gazette
goessmann
A Publication of the Chemistry Department
University of Massachusetts
David J. Curran, Editor
Lisa M. Korpiewski, Design/Production
Fall/Winter 2000
Volume 30
THE IMPACT OF
THE CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT
IN THE 1960’S AND EARLY 1970’S
by William E. McEwen, Commonwealth Professor Emeritus
In 1960, the Department of Chemistry
consisted of about twenty faculty members,
thirty graduate students and two postdoctorate fellows. Walter Ritchie retired
and Moyer Hunsberger arrived to head the
Department. The undergraduate teaching
program was of excellent quality, the
chemistry library was commendable, and
there was an incipient research program
that provided promise of significant future
development. However, research equipment and services were primitive. New
Goessmann had just come on line but was
primarily focussed on teaching.
place, and a new high rise building was
nearing completion. During this period,
there was an inside joke prevalent to the
effect that the aims of the faculty of the
Department were modest; simply to become
the best Chemistry Department in Massachusetts. This joke became a reality in the
areas of analytical and polymer chemistry,
and the department ranked no lower than
third or fourth in the other areas.
By the early 1970’s, the number of
faculty had doubled, the number of graduate students increased four-fold, and the
number of postdoctorate fellows about fivefold. Even this represents an understatement because biochemistry and polymer
science had split off as separate entities,
each with considerable strengths. Significant modern research equipment was
available, strong research services were in
“New Goessmann had
just come on line but
was primarily focused
on teaching.”
How did this remarkable change come
about? It came about because of a fabulous
team effort on the part of everyone
involved. President John Lederle,
Provost Oswald Tippo, A&S Dean I. Moyer
... continued on page 22
Alumni Reunion 2000
The department would like to thank all of the alumni, faculty, and other visitors who were able to come to our Reunion 2000 festivities on June 3-4. The program featured a
"That was Then, This is Now" slide show by Paul Lahti
depicting changes in usage of
Goessmann Laboratory over the
years, a talk on some of the
department's latest activities in
chemical education given by Bill
Vining (Distinguished Teaching
Awardee '00!), and an update by
Craig Martin about progress toward
building a new integrated chemistry/
biology building (see Goessmann
Gazette 1999). Alumni present gave
a lot of help in identifying people
and places from a variety of pictures
from the department's archives.
Kathy Tobiassen welcoming alumni to the
reunion.
A high point of the festivities
was the unveiling of the newly
restored oil painting of Professor Charles Goessmann, originally painted by Edwin Child in 1910. Restoration of
the painting was enabled by a conservation proposal
written by Dave Curran (B.S.'53) and funded by a grant
from the UMass Alumni Association for which we are
very grateful. The portrait originally hung in the
Goessmann lecture room 20,
later in the main lobby of the Prof. Lahti, Arthur Kluge (Ph.D. ‘69), Ronald
Sahatjian, Thomas Criswell and Prof. Adams.
Goessmann Laboratory. The
portrait had been kept in the
University Gallery since the early 1980's during a time when major renovations were ongoing in the Goessmann building. Betsy Siersma of the
Gallery was an enthusiastic
and knowledgeable promoter of the department's
efforts to renew the portrait.
The conservation proposal
resulted in the restoration
of the portrait by Jan
Stenson of nearby Florence, MA, and the unveiling of the portrait in its new
home in Goessmann 149,
Prof. Vining, Robert Austin
the General Chemistry Cristian Blanco of the Auerbach lab, Robert Austin,
(Ph.D. ‘68), Ronald Sahatjian
(Ph.D. ‘70), and Thomas
Thomas Criswell, Prof. Adams, Ronald Sahatjian and
meeting room.
Prof. Venkataraman explains
to the alumni the research
that is conducted in his lab.
Criswell (M.S. ‘68) on a tour
of the CRC.
goessmann gazette–2
Lynne Adams learn about the computer laboratory
for performing theoretical chemistry calculations.
... continued on page 28
news
alumni
Donald Bancroft (B.S. '70) is chemist and
plant manager at the Danvers Water
Treatment Plant in Middleton, MA.
Lynne Batchelder (Ph.D. '78, Ragle Lab) is
Technical Services Manager for Cambridge
Isotope Laboratories, Inc., in Andover, MA.
Sophie Bobrowski (M.S. '84) recently served
as Chair of the East Tennessee Section of the
American Chemical Society. She is
currently working at the Department of
Energy Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, TN.
The department is pleased to announce the
creation of an endowment by Mrs. Juanita
Bradspies (nee Juanita Ford, B.S. '59).
Juanita has retired from a successful career
with the Polaroid Corporation and is enjoying
her interests in music and photography.
Deb Casher (B.S.'98) is a Chemistry graduate
student at the University of Colorado, in
Boulder, CO.
Maria Amy DiIorio (B.S. '97) is currently in
Zambia, Africa in the Peace Corps serving as
a Fishery Agent.
Frank Fang (B.S. '83) was the organizer and
chairman of the Gordon Conference in
Stereochemistry held at Salve Regina
University in Newport, RI, during June 1116, 2000. Frank is a former undergraduate
member of the Rausch group who got his
Ph.D. with Sam Danishevsky at Yale
University, and presently works at Eisai
Research Institute. Paul M. Lahti was the
closing session discussion leader at the
conference, which was exciting and wellattended in a beautiful venue.
Steve Feldgus (B.S. '94) just received his
Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and
is taking a Dreyfus Postdoctoral Teaching
Fellowship at Hamilton College in Clinton,
NY.
Neil Fitzgerald (Ph.D. '98) is teaching at
Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY.
Barbara Foster (M.S. '79, Rhodes Lab) wrote
a guest editorial on, “Microscopy at Pittcon:
Old Friends, New Guises”, which appeared in
Vol. 22, #11, p. 4, May 2000 News Edition
of American Laboratory . Barbara is
President, Microscopy/Marketing &
Education, of Springfield, MA.
John J. Gawienowski (B.S. '80) was ordained
in the Diocese of Springfield on June 3 at St.
Michael’s Cathedral. Before attending Pope
John XXIII Seminary in Weston, MA, he did
graduate work in inorganic chemistry for
three years at the University of Illinois.
Roberta Glynn (B.S. '88) received her M.S. in
Chemistry from Boston College and is
currently working as a medicinal chemist.
Class of '32 graduate (B.S.) Robert C.
Gunness wrote recently that he enjoyed his
work in chemistry at Mass Aggie/Mass State
but the lab work was not for him so he
switched to chemical engineering for his M.S.
and D.Sc. at MIT. A long career at Standard
Oil Co. of Indiana (now B.P. Amoco)
followed where he served for 22 years as a
director and 10 years as president.
Janet Andrews Johnson (B.S. '58) is currently
working as a consultant in radiation
protection, serves on the EPA science
advisory board, is an affiliate faculty member
at Colorado State University and also serves
on their advisory board for the Environmental
Engineering Program.
Mitchell E. (Mitch) Johnson (Ph.D. '92) was
granted tenure and approved for promotion to
the rank of Associate Professor at Duquesne
University in Pittsburgh, PA.
Uma J. Kale (Ph.D. '94) has a position with
Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals, in Ann Arbor,
MI. Recently, Uma was promoted to Senior
Scientist at Parke-Davis. Uma is also a
budding entrepreneur, interested in starting
up a specialized fine chemicals company.
Homecoming Festival – November 3 & 4, 2000
alumni
reunion ‘01
Don’t miss next year’s Alumni Reunion - 2001
to be held June 8, 9 & 10.
3–goessmann gazette
Roger G. Bates Chemistry Fund
The department is pleased to announce a generous gift by Roger G. Bates (B.S. '34) to create the Roger G.
Bates Chemistry Fund. It will provide income to support the enrichment and extension of programs within the
department. Dr. Bates is professor emeritus at the University of Florida, Gainsville. His appointment there
followed a 30 year career at the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST). He has published about 280
technical articles and three books, including the classic, “Determination of pH, Theory and Practice”. For many
years, he was active in IUPAC affairs and his work on electrolytic solutions and the standardization of the pH
scale won him the Hillebrand Prize (1955) of the Washington Section-ACS, the gold medal for exceptional
service of the Department of Commerce (1957), the ACS award in Analytical Chemistry (1969), the Anachem
Award (1983) and recognition for distinguished contributions by the Analytical Division of the Royal Society of
Chemistry in 1995.
Dr. Michael Kestigian (B.S. '52) has retired
from full-time employment, and continues as
president of Hye Technology Associates.
Sepideh Khorasanizadeh (B.S. '90) is an
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and
Molecular Genetics at the University of
Virginia. She reports to the department,"I am
proud to say your invaluable encouragements
and support have paid off and I have secured
a nice position as an assistant professor at
UVA medical school pursuing a career in
structural biology. If it weren’t for your
organic chemistry lectures and the honors
course, I would have gone to medical school
and probably missed the fun of basic science
research!" Thanks for the kind words,
Sepideh, and all the best in your career at the
chemistry/biology interface.
Arthur F. Kluge (Ph.D. '69), Vice President
for Drug Discovery at Mitotix, Inc. of
Cambrige, MA, gave a talk on “Use of
Functional Genomics in Drug Discovery”,
and Ronald A. Sahatjian (Ph.D. '69), Vice
President, Technology at Boston Scientific,
Wellesley, MA, gave his talk on “Heart
Attacks and Hydrogels” at the Spring 2000
Sophomore Seminar.
Ms. Indrani Mallik (M.S. '91) is working as
an Associate Scientist in the Analytical
Development Department of ScheringPlough. She is currently doing an MBA
(part-time) in the Pharm-Chem program at
Fairleigh Dickinson University. And
congratulations on the birth of her son, Sean,
born March 5, 1998.
An interview with Professor George Richason
(B.S. '37, M.S. '39, D.Sc. Honorary 1991)
appeared in the December 31 issue of
Hampshire Life. In it, George talks about his
66 years at UMass as student, graduate
student, professor and administrator.
Douglas M. Surgenor (M.S. '41) writes in
regard to the article in the last issue of the
Goessmann Gazette, that as a teaching fellow,
he helped Prof. Monroe Freeman teach the
organic course after Prof. Chamberlain
retired. Following a Ph.D. in chemistry at
MIT, Dr. Surgenor pursued a long career in
medical education at Harvard Medical
School, University of Buffalo School of
Medicine, and the State University of New
York at Buffalo. He served as a trustee of the
Center for Blood Research, Inc., Boston,
from 1972 to 1997, as the Center’s president
from 1972 to 1987 and as chairman of the
board from 1987 to 1990.
A group of analytical chemistry graduate alumni and their families from the
late 80’s - early 90’s gathered for their annual “spring reunion” in March this
year. Pictured are Stuart Chalk (University of North Florida), Tom Dowling
(Merck), Roger Echols (University of Michigan), Mitchell Johnson (Duquesne
University), Jeff Seeley (Procter and Gamble), Jeff Slowick (Pfizer), Ed
Szczesny (Pfizer) and Dwight Tshudy (Xerox). (The members of the next
generation seem to be rapidly catching up in numbers; the future supply of
analytical chemists seems assured!)
goessmann gazette–4
Reha Tepe (Ph.D. '99) is working as a
Product Manager with S.C. Johnson Wax in
Istanbul.
Victoria White (B.S. '85) owns and operates
Eclectechs, a website development and
computer and internet training firm. In 1999,
she purchased Valinet, an internet service
provider. Visit them at www.valinet.com and
www.eclectechs.com.
Jonathan Wilker (B.S. '91) has recently joined
the faculty of the Chemistry Department at
Purdue University in Indiana, with core focus
in the area of bioinorganic chemistry. He was
one of the featured interviewees of an article
in Chemical & Engineering News (June 19,
2000 issue, page 41), entitled “Starting from
Scratch”. The article described some of the
challenges faced by young chemistry faculty
at the start of their careers. Jonathan's
interests in the chemistry of marine adhesives
could lead to new types of medicinally
friendly adhesives, as well as advances in
marine high-tech materials. We wish Jonathan
all the best for the exciting work that he will
be pursuing at Purdue.
faculty
news
Professor David Adams was appointed
editor of the New England Chemists
Section of the New England Association of
Chemistry Teachers (NEACT) Journal in
the Spring of 1999. He has written an
informative article entitled, “Charles
Anthony Goessmann: Leader in American
Agricultural Chemistry”, which appeared
in the New England Association of
Chemistry Teachers Journal, The NEACT
Journal, 18(2), pp 8-11. In additon, he has
written articles about Gilbert N. Lewis and
Robert S. Mulliken.
Pages 12 and 13 of the 1999 annual
report of the American Chemical Society
feature Prof. Ron Archer and his daughter
Sharon. She is a biophysical chemist with
DuPont Pharmaceuticals in Wilmington,
DE, and as noted in the previous edition of
the Goessmann Gazette, Ron retired
recently. The report details a number of
families where chemistry is pursued by
more than one family member.
Professor Scott Auerbach has completed
his second review article in 9 months,
entitled “Dynamics of Sorbed Molecules in
Zeolites” for the book, “Computer
Modeling of Microporous, and Mesoporous
Materials”. This chapter, coauthored with a
former postdoc, Dr. Fabien Jousse (now in
Namur, Belgium), summarizes about 10
years of work in the field. The first article
appeared in late May in, “International
Reviews in Physical Chemistry”and is
Lahti Named Head
Professor Paul M. Lahti has been appointed as Head of Chemistry, following a period of interim headship
after past head Prof. Lila Gierasch moved to a primary affiliation with the Department of Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology. Professor Lahti has been with the department since 1985, and has been a full professor
since 1995. His primary areas of interest are in computational chemistry spectroscopy, and reactivity of
molecules with unpaired electrons, and the chemistry of solid state materials and polymers. He is an adjunct
professor in the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, and a long-time collaborator with members
of that department. He also has interests in computer-aided chemical education, and has participated in a
number of workshops aimed at promoting effective use of computers in chemistry. He points out that there
are a lot of challenges facing the department at a time when many faculty retirements are anticipated, but that
the opportunities for further increasing the department's stature are good. He notes that numerous successes
of younger faculty over the past decade builds on a tradition of strength through highly multidisciplinary
science by the older faculty, and that anticipated further investment in hiring by the university will allow this
trend to continue.
5–goessmann gazette
Distinguished Faculty Lecture
One of this past year's Distinguished Faculty Lecturers was
Lila Gierasch (now a joint faculty member of Biochemistry &
Molecular Biology and Chemistry, as well as Head of B&MB).
She gave a very animated talk (both in speech and in terms of
computerized audio-visual aids) entitled, “The Unfolding Story
of Protein Folding” on February 23, 2000 in Memorial Hall to
a very full auditorium. She described the challenges of protein
folding research, with examples from her own group's work,
and gave the audience a taste of the enormous implications for
influencing physiological functions that would derive from
better understanding of the protein folding process.
titled, “Theory and Simulation of Jump
Dynamics, Diffusion and Phase Equilibrium
in Nanopores”.
Chemical Society Meeting at San
Francisco. His lecture topic was Organic
Radicals in Molecular Magnetic Materials.
The Chemistry Graduate Program
received $20,000 for minority graduate
fellowships from the Graduate Dean.
Paul is one of the organizing committee
members of the International Conference
on Molecular Magnetism, "Magnetism in
the Next Millenium", which has been set
for September 16-21, 2000 in San Antonio,
TX. This biannual symposium is the main
meeting for scientists who are interested in
the area of molecular magnetism.
Professor Paul M. Lahti was one of
only three foreign speakers invited to the
Conference on Delocalized Electronic
Systems with Unique Structure and
Function, held in Kyoto, Japan during
January 24-25, 2000. His lecture was
entitled "Exchange Effects in Conjugated
Systems Based on Aryl Nitrenes". He also
was asked to speak on behalf of the foreign
delegation of speakers at the conference
banquet, and so had the pleasure of
thanking the hosts for their wonderful
hospitality. While in Japan, he also visited
with scientists and gave talks at Osaka City
University and Osaka University.
Paul was one of the invited speakers at a
minisymposium organized by Arthur
Epstein (Ohio State University) in honor of
Joel Miller's (Utah) receipt of the
Chemistry of Materials Prize. The
minisymposium took place in March 2000,
and was part of the Spring 2000 American
goessmann gazette–6
The Public Broadcasting System
television show, "Nova", got a helping hand
from Paul’s interactive molecular models of
diamond, graphite, and C60 (fullerene).
Station WGBH in Boston wanted
interactive models of carbon allotropes for
the online WWW site that was part of their
show "The Diamond Deception", which
aired on February 2, 2000. They asked for
and received permission to use (with
acknowledgement) computer interactive
models from the Lahti research group
WWW site, which features carbon
allotropes studied by high school students
of the Science Enrichment Project (Prof.
Donald St. Mary, Mathematics and
Statistics, 1992-1997) under his instruction.
Professor Lahti also made a special,
larger model of diamond for the use of the
"Nova" site. As this story goes to press, the
"Nova" WWW site which used the models
may still be seen by following the links for
interactive model display at www.pbs.org/
wgbh/nova/diamond/inside.html.
Louis Quin, former department head,
writes from North Carolina that starting a
month after he and Gyongyi arrived on the
NC coast in the summer of 1996, there
have been five major hurricanes, four of
them with winds over 100 mph. He notes
that there had not been a major hurricane in
the region for the previous 35 years! Lou
has a new book out published in January of
this year by John Wiley: “A Guide to
Organophosphorus Chemistry”. Gyongyi
did all of the structures and equations for
the text. Lou traveled to Kazan, Russia, as
the first recipient of the A.E. and B.A.
Arbusov Memorial Award in Phosphorus
Chemistry, sponsored by the Russian
Academy of Sciences.
Professor C. Peter Lillya has
been selected as one of
this year’s NSM College
Outstanding Teacher
awardees.
Professor Marvin D. Rausch attended
the 19th International Conference on
Organometallic Chemistry, held in
Shanghai, China, from July 23-29, 2000.
He has been involved in these conferences
since the first one in Cincinnati, Ohio, in
1963. In 1973, he served as chair of the 6th
International Conference on Organometallic
Chemistry, held in Amherst, and since 1988
Dreyfus Foundation Grant Awarded
Prof. C. Peter Lillya has been awarded a $51,000 grant from the Dreyfus Foundation to support his project "WebDelivered Learning for Organic Chemistry Students" for the development of computer quizzes for sophomore organic
chemistry students. Prof. Steven Hixson will work closely with him on this project which will extend use of the Online Webbased Learning (OWL) software in chemistry courses. OWL is a versatile platform for delivery of learning experiences
originally developed by this Department in collaboration with the Center for Computer-Based Instructional Technology in
the Department of Computer Science.
Prof. Lillya noted that other computer-aided schemes and software exist as supplements to more traditional learning
tools for organic chemistry, but that effective use of computers at this level requires interactive recognition by the computer
of molecular structure. The CambridgeSoft Corporation of Cambridge, MA has donated software to assist Prof. Lillya's
project, by enabling the development of truly interactive WWW pages for organic chemistry, including the ability to
recognize and evaluate molecular structures drawn by the student. He said this ability is crucial to allow tutorials and quizzing
to take advantage of the interactive nature of computers. Dr. Michael J. McManus, a BS alumnus and Vice President for
Marketing at CambridgeSoft, was instrumental in establishing this valuable working relationship.
Prof. Paul M. Lahti, head of the chemistry department, said "this grant is a further recognition that UMass-Amherst is a
leading institution in the development of computer-aided learning for chemistry. The combination of expertise from those
working on the OWL project with the funding and support given by the Dreyfus Foundation and CambridgeSoft will help
the Chemistry Department to create very high-impact computer-aided teaching tools which for the first time will include
student-interactive molecular structure recognition. It's good to have someone of Peter Lillya's energy and expertise to
promote a project with this much impact value on our teaching".
7–goessmann gazette
“Wouldn't you like
to be a chemist when
you grow up?” asked
Dhandapani Venkataraman.
On Thursday, April 27, 2000, at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the Chemistry Department there were
three demos given that day by Professor
Dhandapani Venkataraman (DV) in
support of Take Our Daughters to Work
Day.
In the first experiment, DV dipped
copper pennies into a hot solution of zinc
and sodium hydroxide. Zinc deposited on
the copper penny, making it look silvery. The penny was then heated to melt the zinc (~230C) to form brass, which is
an alloy of copper and zinc. The brass gives a gold look. When zinc is coated on iron the process is called
“galvanization.” The zinc coating on galvanized pipes, buckets, tools, etc. prevents them (the iron) from rusting. For
the second demonstration, DV created a chemical volcano using ammonium dichromate and magnesium. He dipped
burning magnesium into ammonium dichromate, which decomposed and produced chromium oxide (Cr2O3), nitrogen
(N2), and lots of heat. Magnesium burns brilliantly white, ammonium dichromate is orange in color, and chromium
oxide is green. With nitrogen carrying the chromium oxide, the resulting concoction resembled an exploding
volcano. What occurred was technically a thermite reaction. The third demo involved liquid nitrogen. DV
demonstrated how a balloon filled with air will shrink, and how things become brittle when cooled to liquid nitrogen
(LN) temperatures. He also immersed some tygon tubing into LN and then smashed it to pieces.
Photo by Bob Stern, Union News
All in all, these activities epitomized Take Your Daughter to Work Day: Prof. Venkataraman succeeded in making
chemistry appealing and accessible to the girls (and their parents). He may well have ignited some interest in those
girls to someday pursue chemistry in a more serious manner — but still have fun with it, of course. “On the whole, it
was a lot of fun. I hope that the kids got the idea that science is indeed fun.” - DV
*Members of DV’s research lab who provided invaluable assistance with these experiments were Derek Van
Allen, Jeremy Kintigh, Claire Cohen, Jason Field, Karen Esmond, Rattan Gujadhur, and Uche Anyanwu.
has served as the Permanent Secretary for
the conferences. In this capacity, he is
involved in the selection of future
conference venues, and already has
meetings lined up for 2002 (Corfu, Greece),
2004 (Vancouver, Canada) and 2006
(Zaragoza, Spain).
Congratulations to Professor Everett
Reed on being awarded a Certificate of
Appreciation for Excellence in Teaching
from the 1999 summer session. This
Certificate is on behalf of his teaching of
CHEM111, General Chemistry for Science
and Engineering Majors.
goessmann gazette–8
Professor William J. Vining has
been selected as one of this year’s
University Distinguished
Teachers.
The work of the Rotello group involving
nanotechnology is receiving attention
world-wide. Last April, the BBC News
internet site SCI/TECH featured their work
using polymers to order nanometer sized
gold balls into structured features. An
article entitled, “A ‘Building Block’
Approach to Mixed-Colloid Systems
Through Electrostatic Self-Organization”
by T.H. Galow, A.K. Boal, and V.M.
Rotello appearing in Adv. Mater. 2000, 12,
576-79 was featured on the inside front
cover of that issue of the journal.
Professor Richard Stein attended a
symposium at Woods Hole, MA, in June,
celebrating the 80th birthday of his
Brooklyn Polytechnic undergraduate thesis
advisor, Paul Doty. While there, he stayed
at the home of his first UMass chemistry
graduate student, John Keane (Ph.D. '51)
who is retired after a long career with GE.
Professor Richard Stein was selected as
one of this year's two Distinguished Alumni
Awards from Polytechnic University in
Brooklyn.
Professors Richard Stein and Bill Vining
have completed a CD-ROM, “Exploring
the World of Polymers”, which is currently
being reproduced and will be distributed to
high and middle school teachers and
students.
Congratulations to Professor Julian
Tyson for winning two gold medals at the
U.S. National Fencing Championships held
June 30-July 9 in Austin, TX. He took first
place in the masters and veterans divisions
of the epee competition. He now ranks first
nationally in the veterans-50 men’s epee
standings.
The X-ray Structural Center
Recently funded by National Science
Foundation grant CHE-9974648, the X-ray
Structural Center is online and producing
structures. Successful grant writers Roberta
Day, Dhandapani Venkataraman, and John
Wood have transmitted their excitement about
this new, state of the art facility to their
colleagues, fueling a big upsurge in use of
x-ray structural determination by graduate
and undergraduate students. The new
instrument is remarkably easy to use and
yields good data even for small crystals.
Plans are underway to take advantage of the
X-ray Center, plus the department's
subscription to the Cambridge Structural
Database in the Chemistry Resource Center,
and the highly networked system of graphics
Nonius KappaCCD
intensive computers in the department, to
integrate x-ray structural determination and crystal engineering strategies into coursework that
involves materials chemistry.
9–goessmann gazette
18th Annual Meeting on Kinetics and Dynamics
On Saturday, January 29, the UMass Chemistry and Chemical Engineering departments hosted the
18th Annual Meeting on Kinetics and Dynamics. This regional meeting featured speakers from
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering departments at UMass, University of New Hampshire, RPI,
SUNY-Albany and Wesleyan University describing experimental and theoretical studies aimed at
understanding processes as diverse as chemical vapor deposition, flame chemistry, ionsolvation and
reactions on stratospheric ice crystals. The meeting concluded with tours of labs studying flame
chemistry (Prof. Westmoreland, ChemE), zeolite growth (Profs. Vlachos and Tsapatsis, ChemE) and ion
photodissociation (Prof. Metz, Chem). Approximately 35 people were in attendance.
faculty
promotions/tenure
Scott M. Auerbach has been promoted to
Associate Professor and granted tenure. He
arrived in Amherst in 1995 following his
postdoctoral work with Prof. Metiu at UC Santa
Barbara and his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in 1993
with Prof. Miller. In addition to his appointment
in Chemistry, he was appointed an adjunct
assistant professor in chemical engineering in
1996. Scott brings theoretical and simulation
methods to bear on a number of problems among
which are the diffusion and reactivity of molecules
in zeolites, structures and thermal stability of
crystalline solids, and development of classical
and quantum chemical reaction rate theories. He
also has a major interest in bringing material on
transport and solids into the chemistry curriculum.
Support for his work has come from industrial,
philanthropic, and governmental sources including
the Sloan and Dreyfus foundations, NSF, the
Engelhard Corporation and the Petroleum
Research Fund.
Associate Professor William J. Vining has
been granted tenure. Bill joined the department in
1996. Working across the breadth of chemistry,
his efforts center on creating and testing
interactive software for chemistry education. He
earned the Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with
Prof. Meyer. After a few years in industry, Bill
moved to Hartwick College and advanced to
Associate Professor and Department Chair, the
position he left to come to the University.
Support for his work here comes from industry
sources, NSF, the US Department of Education
and the Dreyfus Foundation. People in his
research group range from postdoctoral associates
to a considerable number of undergraduate
students. Bill’s work in chemical education is
placing the department in the forefront of this area
and the impact is being felt by students well
beyond the confines of this campus.
LIGHT FARE – Ricardo Metz, assistant professor of Chemistry, demonstrates
how lasers are used in research to students from Monson Junior and Senior
High School. “Fun with Lasers” was one of many programs offered during last
week’s Science Days events sponsored by the College of Natural Science and
Mathematics, the College of Food and Natural Resources and the College of
Engineering. About 800 students and 40 teachers from 20 high schools
participated in the three-day program. (Courtesy of The Campus Chronicle,
November 5, 1999. Photograph by Stan Sherer.)
goessmann gazette–10
chemistry
seminar program
It was another exciting year for our department’s seminar program that also included the two
named seminar series (thanks to Bayer and Procter & Gamble) and the Five College Seminar Series. These
seminars featured speakers from universities, national labs and from industry, and they spoke about topical
areas of modern research.
We had the third annual “Richard Stein-Bayer Corporation Honorary Seminar in
Polymer Chemistry” on October 28, 1999. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to
yet again honor the remarkable achievements of Prof. Richard Stein and to forge
stronger ties with Bayer Corporation. Our Bayer-Stein lecturer was the renowned
polymer chemist, Prof. Robert Grubbs from Caltech. He talked on “Design and Use
of Ruthenium Metathesis Catalysts for the Synthesis of Large and Small
Molecules”.
Prof. Ken Houk from UCLA was our 1999-2000 Five College Lecturer. At
UMass, Prof. Houk gave an excellent talk on “Pericyclic Reactions: From
Femtosecond Dynamics to Antibody Catalysis”. In his seminars, Prof. Houk
illustrated how his studies on the transition
states of pericyclic reactions can be used to
understand catalysis in biological systems.
We had our third annual Procter & Gamble
Professor Robert Grubbs
Chemistry Seminar on April 20, 2000. It was
given by one of our distinguished alumni, Prof.
Donald Hunt from the University of Virginia (a Ph.D. student of Profs.
Rausch and Lillya) on “Proteomics Automated Identification of Peptides
and Proteins at the Attomole Level in Complex Mixtures by Mass
Spectrometry”.
Professor Donald Hunt
Also, for our seminar series, our graduate students invited Prof. Reza
Ghadiri from Scripps Institute and Prof. Sam Gellman from University
of Wisconsin to UMass-Amherst. Prof Ghadiri gave a scintillating
seminar on “Functional Molecular Assemblies” on October 21, 1999. In
his talk, Prof. Ghadiri discussed the use of his peptide-based nanotubes
as ion channels. On December 2, 1999, Prof. Gellman discussed how
certain synthetic polymers could be designed to fold, much like proteins.
We anticipate having an electrifying 2000-2001 series as well. This year’s Bayer-Stein seminar features
Prof. Robert Langer from MIT on September 28, 2000. Prof. Langer is a pioneer in the use of polymers for
medical applications. In the late 1980’s, with Dr. Vacanti, he demonstrated that living cells grown on
polymer frameworks could function after being transplanted into animals. This landmark discovery opened
the door to the new field of tissue engineering. Dr. Langer is the only active member of all 3 U. S. National
Academies, which is a testimonial to the widespread impact of his research.
In addition to our two named seminars this year, on November 3 at 4:00 p.m. we will have our inaugural
William Mahoney Chemistry Seminar. This new seminar series has been made possible by a generous
contribution by William E. Mahoney '55, who is an adjunct Professor of Chemistry at UMass and a former
Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Witco Corporation, CT. The focus of this new seminar series
would be to address the role of science in the society. Our inaugural Mahoney Seminar lecturer will be Dr.
Henry C. Lee from the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratories. Dr. Lee is an expert
forensic scientist who was involved in the investigations of high-profile cases such as the O. J. Simpson
trial and the Jon-Benet Ramsey Murder trial. It will be an excellent opportunity for our students to learn
about the field of forensic science and the important role of chemistry/biochemistry in the judicial process.
Professor Dhandapani Venkataraman, Departmental Seminar Chair
11–goessmann gazette
THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLYMER
SCIENCE AT UMASS AMHERST
David L. Adams, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry
and Richard S. Stein, Goessmann Professor
of Chemistry Emeritus
In April 2000, U.S. News & World Report
ranked the graduate Polymer Science and
Engineering (PSE) Department at UMass number
one in the country. This top ranking has been
repeated annually since 1996. PSE was also
highly ranked by the National Research Council in
their publication “Doctoral Programs in America.”
The program was ranked 7th in the nation for
Materials Science Departments when ranking the
faculty and 2nd for the quality of the Ph.D.
graduates. It also ranks in the top few when
publications or citations per faculty are used as
measures. The UMass polymer science program
was also the first to be awarded an industry/
university cooperative research center by the
National Science Foundation. The program
maintains a large proportion of American students
including women and has about 400 Ph.D.
alumni. Some of these alumni, along with
chemistry alumni who did graduate work in the
polymer field, have assumed leadership roles in
polymer science and engineering in China, Japan,
Korea, India, and the United States. In 1995, the
federal government acknowledged the leadership
role of
UMass in
polymers
with the
opening of
the Conte
National
Polymer Research Center. On the industrial side,
companies continually seek the assistance of the
UMass Polymer Science and Engineering
department in solving their challenges and needs,
and provide one-third of its funding. How did all
this happen? Who were and are the key players in
the evolution of this renowned program? How did
this all come together at a University that had no
polymer courses, faculty, or research activity prior
to 1950? The story begins during the Second
World War in Brooklyn, New York.
That war vividly demonstrated the broad
applications and usefulness of polymers.
Polyethylene was used to insulate radar cabling,
methyl methacrylate was used to provide strong
goessmann gazette–12
The Silvio O. Conte National Center for Polymer
Research
transparent materials for airplane cockpit
windows, nylon was used to make heavy duty,
weather resistant material for parachutes, and
synthetic rubbers were found to be excellent
substitutes for natural rubber. Herman Mark, a
world renowned pioneer in polymer science and
recent émigré from Austria, was enticed to the
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn to become the
first academic professor in polymer science in
America. In 1942, just after Mark’s arrival at
Brooklyn, one of the authors (Richard S. Stein),
then a young graduate of Brooklyn Technical High
School, enrolled as a chemistry major at the
Institute. He graduated three years later, having
conducted his senior research in the use of light
scattering to determine polymer structure under the
direction of Paul M. Doty and Bruno H. Zimm.
This was the first measurement of the size of a
polymer molecule in solution using light
scattering, a line of investigation that led Stein to
help originate the field of rheo-optics. This
research was conducted amongst people who
ultimately coalesced into the Polymer Research
Institute established by Mark in 1946 at Brooklyn
Poly.
After graduating from Brooklyn Poly, Stein
attended Princeton, where he received his M.S. in
1948 and his Ph.D. in 1949 in physical chemistry.
He worked with Arthur Tobolsky, researching the
relationship between structure and the mechanical
properties of polymers. Stein’s Ph.D. work led to
the use of birefringence in studying polymer
properties. He then did a year of postdoctoral
work on the infrared spectroscopy of solid
polymers with Sir Gordon B. B. M. Sutherland at
Cambridge University under a National Research
Council fellowship. Upon his return to the United
States in the fall of 1949, Stein worked again
briefly with Tobolsky at Princeton. During that
fall semester, he became aware of an opening in
physical chemistry at UMass occasioned by the
onset of the illness of “Doc” Richard Fessenden.
Stein started teaching and conducting research
at UMass in January of 1950. Before this time,
there was no activity in polymers at the university.
He developed courses in quantum mechanics,
statistical mechanics and polymer chemistry,
among others, all while teaching general
chemistry. Initially, with a few Master’s students,
many undergraduates, and homemade equipment,
Stein began to extend his work on the structural
determination of polymers using light, x-ray,
infrared and, later neutron scattering. Using these
methods, Stein studied the ordering of polymer
molecules in the solid, melt and solution phases.
In particular, he made seminal contributions
toward understanding deformation mechanisms in
plastics. By the late 1950’s, his research program
had generated sufficient international recognition
that he was invited to give lectures around the
world. His research was supported by federal and
industrial grants. In fact, Stein’s Office of Naval
Research grant in 1952 is believed to be one of the
first federal research contracts awarded to UMass.
Taking a page from his mentor Herman Mark’s
book, Stein proposed the establishment of the
Polymer Research Institute (PRI) at UMass in
1961. The purpose of the PRI was to coordinate
the polymer efforts occurring in the various
departments on campus. The PRI also provided
mechanisms for both the acquisition of the
personnel needed to respond to the national and
international interest shown in the polymer efforts
at UMass, and for more efficiently channeling
grant money toward these activities. On August
15, 1961, the UMass Board of Trustees approved
the formation of the PRI on President John
Lederle’s recommendation. With Stein named as
Director, and housed in Goessmann Laboratory,
the PRI reported to the Dean of the Graduate
School and operated with the counsel of an
Industrial Advisory Committee.
In 1965, Professor William J. MacKnight, also
a Tobolsky student, joined Stein in the chemistry
department. For around fifteen years the polymer
education and research had occurred under the
umbrella of the chemistry department. Stein and
MacKnight felt it was time to establish an
independent program. Thus, in 1966, they
proposed the establishment of a Polymer Science
and Engineering (PSE) program, which reported to
the Dean of the Graduate School. The program
was approved later that same year. Masters and
doctorate degrees in polymer science and
engineering, primarily involving faculty in
existing departments, could now be awarded.
Also that same year, Roger Porter joined UMass as
the first, full-time member of the program, and as
its first head. It started as a handful of offices and
laboratories in the basement of Old Goessmann
Laboratory with additional adjunct faculty from
existing departments including chemistry. After
experiencing much success over the next few
years, the program became a separate department
in 1974. Roger Porter continued as its first
Stein in Goessmann Laboratory in the late 1950s (currently
Goessmann 207 of the Metz group laboratories)
department head, reporting to the Dean of the
College of Natural Sciences and Math (NSM). To
accommodate the many activities of the new
department and its faculty, Draper Hall Annex was
refurbished to provide faculty offices and a
teaching lab. While several of the faculty
involved with the polymer effort eventually joined
the new department (Professors MacKnight, Lenz,
Farris, and Chien), Stein remained as a member of
the chemistry department, reflecting his desire to
maintain a high level of interest in polymer
research within the chemistry department. After
Roger Porter’s leadership from 1974-1976, PSE
13–goessmann gazette
department heads have included William
MacKnight (1976-1985 and 1988-1995), E. L.
Thomas (1985-1988), and the current Department
Head Richard Farris (1995-present).
In 1973, largely due to the program’s growing
international reputation as a world leader in
fundamental polymer research, the National
Science Foundation (NSF) funded the
establishment of a Materials Research Laboratory.
Faculty from PSE responsible for this first grant
were Roger Porter and Frank E. Karasz. In August
of 1994, the Laboratory was reinstituted as the
Materials Research Science and Engineering
Center (MRSEC), under the continuing
sponsorship of the NSF. The center is recognized
world wide in providing strong interdisciplinary
education in polymer science. The current
Director of MRSEC is Professor Thomas Russell
(Ph.D. ’79 under Professor Stein).
Through the efforts of Professors Otto Vogl
and Stein in 1980, the NSF established the first
Industry/University Cooperative Research Center
at UMass in the form of the Center for UMass/
Industry Research on Polymers (CUMIRP). This
center celebrates its twentieth anniversary this
year. It was initially funded jointly by the NSF and
industry but is now wholly industry supported. It
has provided a national model for the
establishment and operation of university-
industrial research collaboratives. CUMIRP
provides the opportunity for industry to secure the
benefits of academic input and for UMass students
and faculty to contribute to the solution of realworld issues. For example, in the spring of 2000,
the PSE Department presented results of Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) sponsored research
on fire resistant polymers conducted through the
auspices of the CUMIRP. The principal
investigator at the FAA is Richard Lyon, a UMass
alumnus who obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1985
under Department Head Richard Farris and
Professor William MacKnight.
In 1985, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
designated the Amherst campus as a Polymer
Center of Excellence. At about this same time,
after a suggestion from Georges Hadziioannou at a
meeting on the Isle of Capri, Stein proposed the
formation of a Center for Polymer Research to
then Chancellor Joseph Duffey. Stein, along with
Prof. MacKnight, sought funding for the
construction of a building to house the center
through the state with Governor Michael Dukakis
and through the federal government with
Congressman Silvio O. Conte. By 1986, Conte
had secured $20 million in federal funds for
construction of a polymer research center, which
later was named the Silvio O. Conte National
Center for Polymer Research. The new facility’s
mission is to study and develop synthetic materials
to replace natural ones thus reducing dependence
on imports and stockpiling. The Conte Building
was formally dedicated in 1996.
Today, the Polymer Science and Engineering
Department consists of 12 faculty (soon to be 14),
150 researchers, and in excess of $6 million in
annual research funds. Forty to fifty corporate
sponsors are typically involved in some way in
PSE research efforts.
Polymer science at UMass was born in the
chemistry department in 1950, consolidated into a
separate program in 1966, and ultimately grew into
an independent department in 1974. The PSE
Department has spawned such successful
programs as CUMIRP and MRSEC. The program
is internationally renowned and highly ranked by
several organizations and publications. One of the
more recognized strengths of the PSE degree is the
interdisciplinary scope of its graduates, a fact
reflecting the close ties between Polymer Science
and Engineering and the departments of Chemistry
and Chemical Engineering.
Otto Vogl, Richard Stein, and Eugene Magat,
the first CUMIRP director
goessmann gazette–14
visiting staff
news
Dr. Csaba Bagyinka has returned to the Institute of Biophysics, Biological Research Center,
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, after working in the Mike Maroney lab.
Jacques Penelle, Fernando Palacio, Paul M. Lahti
Paul Serwinski, Jacqueline Ferrer, Laura Field, Burak
Esat, Yi Liao
The research groups of Paul M. Lahti and
Fernando Palacio (Univ of Zaragoza, Spain)
have received a joint grant from the Fullbright
US-Spain Joint Commission for Scientific
and Technological Cooperation, in aid of their
joint project "Molecular Magnetism in
Organic Polymers and Materials". The grant
will allow reciprocal travel and visits by
members of the two groups in the US and in
Spain.
Professor Andri Smith who worked as a post-doc in the Bill Vining lab, is now a Chemistry
Professor at Quinnipiac College.
undergraduate
student news
Rob Albert is now working for Wyeth
Ayerst in New Jersey.
Jessica Bender is attending graduate
school in inorganic chemistry at the
University of Virginia.
Janice Chin is working at Arkwright
Inc., W. Glocester, Rhode Island.
Thanks for the Books
The Chemical Sciences Alliance chemistry club is happy to
acknowledge a gift of books from Janice Wojtkunski (B.S. '62).
Much of the 1999-2000 academic year has been spent on continuing
to spruce up "The Dugout", aka Goessmann 201, where club
members can hang out to check on posted job possibilities, use the
club computer facilities, listen to a talk by an invited speaker, or just
rest a bit while prepping for an exam. Part of the work the club
members have pursued has been to build up a library for reference
use. The club welcomes useful and interesting additions to their
collection.
Chemistry majors Jong Choi and Jason
Tresback received undergraduate Pfizer
Prepare fellowships in support of
undergraduate research in organic
synthesis. These $5000 fellowships provide summer stipends and research expenses support for
them to work with the Lahti group. This is the second year that these fellowships have been
available at UMass, through the generosity of Pfizer.
Corey Colemen is working at Pfizer, Inc. in Groton, Connecticut.
Nathan Fuller is pursuing his graduate work in chemistry at the University of Washington.
Melissa Kosinski is now attending graduate school in biochemistry at MIT.
Jodi Michne is working at Bristol-Meyers-Squibb in Connecticut.
Karen Osman is now working at Millipore Corp. here in Massachusetts.
Stephanie Smulligan is attending graduate school in chemistry at Michigan State.
Kara Stamm is in the Masters of Education 180 days program which is a collaborative teacher
education program between the Springfield Public Schools and the University of Massachusetts
Amherst.
Eric Styche is working at Physical Sciences, Inc. in Andover, Massachusetts.
Patrick Taylor is attending graduate school here in the Chemistry Department at UMass.
15–goessmann gazette
undergraduate
senior dinner
In May 2000, students, faculty, staff and family
gathered to honor students who achieved academic
distinction in 1999-2000 and all the graduating seniors.
Attendees included Pfizer Prepare Summer Research
Fellows and Dean’s List students for Fall 1999 and all
officers of the Chemical Sciences Alliance (a student
club for biochemists, chemists and chemical
engineers). This second of
what we intend to be a
traditional event was an
informal affair at the China Seniors in attendance.
Dynasty restaurant on the day
after classes ended. One student was accompanied by his entire immediate
family, something we would welcome more often.
Dinner was a Chinese buffet; many, including your author, took advantage
by returning for seconds of some favorite dishes. Awards were announced
and presented individually by each student’s instructor or research mentor
as everyone lingered over dessert and tea. Afterward, students turned the
tables and presented awards to the faculty. Professors Lahti, Lillya and
Vining received baseballs autographed by
all the seniors.
Melissa Kosinski and Kara
Stamm present to Professor
Peter Lillya his autographed
baseball.
Prof. David Adams researched our
undergraduate chemistry awards and
identified several that had not been
awarded recently. This year’s graduates
benefited by our reactivation of these. He also commissioned a
new Fessenden Award Plaque that now lists the two awardees for
2000. Listed below are all awardees and their awards.
Professor Paul Lahti and
Allision Rafus
Nathan O. Fuller, Connecticut Valley Section of
the American Chemical Society (CVS/ACS)
Student Award
Allison M. Rafus, HyperCube Scholar Award
Kara Stamm, Professor William
Jessica L. Bender, Merck Index Award
Vining and Melissa Kosinski
Jodi A. Michne, Merck Index Award
Karen M. Osman, American Institute of Chemists Award
Robert R. Albert, Richard W. Fessenden Award
Kara M. Stamm, Richard W. Fessenden Award
Dwight B. Kelley, Robert Maxwell Williams Memorial Scholarship
Hui-chung T. Ling, Robert Maxwell Williams Memorial Scholarship
Li Chen, Robert Maxwell Williams Memorial Scholarship
Nathan O. Fuller, Jessica L. Bender, Jodi A. Michne & Karen M. Osman, Department
of Chemistry Recognition Award
Brian C. Weitze, Analytical Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society
Mary Golden, Kyle L. MacQuarrie, Elena Levin, CRC Freshman Chemistry Award
Claire Cohen, Youngren/Chernoff Fellowship
Jong Choi and Jason Tresback, Pfizer Prepare Summer Research Fellows for 2000
Prof. C. Peter Lillya, Undergraduate Program Director
goessmann gazette–16
graduate
student news
Zikri Arslan (Uden lab) successfully
defended his Ph.D. and is working at the
NOAA (National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Agency) Laboratory in Sandy
Hook, NJ.
Andy Boal (Rotello lab) has been
awarded a Graduate Fellowship for 20002001 from the American Chemical Society,
Division of Organic Chemistry (and
sponsored by Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals,
Inc). This award, a national competition, is
offered to rising third and fourth year
graduate students in organic chemistry, and
is based on the writing of a mini-review
article (on a non-thesis related topic) and
research accomplishments.
Kieron P. Faherty (Metz lab) received
the Isenberg Scholarship again for the
2000-2001 academic year.
Hakan Gurleyuk (Uden lab) successfully
defended his Ph.D. and is working at
Frontier Geosciences in Seattle, WA.
Michelle Herrmann (Uden lab)
completed her M.S. degree and is working
in analytical pharmaceutical chemistry and
mass spectrometry at Pfizer, La Jolla, CA.
Faysal Ilhan (Rotello lab) won a
University Fellowship for 2000-2001.
Yi Liao (Lathi lab) was initiated into Phi
Kappa Phi
Yanbing Liu (Lahti lab) successfully
defended her Ph.D. thesis and now has a
post-doctoral position with Professor
Gordon Gribble at Dartmouth College.
Chunping Xie (Lahti lab) successfully
defended his Ph.D. thesis and now has a
post-doctoral position in California.
Jon Sanborn (Lahti lab) successfully
defended his Ph.D. thesis and now is the
Laboratory Coordinator and Chemical
Hygiene Officer at Amherst College.
Saravanan Chandra (Ph.D. '00, Auerbach lab)
now holds a post-doctoral position in the
Chemistry Department at Berkeley and has
been selected as one of the four winners of
the 2000 IUPAC Prize for Young Chemists.
He was also initiated into Phi Kappa Phi.
UMass Leads Minority Graduate Education Initiative
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded a proposal by an alliance of Northeastern
Universities under the Minority Graduate Education (MGE) program. UMass Amherst is the
lead institution in a group which also includes BU, MIT, Penn State and Rutgers. The program
aims to increase the numbers of students from targeted partner institutions entering graduate
programs in science and engineering subjects. The partners include Medgar Evers College,
Long Island University, Lincoln University, Jackson State and the University of Puerto Rico at
Mayaguez. The partnerships will include faculty exchanges, visits, seminars, workshops and
summer research experiences at UMass for students from the partner institutions. In addition,
fellowships will be available to support minority graduate students during critical periods of
their programs. Applicants from the partner institutions apply via the normal route, but contact
the Chemistry Graduate Program director to indicate that they are applicants in the NSF-MGE
program.
17–goessmann gazette
research symposium &
poster competition
The 11th Annual Chemistry Department Research
Symposium and Posterfest was held on Monday,
January 24, 2000. This year’s event featured five
graduate student speakers and forty posters.
Alexandro Cuello from the Rotello
Group gave the first talk of the Research
Symposium on “Interplay of
Recognition and Recognition and
Redox Processes: Electrochemical
Control of Hydrogen Bonding”. Alex
focused on how, by the electrochemical
reduction of napthalimide to the radical
anion, its affinity for certain receptors
can increase by almost 300 fold!
Prof. Dave
Following Alex’s talk, Robert P.
Curran and
Grosso, Jr. from Bill Vining’s group
Chris Palmer
demonstrated software modules that he
had designed to teach students about
crystalline solids and, in particular, the use of the
Madelung constant. Iaroslav Kuzmine from the
Martin group was the third speaker and he talked
about “Transcription Start
Site Selection in the T7
RNA
Polymerase
System”.
Iaroslav
discussed his results that
indicate that the proteinDNA interaction observed
in the crystal structure of
T7 RNA polymerase
along the template strand
may not contribute
positively to the binding Hakan Gurleyuk with his
energy. Then, Christopher poster.
Palmer from the Tyson
group introduced the flow-injection based procedure
that they have developed for the determination of
inorganic mercury and methyl mercury in tap water,
river water and urine matrices. Mike
Pitcher from the Bianconi group gave
the final talk and he showed how, by
mimicking biological methods of
synthesis, novel oriented crystalline
phases of PbS and PbS2 can be grown
in a polymer matrix.
Prof. Dave
Curran and
Mike Ingall
goessmann gazette–18
The posterfest featured forty posters
presented by undergraduates,
graduate students and postdoctoral
associates. The posters illustrated the
wide range of research that is being
conducted
in
the
department. At the end of
the symposium, awards
were presented for the best
presentations. The Paul
Drummond Award for
Excellence in Graduate
Research was presented to
Mike Ingall (Bianconi lab)
Greg Gallagher with his for his poster on “Surface
poster.
Functionalization via
Surface
Anchored
Inhibitors” and to Greg Gallagher (Thompson lab)
for his poster on “Solid State NMR Depth
Measurements on Gramicidin A in DMPC Bilayers”.
The Louis Quin Award
for Excellence in
Graduate Research was
presented to Hakan
Gurleyuk (Tyson/Uden
labs) for his poster on
“Speciation
and
Multielemental Studies
on Soils Using Various
Combinations of Slurry
Sampling,
Flow Melissa Kosinski with her
Injection, Microwave poster.
Assisted Chemistry,
Hydride Generation, and Inductive Coupled Plasma
Mass Spectrometry”. The George R. Richason, Jr.
Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research
was presented to Melissa Kosinski (Gierasch lab)
for her poster on “Determining the Importance of
Conserved Interactions Between Hydrophobic
Residues in the Folding of CRABPI”. Faysal Ilhan
of the Rotello lab was the recipient of the Ronald D.
Archer Award for Excellence in Graduate Research
for his poster on “Control
of Polymer Structure and
Function Through Intraand Intermolecular Selfassembly”. Chris Palmer
of the Tyson lab received
the William McEwen
Award for Excellence in
Graduate Research for
his talk on the “Flow
Prof. Dave Curran and
Injection Speciation of
Faysal Ilham
Inorganic and Methyl
Mercury Based on
Reaction with Borohydride and Amalgam
Trapping”. The recipients of the Ronald D. Archer
Award and the William McEwen Award received a
travel grant of $600 to present their research at
national meetings.
Bioanalytical Initiative
2000
With the help of a group of alumni, the department launched a Bioanalytical Initiative in 1998 for the
purpose of developing an industrial support base to help provide the start-up and support monies for faculty
hires in this area. To date, Beckloff Associates, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Epix Medical Inc., Hoechst Marion
Roussel, Merck, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Rhone Poulenc Rorer, and the Schering-Plough
Research Institute are participating. Expansion to include other
companies is being actively pursued and we welcome assistance
from alumni who wish to have their companies join the program.
You play a vital role in this venture and we encourage you to
investigate ways in which your company can participate.
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies, both large and small, are
exploring methods to support universities so the supply of scientific
advancements and manpower needed to support the industry can
be maintained. Our two new faculty members in analytical
chemistry, Igor Kaltashov and Richard Vachet are focussed upon
mass spectrometry and bioanalytical chemistry and receive funds
from the Initiative for their research programs. In the summer of
2000, four first year analytical graduate students undertook Mass Spectrometry Center – a joint facility
internships with member companies of the Initiative. We look with PSE and Chemistry
forward to continued growth of the Initiative to support our young
faculty and graduate students. These activities and others like the Schering-Plough Research Institute
Fellowships which supported two of our analytical graduate students this year are vital for our program.
degrees
awarded
Bachelor’s Degrees
Sean Ahearn
Robert Albert
Mellisa Allen
Jessica Bender
Janice Chin
Corey Coleman
Robert Daniels
Nathan Fuller
Paul Jeffko
Anton Manuilov
Jodi Michne
Karen Osman
Melissa Parker
Allison Rafuse
Stephenie Smulligan
Kara Stamm
Eric Styche
Patrick Taylor
Myhanh Vu
M.S. Degrees
Oak Ridge, NJ
Westford, MA
Sunderland, MA
Cheshire, MA
Brookline, MA
Groton, CT
Stratham, NH
Newburyport, MA
Amherst, MA
Wallingford, CT
Melrose, MA
Ann Arbor, MI
Acton, MA
Easthampton, MA
Andover, MA
Forestdale, MA
Middletown, MD
Amherst, MA
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M. George DeBusk
Jiang Lan
Nigel Metcalfe
Li Qiang
David Scott
Shawn Sheehan
Emily Yourd
Ph.D. Degrees
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Zikri Arslan
Eleonora De Federico
Fernando Ferrer
George Glavin
Karen Guhr
Rajesh Gupta
Hakan Gurleyuk
Karen Hatwell
Hideko Imazumi
Shawn Kinney
Mihaly Kotrebai
Lisa M. Clark Lavoie
Li Li
Guoyong Li
Yanbing Liu
Angelika Niemz
Barrie Rhodes
Jon Sanborn
Chandra Saravanan
Carissa Soto
Emma Thomas
Cesar Vargas
Chunping Xie
Chongwu Zhang
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19–goessmann gazette
chemistry-biology
interface
We are pleased to report that we have
successfully renewed our NIH-supported
Chemistry-Biology Interface (CBI) Training
Grant!
Chemists in both industry and academia
increasingly find themselves working in
teams with biologists to tackle important
problems in biomedicine and biotechnology.
The CBI Training Program was started at
UMass in 1994 to teach graduate students
from both the chemical sciences and the
biological sciences the language and tools
they will need for productive research careers
in this important interdisciplinary area. CBI
students are drawn from the three different
graduate programs of Chemistry, Molecular
& Cellular Biology, and Polymer Science &
Engineering. These students all follow the
CBI curriculum, which is designed to
supplement their program with cross-training
in the complementary discipline. Through this
curriculum and their research in CBI
Laboratories, the students learn how to bring
the synthetic, mechanistic, and analytical
powers of chemistry to bear on new and
exciting fields of biology such as drug design,
membrane function, molecular recognition,
organelle assembly, and structure-function
relationships in biological macromolecules.
The grant renewal demonstrates that the
CBI Program has been successful! We have
established a highly interactive CBI
Community that includes 18 research groups
from the Departments of Chemistry,
goessmann gazette–20
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and
Polymer Science & Engineering at UMass,
and the Department of Chemistry at Amherst
College. Participating UMass Chemistry
Faculty include Richard Vachet, Bob Weis,
Lynmarie Thompson, Vince Rotello, Craig
Martin, Mike Maroney, Igor Kaltashov, Steve
Hixson, and Lila Gierasch. Over 20 graduate
students have been formally involved as
current or past Trainees, and a much larger
group participates in the program. A monthly
“CBI Chalk Talk” series that brings the CBI
community together is often standing-room
only, with an average of 30-40 participants!
Our Program is one of a select group of 15
NIH-supported CBI Programs throughout the
country. The NIH grant provides stipends to
support six Trainees. We are fortunate that the
UMass administration recognizes the positive
impact of the CBI Program and has provided
funds to support additional Trainees. We are
grateful to our first CBI Program Director,
Bob Zimmermann, for his terrific leadership
over the initial 5 years of the program. The
new Program Director, Lynmarie Thompson,
is looking forward to continued success and
improvements for the CBI Program over the
next 5 years.
For more information, please see http://
www.umass.edu/cbi.
Retirements
Ramon M. Barnes, Professor of Chemistry, retired August 31,
2000. Ray is an authority on Inductively Coupled Plasma
Spectroscopy and publishes the ICP Information Newsletter.
His scientific work has resulted in over 200 papers covering
many aspects of analytical chemistry. He joined the faculty in
1969.
Marion B. Rhodes, Professor of Chemistry, retired January 31,
2000. She is an expert in optical microscopy and is well
known for her work on the morphological characterization of
polymeric foamed materials. Marion first joined the staff as a
half-time instructor in 1964 and became a full time assistant
professor in 1966.
Ruth Laliberte, Bookkeeper II in the Chemistry Main Office,
retired on March 31, 2000. Ruth was with the department for
over 10 years and at the University for over 33 years. She
keeps herself extremely busy since her retirement between
travelling, gardening, and volunteering at the senior center.
Staff Arrivals/
Promotions
Cyn Horton comes from the Bursar’s Office as our Clerk III.
Kristina Knight is promoted from Clerk III to Clerk IV as our
Head Bookkeeper.
In Memoriam
Jean D. Hopper passed away the evening of December 30,
1999. Jean graduated from the university with a B.S. in
Chemistry. She worked for Lever Brothers and General Electric
Corporation before her marriage and moved to the Midwest to
raise her family. She is remembered for her many years of
volunteer work in her community.
Congratulations to Mike Conboy and Asaph
Murfin, instrumentation engineers in our Electronics
Shop, for their wonderful volunteer work. Walter
Chesnut, a professor in the UMass Music
Department, was severely injured in a spinal cord
accident. As a result, he is confined to a wheelchair
and lost the ability to play his instrument–the
trumpet. Mike and Asaph, building on some earlier
ideas of Dick Hansen (a worker with Walter) and
Jim Snedeker (a graduate student with Walter),
have succeeded in producing a device which
enables Walter to play again. Briefly, they placed an
electronic fingerpad over the trumpet valves. The
associated electronics control pistons driven by
nitrogen gas which operate the valves of the
trumpet.
21–goessmann gazette
The Impact ...
continued from page 1
Hunsberger (he headed the Department for
only one year before becoming dean) and
Graduate Dean Edward Moore provided the
vision, knowledge and energy to build a
state university with a first class research
component. The old and new faculty of the
Department cooperated beautifully to
maintain the quality of undergraduate
instruction and to expand greatly the quality
of graduate education and research. Beneficial external forces were also at work. The
advent of Sputnik had jolted the nation into
the realization that much money had to be
pumped into the development of the
scientific resources of our national laboratories and universities.
The first task in the enhancement of the
prestige of the Department was to add
research oriented faculty to those already
present and active. Louis Carpino was
already involved in research that would
eventually lead to the discovery of the
unique role of 7-aza-1-hydroxybenzotriazole in the field of peptide coupling.
For its effect in reducing loss of configuration and acceleration of peptide assembly,
this compound and its derivatives have few
equals. At a much earlier time, Carpino had
developed the use of the acid sensitive tbutyloxycarbonyl (BOC) amino protecting
The new addition to Goessmann – circa 1959.
goessmann gazette–22
group, material that is found in almost
every textbook of organic chemistry.
Richard Stein had established himself as
a major force in polymer science even in
the early 1960’s. Details of his contributions are covered in another article in this
Gazette. There was also significant activity
in other areas of physical chemistry research. John Ragle began his research
career at UMass by continuation of his
doctorate work in nuclear quadrupole
resonance, but he soon recognized that the
experimental data were being interpreted by
wholly inadequate theoretical models. The
experimentalists of the time were working
on compounds containing heavy atoms,
such as chlorine and bromine, and were
using qualitative theoretical models that
focused on the valence shell alone. However, Ragle and his students recognized that
the experimental data involved important
contributions from inner shells. At the
time, precise data on light atoms were
difficult (14N) or impossible (2H) to obtain.
Therefore, Ragle sought to develop methods by which precise nuclear quadrupole
data on 2H could be obtained on the thought
that such data could provide an excellent
foil for ab initio theoretical calculations.
Application of Erwin Hahn’s double
resonance techniques to a series of chlorinated materials culminated in the first
precise data for deuterium by the Ragle
group. By adaptation of another of Hahn’s
techniques, this group generated a large
literature of deuterium and nitrogen coupling data by use of a nuclear adiabatic
demagnetization technique, and protons as
the agent for detection. The data obtained
on strong and weak hydrogen bonds were
particularly significant. Study of the
orthorhombic phase of solid HCl and DCl
below the transition to the cubic rotator
phase at 100K , together with the NMR
work above the phase transition by a
University of Florida group, gave a more or
less complete mechanical picture of the
onset of “rotation” at the phase transition.
It is noteworthy that the equipment used for
this research was “homebuilt” in an environment of limited resources. Everett Reed,
a member of the General Chemistry staff,
was a co-worker in some of this research.
Additional research in physical chemistry was being initiated as early as 1960.
Howard Stidham was starting his studies on
vibrational spectroscopy that later evolved
into nuclear quadrupole resonance spectroscopy, polymer chain dynamics and statistical mechanics. Robert Rowell was carrying
out work in surface chemistry in offcampus collaboration at Perkin Elmer in
Norwalk, CT, mainly owing to inadequate
facilities here at that time. Thomas Stengle
was setting up the first NMR apparatus on
campus and was initiating studies on fast
exchange reactions of transition metal
complexes, second coordination sphere
association, hydrogen bonding and molecular motion in solids. J. Harold Smith was
carrying out studies on composition,
structure and stability of coordination
compounds.
Biochemistry was a division of the
chemistry department for much of the
1960s. Henry Little was active in research
on means of biosynthesis, interaction with
proteins and the metabolic role of porphyrins. Trevor Robinson was studying the
biosynthesis of the alkaloid ricinine from
the castor bean plant, and writing the first
edition of THE ORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF HIGHER PLANTS. Anthony
Lederle with Old Goessmann in the
foreground.
Gawienowski and his students carried out
metabolic studies of diethylstilbestrol
(DES) by use of tritium and 14-C labeling.
Among other discoveries, they found that
DES, known to be carcinogenic, was
present in the liver of steers that had been
fed DES. This eventually led to a legal suit
by the Environmental Defense Fund (of
which Tony was a consultant) that resulted
in the removal of DES from the market as
an animal feed additive. Prof. John
Nordin, who later became Head of the
Biochemistry Department, inaugurated his
research program to study the biosynthesis
of polysaccharides, the chemistry of
nucleoside sugars, and the mechanism of
enzyme action.
A quantum leap in the number of
graduate students took place in the fall of
1962, when William McEwen arrived as the
Department Head, together with sixteen
graduate students from the University of
Kansas. John Olver (analytical chemistry)
and John Brandts (physical chemistry) were
23–goessmann gazette
added to the faculty at the same time. A
further rapid expansion of research-oriented
faculty members occurred during the next
dozen years. Marvin Rausch (organic),
Peter Lillya (organic), David Curran
(analytical) Paul Cade (physical), James
C.W. Chien (physical), Ronald Archer
(inorganic), Robert Holmes (inorganic),
Sidney Siggia (analytical), Ramon Barnes
(analytical), Peter Uden (analytical),
Stephen Hixson (organic), Bernard Miller
(organic), and John Wood (inorganic) were
all added and able to achieve national and
international visibility in research.
Prof. Rausch developed an early interest
in the organometallic chemistry of group 4
metals, especially with regard to Ti, Zr, and
Hf. In fact, he and his research group were
among the first to prepare organohafnium
componds and sigma-bonded metallocene
derivatives, such as dimethylzirconocene,
diphenylhafnocene, and bis-indenyl derivatives of these metals. Somewhat later, other
workers found that these compounds,
together with co-catalysts such as
methyaluminoxane were powerful catalyst
systems for the polymerization of olefins
such as ethylene, propylene and styrene.
The Rausch group also carried out pioneering work on metallocenes (ferrocene,
ruthenocene, osmocene), mixed sandwich
compounds that contained zirconium,
hafnium and titanium as the central metal,
bridged ansa-metallocenes as catalyst
precursors, homo-polymerization of propylene to crystalline, amorphous block
elastomers, ferrocene-based cationic
catalysts for propylene polymerization, and
the use of a germanium-bridged
zirconocene for temperature invariant
polymerization of propylene. Professor
goessmann gazette–24
Jimmy Chien was associated with Rausch
in some of this work.
Prof. Lillya undertook a vigorous
research program immediately after his
arrival in 1963. With the aid of graduate
students, he first synthesized methylenebis
(sulfonium) salts to study the chemistry of
the ylides derived from them by removal of
one of the central acidic hydrogens. A
study of indane conformations by NMR
spectroscopy followed. In collaboration
with Marvin Rausch and Donald Hunt,
Lillya showed that the interactions of
transiton metals with ligands are both
orbitally and stereochemically controlled by
demonstrating that the 2,5-norabornadien-7yl cation is destabilized by coordination to
electron-rich transition metals. The chemistry of tricarbonyl (pentadienyl) iron
cations was elucidated, and this was
followed up by a direct study of
organotransition metal cations in strong
acids by use of NMR spectroscopy. Using
a home-built liquid chromatograph, the
Lillya group was able to separate organometallic compounds, and this was used to
make sense out of the results of a FriedelCrafts acylation of iron coordinated dienes
that had been misinterpreted in the literature. Photodimerization of dienones was
the first work in this area to be carried out
by Lillya, and this was followed by an
investigation of the photoisomerization of
3,5-heptadien-2-one demonstrating that two
bonds can isomerize during one excitation
and eliminating the possibility of one
excited state common to all isomers. It was
further shown that these types of isomerization proceed via singlet states and that
triplet photoisomerization does not proceed
via a common excited state. At a later
stage, he and his group undertook studies of
discotic liquid crystals, semiflexible main
chain liquid crystalline polymers, hydrogen-bond associations in polymers and
development of polymers with temperature
dependent molecular weights.
Prof. McEwen and his group continued
work that they had begun at Kansas,
including the study of the mechanisms and
synthetic uses of Reissert compounds.
McEwen’s group was the first to resolve
chiral organophosphorus compounds in
which the phosphorus atom was the sole
center of chirality. They also
demonstsrated for the first ime that
steriospecific reactions involving attack of
nucleophiles at the phosphorus atom could
be effected. Somewhat later, McEwen and
Jerome Knapczyk discovered the generation
of “instant acid” by the irradiation of
triarylsulfonium and diaryliodonium salts
having non-nucleophilic anions. This has
led to major industrial applications of
photolithography. For example, all cans of
soft drinks and beer having glitzy designs
received their coats by application in part of
these photoacid generating reactions.
Early microprocessors were also manufactured by application of this type of photolithography.
cyclohexa-dienones and semibenzenes,
novel aromatic systems, and the chemistry
of coal and coal analogs. He has also
written two outstanding textbooks, one
designed for a one-semester course, and the
other for a senior-first year graduate level
course. Stephen Hixson has carried out
research on organic photochemistry,
photochemical probes of structures of
biological macromolecules and macromolecular systems. More recently, he has
undertaken numerous studies of
bioconjugate chemistry with Prof. Robert
Zimmermann of the Biochemistry Department.
END OF PART ONE—TO BE CONTINUED
Bernard Miller joined the organic
faculty in the early 1970’s, after having
worked in industry for several years. His
research activities have included studies of
molecular rearrangements, reactions of
Visit us on the web . . .
. . . www.chem.umass.edu
Also, check out the College of Natural Science and Mathematics at
www.nsm.umass.edu.
25–goessmann gazette
Friends of UMass Chemistry
thanks for your support!
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Mrs. Barbara M. Foster
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Dr. Paul C. Fu
Mr. Stanley F. Furman
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Mr. Charles R. Gallucci
Mrs. Judith C. Gallucci
Mr. Robert G. Gastinger
Dr. Walter K. Gavlick
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Col. James W. Gilman
Mrs. Harriet K. Gilman
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Mr. Alan C. Goren
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Robert and Alice Gosse
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Please,
keep in touch!
We want to know what you have been
doing. Send news of your activities,
promotions, new positions, etc. to include in
the next issue of the Goessmann Gazette.
You can also send information via email at
gazette@chem.umass.edu. We look forward
to hearing from you!
goessmann gazette–26
1997
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Dr. Robert T. Grimley
1951
Mrs. Margaret R. Grimley
1953
Dr. Robert C. Gunness
1932
Mr. John T. Habicht
1969
Dr. Dennis S. Hackett
1976
Mr. Glenn D. Hamburg
1982
Dr. Peter F. Han
1971
Dr. Grace Y. Han
1969
Jeffery and Sharon Hanson
Dr. Martha R. Heimann
1978
Dr. David E. Henderson
1975
Dr. Susan K. Henderson
1978
Dr. Carol L. Hermsdorf
1965
Mr. Charles J. Hora
1972
Patrick & Jackie Imbriglio
Mr. William M. Jackson
1970
Mr. A. Blair Janes
1978
Mrs. Marion T. Jones
1933
Ms. Ling-Ling Kang
1985
Mr. Christopher J. Karpenko 1992
Mr. Daniel H. Kaufman
1982
Dr. Glenn L. Keldsen
1977
Dr. Morris I. Kelsey
1964
Mrs. Norma Kelsey
1964
Ms. Mary I. Kendrick
1947
Mr. George M. Kern
1956
Mrs. Rosalind G. Kingsbury 1943
Col. John P. Kirchner
1954
Mr. Peter G. Kleinmann
1993
Dr. Arthur F. Kluge
1967
Mr. Glenn B. Knight
1975
Mr. Seymour B. Koritz
1944
Mr. Jay R. Kronfeld
1967
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1981
Mr. Myles L. Lamson, III
1970
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1951
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1949
Mr. Ronald D. Lees
1963
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1973
Mr. John R. Linzi
1978
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1967
Mr. William E. Mahoney
1955
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1988
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1977
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1959
Mrs. Esther C. Martin
1947
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Edward and Mary McIntire
Dr. Robert E. McKean
1990
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1977
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1964
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1969
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1978
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1977
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1964
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1978
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1953
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1953
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1988
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1934
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1949
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1981
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1980
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1950
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1951
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1973
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1982
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1972
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1986
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1989
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1984
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1973
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1974
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1989
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1973
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1971
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1970
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1994
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1975
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1962
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1989
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1946
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1980
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1939
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1967
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1981
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1983
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1950
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1963
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1981
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1980
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1973
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1971
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1972
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1962
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1984
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1954
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1979
Dear Friends,
We hope you enjoy this latest edition of the Goessmann Gazette. As usual, we have a wide variety of news and
activities to report. Prof. Gierasch was one of the past year's University Distinguished Lecturers. Andy Boal received a
prestigious American Chemical Society Organic Chemistry Division fellowship for his work with Prof. Rotello. Recent
alum Dr. Chandra Saravanan ("Saru", Ph. D. '00) received an IUPAC "best thesis" award for his dissertation with Prof.
Auerbach. This award was one of only four in the entire world. Prof. Thompson led the team of faculty who renewed
NIH funding for our successful, and highly important, interdisciplinary Chemistry-Biology Interface program for training
graduate students. The new X-ray Structural Characterization Laboratory is on-line and producing great crystal
structures under the energetic guidance of Profs. Day, Venkataraman, and Wood. New staff have been hired to replace
retirees and losses from previous years. These are just a few of the highlights within this issue.
A number of exciting new ventures have been initiated or greatly strengthened through the energy of our alumni.
Funding was established for a general foundation in support of departmental affairs, for support of undergraduate
research experiences, and for a new seminar series highlighting the role of chemistry in society. We have received much
welcomed gifts of books to enhance the reading library for the Undergraduate Chemical Science Alliance chemistry club
room. Look for these stories in the pages of this issue. Both individual gifts and a grant from the Alumni Association
enabled the restoration of historical oil paintings of Professors Goessmann and Lindsey, founding members of our
department. We hope you will drop by the main general chemistry office in Goessmann Laboratory to see the paintings
and the rest of our growing mini-museum of departmental history as we continue to expand and improve it.
It has been a year of many changes, creating many challenges to be met. Replacement of retiring faculty is a
challenge that we must meet, at a time that escalating startup costs and recent budget strictures are raising the bar to
compete for hiring the best people available. Planning continues for the much-needed new science building described in
last year's issue, but state and federal funding must still be raised to make the dream a reality. You can help us by
reminding neighbors and state legislators about the role UMass has played in your education and career. Every new
friend who is convinced of the value of investment in the department (and UMass in general) can help us to continue to
make things happen!
Sincerely,
Telephone: 413-545-4890
Fax: 413-545-0011
Email: lahti@chem.umass.edu
Paul M. Lahti
The Chemistry
annual fund
Enclosed is my check for $______________ made payable to the University of Massachusetts
to be credited to the Department of Chemistry Annual Fund.
Would you prefer to pledge?
Pledge amount $______________ to be paid to the Chemistry Annual Fund in _______
months or as follows: ______________________________________________________.
Home Address:
Business Address:
Would you like information about alternative ways of giving to the Department? ________
*Deferred gifts
*Endowment gifts
*Named Fellowships
For more information about how your gift can work to mutual advantage given your specific financial
plans, call Steve Tanne, Director of Development, 413-545-0974.
27–goessmann gazette
Department Heritage
The department is engaged in a program of restoring and displaying some of the memorabilia of over 130 years of service
to the Commonwealth and the scientific profession. Room 701
in the Lederle Tower, the Chemistry Department meeting room,
now has portrait photographs displayed on the walls of all
twelve of our former department
heads. This carries on the tradition of the time when such photos
and paintings were mounted in the
entrance lobby of the original
Goessmann laboratory. We have
received a gift from Mrs. Rosalind
G. Kingsbury, the granddaughter
of Prof. Joseph Lindsey to help
with restoration and display costs
of his portrait. Earmarked support
of such restoration and heritage
preservation projects is greatly appreciated. Other projects underway include building display
cases to show items of historical
Department heads past and
and current interest.
present, as well as faculty and
Ronald Sahatjian (Ph.D. ‘68), Thomas
Criswell (M.S. ‘70) and Prof. Peter
Lillya.
alumni engaged in conversation at
the Sunday morning Continental
Breakfast.
Prof. Dave Adams shares with the
audience stories of Charles
Goessmann.
University of Massachusetts
701 Lederle Graduate Research Tower
Chemistry Department
Amherst, MA 01003-4510
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