Keep sending us your news and views!
1973 Mark Boardman is married and lives in England now. After graduating from Beloit, he worked for a while at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, and then did a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Hawaii, where he studied the regulation of gene expression in early development. His first postdoc was at the University of Illinois Medical Center, where he looked at the regulation of Drosophilia muscle gene expression. He also did a second postdoc (also in gene expression during early development) at the University of Warwick in England. In 1990 he had a career change and became a pilot. He currently works for DHL, flying Boeing 757 freighters around Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Mark writes to say that he sometimes misses the scientific environment. However, flying a plane has day-to-day rewards (like successfully landing again!) that he never felt he had in research. Even though Mark doesn't "practice" any more, he likes to think that his education at Beloit and his subsequent training at the Ph.D. and postdoctoral level have stood him in good stead for the kind of work he does now and for the way he tries to lead his life.
1973 Yakov Ben-Haim (http://www.technion.ac.il/~yakov) is on the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa. He recently published a book titled "Information-Gap Decision Theory: Decisions Under Severe Uncertainty" (Academic Press), acclaimed by a reviewer as a landmark book.
1981 Brian Davis is the Director of Innovation Research at Incyte Genomics, Inc. He was a Visiting Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Beloit College this spring (see page 14).
1988 Anne Whalen Ryter. Our congratulations and best wishes to Anne, who was recently promoted and tenured in the Department of Natural and Environmental Science at Western State College of Colorado in Gunnison.
1989 Barry Elswick writes to say that since getting married and moving to San Diego in
1997, a lot has happened. The Elswicks bought a wonderful home in 1999 and had a daughter on December 24, 2000. He has been made a partner in his emergency medicine group. He is still surfing and really enjoys the ocean, the beach, and yes, the girlshis two favorite girls continue to be his wife Maria and daughter Sophia!
1990 Christine Warta has completed a Masters in Public
Health and is now Health, Safety, and Environment manager for
Solvay Fluorides, Inc., in St. Louis, Missouri.
1990 Dean Rager-Aguiar and his spouse Missie wrote to announce
the birth of their son Ryan James on April 11, 2002. The delivery
was a remarkable and unforgettable experience and they feel truly
blessed. They cannot wait to tell Ryan about all their friends,
and hope that as Ryan goes through the journey of life, he meets
people as wonderful as all of you are!
1991 Yoon-Hang Kim's unique career in medicine was featured in an article in the Fall/Winter 2001 issue of Beloit College Magazine. After becoming a family practice physician, Yoon decided to "reinvent" himself. The article says that "drawing on his knowledge of medical science and the healing art of acupuncture, Reiki (a Japanese system of energy-oriented 'healing touch') and T'ai Chi, he now focuses on holistic preventive medicine....He works with established medicine programs and sometimes helps develop new ones." Dr. Kim currently lives and works in the San Diego area, where he is affiliated with a number of programs and medical centers.
1992 Nimalika Weerakoon has moved to Australia, where she did her Ph.D. and postdoctoral work and met spouse John. They have a daughter. The family recently moved from Sydney to Wagga Wagga in rural New South Wales, where John lectures at the University. Nim has a job setting up a natural product-testing laboratory, which involves a lot of microbiology. This, coupled with the fact that John is teaching biochemistry, made Nim think about Beloit and write to us. Nim also tells us that there is soon going to be an addition to the family, due in October.
1995 Brett Summers recently completed a Ph.D. in molecular microbiology and is a Postdoctoral Scientist at ChemoCentryx, Inc., a biotech company in San Carlos, California. With regard to research in molecular biology, he writes that restriction enzyme cloning is still alive and well, but PCR is playing a much larger role in isolating specific sequences to subclone.
1997 Tanya Danner was featured in the Fall/Winter 2001 issue of Beloit College Magazine while she was in the process of finishing her family practice residency rotations as a medical student at Rush Medical School.
1997 David Gan has been working at Estee Lauder doing
biological research for the past five years. He got married about
two years ago and a little one is on the way in August.
1997 Nathan Allen is currently a graduate student in the
Ph.D. program in the Department of Chemistry at University of
CaliforniaIrvine, working with Professor William Evans. Chemical
and Engineering News (January 28, 2002, page 52) highlighted the
first ever successful synthesis of a (divalent) organothulium
complex by Nate and coworkers in their "Science Concentrates"
section. The work was published recently [Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.
41, 359, (2002)].
1998 Kelly Johanson is working on her Ph.D. at Tulane University in New Orleans. She writes that she has really come to love the city and will be quite upset when she has to leave. Her research involves determining the role of a yeast glycyl tRNA synthetase in transcription termination. She is also involved in a project looking at the effect of microgravity on yeast gene expressionthe results have been interesting, and, most exciting of all, the project is scheduled to fly on the Space Shuttle sometime in late August!
1998 Yutan Getzler is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program in Chemistry at Cornell University. He is the first author of a JACS Communication on the synthesis of beta-lactones using a highly active and selective catalyst ([JACS 124, 1174, (2002)].
1999 Kevin Braun is a graduate student in the Ph.D.
program in Chemistry, working with Professor Seth Marder at the
University of Arizona, Tucson. Overall, things are going very
well since he has successfully finished his classes, cumes, and
comprehensive oral examination, and has been able to focus on
research full time. Exciting results were published in a recent
report on nanotechnology in Science ["An efficient two-photon-generated
photoacid applied to positive-tone 3d microfabrication,"
Science 296, 1106, (2002)] that he coauthored. The work was also
highlighted in Chemical and Engineering News and in a number of
newspapers and online journals. Kevin had the opportunity to meet
two of the winners of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Dr. Alan
Heeger and Dr. Alan MacDiarmid, when they visited campus. The
highlight of Dr. MacDiarmid's visit? He allowed Kevin to hold
his Nobel Prize medal, which permits Kevin to officially say that
he was a Nobel Prize holder (at least for a minute)! Also, here
is an excerpt from a group picture with Dr. Heeger.
2001 Antoire Christie has been working at the Fox Chase
Cancer Center in Philadelphia as a Research Technician for the
past year. She has been involved in proteomics for a colon cancer
study.
2001 Chia Goh writes with greetings from sunny Stanford, where he is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program in Materials Science and Engineering. He is looking forward to the summer quarter, when he plans to start his research involving the fabrication of polymeric ("organic") transistors. Apart from research, he also hopes to visit Yosemite National Park.
2001 Leah Bandstra is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program in Oceanography at Oregon State University. Two days after graduating from Beloit last May, she was already on a sampling cruise off the coast of Oregon. The latest in a series of cruises has been a voyage to the Southern Ocean (with a stay in New Zealand afterwards) as a member of a team studying the effects of iron fertilization on the productivity of the ocean. Here is a picture of her with coworkers on board the research ship. The picture originally appeared in the Summer 2002 issue of Beloit College Magazineyou can read more about Leah's work and career there. (Thanks to the photographer, Ron Nicolaysen'71, for permission to use the picture in our newsletter, and for providing us with the high-resolution digital copy.)
2001 Nicole Burton. After a stint at Immunex as a laboratory
technician, Nicole has gone back to research and is currently
working with Dr. John Glomset at the University of Washington,
Seattle, on a project looking at a postulated new cycle in the
production of certain cell membrane proteins. The project is very
interesting and could have applications in neurology.
2001 Virginia Evans has been accepted into a number of
Physician Assistant programs and plans to attend the program at
the University of Nebraska Medical Center, starting in late August.
She is thrilled about being able to go to graduate school and
feels that Beloit has prepared her well. Virginia writes that
she got several comments during her interviews about the outstanding
reputation and quality of a Beloit College education!
Cyril M. Carney '31
Weldon R. Crawford '50
Gerald L. Geison '6 5
John P. Kaltenbach'44
Kenneth S. Kemmerer '30
Laurna Ellis Merriell '48
Charles H. Sperry '37
John F. Steinmann '29
Our alumni email network is growing steadily. It has been tremendously helpful to our present students for finding mentors, summer research positions, and post-graduate opportunities. The Beloit College Alumni office now maintains an email directory that can be accessed by registered users at http://alumni.beloit.edu/ . If you are not registered, we encourage you to do so. Please send email addresses and changes to alumni@beloit.edu .
Chemistry faculty
brownwh@beloit.edu
greene@beloit.edu
lisensky@beloit.edu
ordman@beloit.edu
parmentr@beloit.edu
spencer@beloit.edu
ramav@beloit.edu
Departmental web pages
https://www.beloit.edu/chemistry
(Previous issues of the Annual Newsletter dating back to 1993
are available on-line via the home page!)
https://www.beloit.edu/biochemistry
https://www.beloit.edu/biology
http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/
http://chemistry.beloit.edu/
ALUMNI, PLEASE KEEP IN TOUCH!! Please send your news and notes to any of the Chemistry facultythis is what keeps the newsletter going!