CCHF Monthly Newsletter 02
March 2016
CCHF Monthly Newsletters
These Newsletters will be sent out on the last Friday of every month. If you have any announcements that you would like included please contact Center management.
CCHF Announcements
Welcome to Denise Bale, Senior Director of Education, Outreach and Diversity
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Denise Bale has joined the CCHF as its new CCHF Senior Director of Education, Outreach, and Diversity.
Denise received a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Washington in 2008, and has a great deal of experience in education, outreach and diversity efforts. She brings first-hand knowledge of collaborating within an NSF Center and has been actively involved in both scientific research and EOD efforts at the Science and Technology Center on Materials and Devices for Information Technology Research and in EOD efforts at the Georgia Tech Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.
We are very excited to welcome Denise to the CCHF team and hope you will join us in welcoming her. If she has not been in touch with you yet, she will be soon!
Email: dbale@emory.edu
Location: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States
2016 VICHF-IREU Cohort Selected
We are pleased to announce the Virtual Institute for C-H Functionilazion’s 2016 International Research Experience Undergraduate Fellows.
This year we received a record number of applications and chose 6 students from various institutions to study with our partners at Cambridge, KAIST and the ITbM. Most of the chosen applicants have previous experience with the Center through their involvement in the CSURP program last summer.
The 6 scholars include Katherine Bay of the University of LaVerne, Daniel Bernstein from George Washington University, Sophie Cemaj from Emory University, Quynh Do from the University of Washington, Yuka Sakazaki from the California Institute of Technology, and Stephen Ting from Stanford University. Learn more about the 2016 cohort of fellows and follow their journey here. Each student has a page that they will update with their experiences and a comments page where you can join the discussion.
Advancing Chemical Innovation through Diversity
The Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology is pleased to host a CCI-wide professional development activity this coming Monday:
Advancing Chemical Innovation Through Diversity
presentation by Professor Rigoberto Hernandez
Date: Monday, April 4
Time: 11:30-12:30 Eastern time
Location:
- Watch the webinar at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGk8mttUiR0
- Live chat at https://tlk.io/cciwebinar
- CCI members in Atlanta are welcome to attend in person at Georgia Tech - room TBA
All CCI students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to attend!
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Advancing Chemical Innovation Through Diversity - Rigoberto Hernandez
The disconnect between the demographics of practicing chemical scientists and availability in the general population (or even that of PhDs) challenges our ability to remain competitive in the marketplace of ideas. In addition to providing evidence for the gaps in the workforce pipeline, we will discuss barriers and inequities that lead to such gaps. In so doing, we will also discuss possible solutions to level the inequities. An intended consequence of diversifying the chemical workforce in academic chemistry departments and centers is inclusive excellence in so far as diverse working groups have been shown to be more productive.
Prof. Rigoberto Hernandez is a theoretical and computational chemist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Co-Director of the Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology, and a faculty member in the CCI Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology. He is also the Director of the Open Chemistry Collaborative in Diversity Equity (OXIDE). OXIDE works with chemistry department chairs and other leaders to "to reduce inequitable policies and practices that have historically led to disproportionate representation on academic faculties with respect to gender, race-ethnicity, disabilities, and sexual orientation.”
For more information, refer to http://oxide.gatech.edu.
Dr. Noam Levi leaves the Borovik Group
In 2014 Dr. Noam Levi joined the Borovik group at UC Irvine where his work focused on investigating the catalytic behavior and properties of iron catalysts in various amination reactions via intramolecular C-H bond formation.
During his time with the CCHF Levi has been involved in a number of integrative activities including volunteering for the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering Expo for the last two years.
In March Noam returned to Israel where he plans to continue his career in chemistry.
Recent CCHF Publications
Pd-Catalyzed α-Selective C–H Functionalization of Olefins: En Route to 4-Imino-β-Lactams
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2016, 138, (6), 2146 - 2149
Date Published: 02/08/2016
Synthetic Applications and Methodological Developments of Donor–Acceptor Cyclopropanes and Related Compounds
Authors: Mary C. Andorfer, Hyun June Park, Jaylie Vergara-Colla and Jared C. Lewis
Date Published: 02/19/2016
Molecular Dynamics of Dimethyldioxirane C–H Oxidation
Authors: Zhongyue Yang, Peiyuan Yu, and K. N. Houk
Date Published: 03/10/2016
KOtBu-Initiated Aryl C–H Iodination: A Powerful Tool for the Synthesis of High Electron Affinity Compounds
Authors: Qinqin Shi, Siyuan Zhang, Junxiang Zhang, Victoria F. Oswald, Aram Amassian, Seth R. Marder, and Simon B. Blakey
Date Published: 03/21/2016
CCHF Integrative Activities
CCHF at the 2016 San Diego Science Festival
03/05/2016
On March 5th members of the Borovik (UC Irvine), Yu (Scripps), and Blackmond (Scripps) labs participated in the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering Expo Day at Petco Park. This all day event was the kick-off to 7+ days of activities intended to foster curiosity and discovery.
Expo goers who made their way to the CCHF booth got the opportunity to engage in a number of hands-on activities: explore the characteristics of macromolecules by making snow, use their sense of smell to understand chirality, and separate pigments used to make markers. These activities were used to described much of the chemistry performed within the Center and with close to 1000 visitors to the booth, CCHF chemistry was alive and well at the Expo.
There were also many great booths where you could find everything ranging from robots to solar powered cars. Needless to say, the Expo was a successful adventure. Talking about science on a sunny San Diego day, what could be better than that?
CCHF Outreach at ACS San Diego
03/13/2016
The CCHF OPEN program was highlighted as a platform for broadly engaging institutions in advanced chemistry education.
Prof. Stefan France was the Expert!
On Tuesday 22nd March Prof. Stefan France underwent an entertaining grilling by a panel of comedians as part of the Atlanta Science Festival.
In front of a sold out audience Stefan was the "Expert" for a live recording of the NPR show "You're the Expert". The premise of the show is that the three panelists arrive on stage with an expert, who they don't know anything about, and through a series of questions and games they find out what the expert does all day.
The show was a great way for the audience to find out more about the life as a chemistry professor. Done through the mechanism of comedy the shot was a hit, we found out many interesting things, not just about Stefan's research, but also what led him here.
An (edited) version will be online in a few weeks and we will link to it through the website.
CCHF Chemistry Café at the Atlanta Science Festival Expo Day
The CCHF hosted the Chemistry Café at the Atlanta Science Festival Expo day. With a tent that sat 50 we had a range of talks and demonstrations throughout the day.
Speakers included
- Science, and why we love it! - Tracy McGill
- The Chemistry of Coffee - Daniel Morton
- The Chemistry of Catalysis - Huw Davies
- Remedy, Drug or Deadly Poison? - Simon Blakey
- Fantastic Plastics! - Seth Marder
Throughout the day we had a series of hands-on demonstrations for aspiring scientists, from DIY Elephants toothpaste, how to isolate natural products from plants and beans, what is an alkaloid and how plastics can conduct.
Over 19,000 people attended the festival and we had many pass through the Chemistry Café!
Upcoming CCHF Meetings and Activities
Advancing Chemical Innovation Through Diversity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGk8mttUiR0
You can also join in the discussion using the following chat link:
Monday, Apr 4, 2016, 11:30 AM
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CCHF Site-Visit Overview and Planning Meeting
Will be held in the "Chemistry_CCHF" VidYo room.
Tuesday, Apr 5, 2016, 04:00 PM
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Mechanistic and Theoretical Studies Thematic Meeting
Will be held in the "Chemistry_CCHF" VidYo room.
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2016, 04:00 PM
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Catalyst Design Thematic Meeting
Will be held in the "Chemistry_CCHF" VidYo room.
Tuesday, Apr 19, 2016, 04:00 PM
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Quarterly CCHF Overview Meeting with Industrial Affiliates
Will be held in the "Chemistry_CCHF" VidYo room.
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2016, 04:00 PM
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Late-Stage C–H Functionalization Thematic Meeting
Will be held in the "Chemistry_CCHF" VidYo room.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016, 04:00 PM
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Material Sciences Thematic Meeting
Will be held in the "Chemistry_CCHF" VidYo room.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016, 04:00 PM
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Disconnection Strategies Thematic Meeting
Will be held in the "Chemistry_CCHF" VidYo room.