
News & Events
Announcements
Check out the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry announcements!

Newsletters
In 2022 the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry embarked on publishing a semi-annual newsletter to celebrate the activities and successes of our students and faculty. The newsletter includes stories and news, interesting chemistry facts, and even a crossword puzzle.
December 22, 2023:听Congratulations to Joseph Serrano, who successfully completed and defended his Master's thesis this semester!听 Joseph was a member of the Garrett lab, and additionally performed some of his research at Caltech to earn his MS Chemistry degree. Best of luck, Joseph, in your career!听听 |
December 18, 2023:听Dr Eller has been awarded a NSF-CAREER grant for his project titled "". Th grant begins in June 2024 and is worth almost $600,000 over 5 years.听 This marks the third faculty member to be awarded the prestigious NSF-CAREER award in recent years. A big congratulations to Dr. Eller and his research students, who will also benefit from this award! |
November 30, 2023:听Today听Dr Melikyan was invited to give a seminar to faculty and students in the Department of Chemistry at UC Irvine.听 His talk was titled "Radical and Ionic Reactions of Cobalt-Alkyne Complexes: Overcoming Longstanding Challenges". |
November 10-12, 2023:听Congratulations to undergraduate Hovnan Simonyan (Teprovich lab) who won first place for his poster "High-Temperature Stability of Halogenated Closo-Borate Electrolyte Salts and Potential Use in Implantable Batteries" in the Chemistry Division at the Second Annual International Forum on Research Excellence (IFoRE) sponsored by Sigma Xi in Long Beach, California.听 The research presented is funded by the NSF LEAPS-MPS program (Award # 2137973). |
November 10, 2023:听Erika Shirvanian, an undergraduate research student in the Melikyan laboratory, gave an oral presentation, titled "Metal-complexed tricationic diacetylenic polyethers: Challenges of transitioning from tetrad to heptad molecular scaffolds" at the 2023 International Forum on Research Excellence (IFORE) Sigma Xi Conference (Long Beach, CA).听 Of the 150 abstracts submitted, only 30 were chosen to present, so it was quite an honor.听 Congratulations, Erika! |
November 6, 2023:听The Teprovich Lab has published their latest article, titled 鈥淪ynthesis and Characterization of Amorphous Lawsone Polymer Dots for Fluorescent Applications鈥 in the journal听.听 The research was led by former graduate student Jesus Hernandez, with valuable contributions from former undergraduate students Savannah Servera and Nanor Bedrosian as well as former graduate student Osma Gomez. Drs. Fischhaber, Tamae, and Garrett along with researchers from Savannah River National Laboratory also collaborated and contributed to this article. |
September 12-14, 2023:听Congratulations to Francis Godfrey, an undergraduate student in the Eller lab, who was awarded a $500 student travel award to attend the Rice SIMS Workshop in Houston, TX. Michael Shaw (a graduate student in the Eller lab) and Francis Godfrey both attended the meeting and presented posters on their research projects. |
September 7, 2023:听Dr. Abrol and a group of colleagues in Biology, Physics and Mathematics have been awarded a NSF MRI grant!听 The grant, titled "" is worth over $730,000. It will support their research, and provide state-of-the-art technology which will train their students in these burgeoning areas of biochemistry and biophysics. Congratulations to you all! |
July 26, 2023:听Dr. Ye has published her latest research with former 快活林性息 undergraduate student Pouya Bahrami, her collaborator Dr. Julia Y. K. Chan at CSU Fullerton, and Dr. Chan's research students. This article, titled "Capturing Student and Instructor Experiences, Perceptions, and Reflections on Remote Learning and Teaching in Introductory Chemistry Courses During COVID-19" was published in the July/August issue of the听. Congratulations, Dr. Ye!听 |
July 1, 2023:听Big congratulations go to Drs. Boulesbaa, Teprovich and Ye, who have been granted tenure and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor!听听Well done, all! |
June 30, 2023:听Graduate student Janelli Pineda and her research mentor Dr. Fischhaber were awarded a CSU Biotech (formerly CSUPERB) Faculty-Graduate Student Research Collaboration Award, for a project titled听鈥淚nvestigation of Yen1-RFP in Double Strand Break Repair in S. cerevisiae". The award, which runs from August through December 2023, is worth $10,000 of wage support for Janelli. Congratulations, Janelli and Dr. Fischhaber! |
June 3, 2023:听Drs. Teprovich and Eller hosted the 2023 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Open House. The event featured 15 hands-on demonstrations to local junior and high school students performed by our听chemistry and biochemistry听快活林性息 students. It also included seven large scale chemistry of energy demonstrations including:听combustion of听hydrogen and oxygen balloons, a thermite reaction, a self-carving melon, electrolysis of water, a hydrogen fuel cell, production of acid rain, gas forming reactions, use of a catalyst to accelerate reactions, and light emission from excited atoms.听Visitors also enjoyed some home-made liquid nitrogen ice cream and a raffle for Amazon gift cards.听 Overall, over 100 people attended the event including 76 students from 7 local junior high and senior high schools.听 We hope to see you all again at next year鈥檚 Open House! A special thank you to all our 快活林性息 chemistry and biochemistry students who volunteered and participated in the event: Israel Ayala Manzo, Connor Blair, Jander Cruz, Francis Godfrey Nikita Opel, Floyd Padilla, Christopher Pakhanyan, Casey Swafford, and Christi Thomas.听听Your contributions made the event successful! |
June 1, 2023:听The third edition of our department newsletter has been published!听 It features department news, a feature on the research of our biochemist Dr Ravi Abrol, a student spotlight on graduate student Duyen Pham, as well as interesting chemistry trivia and a crossword puzzle.听听! |
May 19, 2023:听In the听afternoon we held听our departmental awards ceremony, in advance of the evening's college commencement. Undergraduate students Saul Diaz, Vanessa Estrada, Spencer Hobi, Alisha Holden, Cameel Juman, Rachel Lindvall, Christopher Pakhanyan, Samantha Scott and Christi Thomas have been given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors. Additionally, Matthew Alvarez, Marine Barsegyan, Michael Peterson, Hovnan Simonyan, Christi Thomas and Joshua Vazquez won College of Science and Math awards. Graduate student Duyen Pham was given the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award, and graduate student Janelli Pineda was awarded the Sandra L. Jewett Scholarship in Biochemistry. More details about the awards and awardees can be found on our department's听听webpage. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments! |
May 19, 2023:听Congratulations to all of our students who are received their BA Chemistry, BS Chemistry, BS Biochemistry, MS Chemistry or MS Biochemistry degrees at the commencement ceremony this evening!听 Your hard work and perseverance has paid off!听 |
May 12, 2023:听This semester,听seven听of our graduate students successfully defended their theses and are graduating from our program.听 Congratulations to Ryan Boggess (Tamae lab), Isabella Crisostomo (Abrol lab) and Duyen Pham (Ye lab), who have earned their MS Biochemistry degrees! In addition, we offer congratulations to Steven Ayoub (who did research in the Luchko Physics lab), Matthew Green (Teprovich lab), Andrea Hernandez (Minehan lab) and Jesus Hernandez (Teprovich lab), who have earned their MS Chemistry degrees! We wish you all much success in your future endeavors! |
May 5, 2023:听In the spring semester,听Erika Shirvanian, an undergraduate research student in Dr Melikyan's lab, was one of only 29 students in the entire CSU to be awarded a $2,500 Edison STEM-NET Student Research Fellowship Award from the CSU Chancellor Office. She presented the results of her work today, along with the other awardees, at the 2023 Edison STEM NET Research Fellowship Symposium.听 Her oral presentation was titled "A Novel Molecular Scaffold for Ionic Functionalization Reactions: Diacetylenic Heptads." Congratulations to Erika! |
April 21, 2023:听Many of our research students presented posters or gave short talks at 快活林性息posium this year, and several won awards for their work.听 Janelli Pineda (Fischhaber lab) earned first place honors in her session of the 3-minute oral presentations given by graduate students.听 Jesus Hernandez (Teprovich lab) was awarded second place in his session of the 10-minute oral presentations by graduate students.听 And finally, Donnie Ca (Minehan lab) won second place in his poster group for undergraduates with completed projects.听 Congratulations to everyone for their efforts! |
April 19, 2023:听Our department was quite successful in 快活林性息's Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity (RSCA) award competition this year! Awardees include Drs. Andersen, Vey and Ye, who received 6 units of release time from teaching, Dr Kelson, who received 3 units release time and a $6,000 mini-grant for his research, and Dr. Minehan, who received a $12,000 mini-grant. Congratulations to all of you! |
March 30, 2023:听At the spring ACS meeting in Indiana graduate student Nicole Babayans (Melikyan lab) earned the opportunity to give an oral presentation about her research. The talk, titled "Organometallic rectangles and organic octagons: New paradigms in developing ionic-ionic, carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions" was her first formal presentation at a conference. Undergraduate students Julyssa Renteria and Alique Tokatlian also presented a poster of their research at the meeting. |
March 29, 2023:听The Melikyan lab has published its latest research article, titled "". It has been published in the journal听, along听with coauthors (former) graduate student Vahe Darabidian, postdoc听Anurag Mishra听and undergraduates听Elen Artashyan, Nicole Babayans, Shannen Guarina and Masis Parunyan.听One noteworthy aspect of this publication is that it includes no less than 7 crystal structures, which allowed the researchers to听unambiguously assign the stereochemistry of the carbocycles. |
March 28, 2023:听B.S. Biochemistry major Dulce Hernandez won an Honorable Mention in the category of听 'Microbiology, Membranes, and Glycans' in the undergraduate poster competition at the annual ASBMB meeting in Seattle. Her poster, titled, "Quantification of functional antibody titers in a mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection" was based on work she did during her internship at the University of Washington in summer 2022, as part of 快活林性息's BUILD PODER program. |
March 20, 2023:听Our department has been awarded a critical infrastructure grant from the NSF!听 The grant, titled "", worth over $165,000, will allow us to recycle our liquid helium, saving the department significant money and ensuring we do our small part in decreasing the amount of helium used in the world.听 As a non-renewable resource, helium has become increasingly expensive and hard to procure; this has threatened our ability to continue to use our NMR spectrometers, which are critical pieces of infrastructure for both teaching and research activities. Congratulations to our department, for working together to submit this important proposal, and for our success in obtaining funding! |
March 2, 2023:听Congratulations to听Jander Cruz, a graduate student in the Eller lab, who has been awarded the 2022 Hiroshi Ito Memorial Award for the Best Student Paper at the recent SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning conference held recently in San Jose, California for his paper titled "Evaluating nanoscale molecular homogeneity in extreme ultraviolet resists with nanoprojectile secondary ion mass spectrometry". The award consists of a certificate and a cash honorarium ($1,000). The award is in honor of Hiroshi Ito who is a co-inventor of chemically amplified resists, which is the dominate technology used in semiconductor manufacturing. Jander's paper can be found听. |
February 1, 2023:听Congratulations to Dr. Ye, who has been awarded an听! The award, for the project titled " An Investigation of Synergistic Effects of Discipline-based Growth Mindset and Effective Learning Strategies Interventions in Gateway Chemistry Courses", is worth almost $300,000 over three years, through collaborative research with Drs. Chan and Villafane-Garcia at CSU, Fullerton. Dr. Ye and her collaborators will develop two chemistry-based online interactive modules (Growth Mindset and Effective Strategies) and investigate the synergistic effects of modules for improving students鈥 mindsets, learning skills, academic success and retention in gateway chemistry courses, and improving diversity in STEM fields. Well done, Dr. Ye! |
December 20, 2022: This semester, two of our graduate students successfully defended their theses and are graduating from our program.听 Congratulations to Fredrick Farrar (Minehan lab) and Mathias Perone (Schrodi lab), both of whom have earned their MS Chemistry degrees! We wish you much success in your future endeavors! |
December 13, 2022:听The department held a lunch to honor and say farewell to Professor Yann Schrodi, who retired at the end of the Fall semester. Dr Schrodi, who joined our department as an inorganic chemist in 2007, has decided to move on to other pursuits. Thanks for everything you have done for the students and the department, Yann - we will miss you! |
November 8, 2022:听Dr. Miao has published his latest research, titled "Chemical templates that assemble the metal superhydrides" in the journal听. The article is also featured in a听听story about Dr Miao, which additionally celebrates his Dreyfus award (see Nov 6 news). The department is proud of the deserved press about his work. |
November 7, 2022:听Dr. Eller has published his first research paper since joining our department, with 快活林性息 graduate student Jander Cruz as first author! The manuscript, titled "Evaluating nanoscale molecular homogeneity in extreme ultraviolet resists with nanoprojectile secondary ion mass spectrometry" is published in the November issue of the听. Congratulations, Dr Eller!听 |
November 6, 2022:听Dr. Miao has been awarded the prestigious听, only one of eight faculty to be awarded this year nation-wide!听The award worth $75,000 and is based on Dr Miao's accomplishments in scholarly research with undergraduates, as well as a compelling commitment to teaching. Congratulations, Dr. Miao! |
October 19-22, 2022:听Our students were once again presenting their research at venues outside 快活林性息! Nicole Babayans (Melikyan lab) gave a 20 minute talk, titled "Acquiring a predictive power in cobalt-assisted, acid-induced C-C bond forming reactions" at the ACS Western Regional Meeting in Las Vegas.听 Her talk was well-attended, and she received several questions from interested members of the audience after she finished. |
August 21-25, 2022:听Several students and faculty attended the ACS National Fall Meeting in Chicago. Poster presenters included graduate students Ryan Boggess and Leticia Reque from the Tamae lab and Matthew Green from the Teprovich lab, all of which had good traffic around their posters and lots of interest in their research. We want to highlight Leticia, in particular, because she won the听Outstanding Poster Award from the Division of Chemical Toxicology.听 Congratulations, Leticia! |
August 1, 2022:听Dr Abrol has published his latest manuscript, in collaboration with former graduate student Bridget Kawamala, who is first author. The paper, titled "Three-stage model of helical membrane protein folding: Role of membrane-water interface as the intermediate stage vestibule for TM helices during their in membrano assembly" is currently available听听and will also appear in the October print edition of听. |
July 25, 2022:听The Department is deeply saddened to hear about the passing of former graduate student Misael Sanchez. 听Misa graduated with an MS in Biochemistry in December 2020 after working with听听and continued on to a research position in the biotech industry. 听The Department extends its heartfelt condolences to his family. |
July 1, 2022:听Dr Boulesbaa has published his latest manuscript, along with former 快活林性息 graduate student Zeynep Eroglu and former undergraduates Dillon Contreras, Joie Yuson and Pouya Bahrami as co-authors. The article is titled "Ultrafast electron transfer at the interface of gold nanoparticles and methylene blue molecular adsorbates" and is published in the journal听. |
June 24, 2022:听Congratulations to Dr Eller, who has been awarded a LEAPS-MPS (Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences) award from the NSF! The award, for the project titled "", is worth almost $250,000 over two years. Dr Eller听will develop new analytical methods for nanoscale molecular analysis based on secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), and will also involve and support numerous research students. It is very important to the continued and growing academic excellence of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at 快活林性息 and helps to provide the very best in educational听opportunities for our听students. Well done, Michael! |
June 13, 2022:听Dr Yi has published a new manuscript of her research, along with co-authors Alex Gilewski (a former MS program student) and Mikhail Litvak (an undergraduate).听The article was accepted by the journal听, which is published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The study听presents a novel model of pairing a metacognitive exercise with measures of linked concepts that are aligned with learning objectives in college introductory chemistry courses. The model shows promising signs of improving student performance and metacognitive thinking and behaviors.听The article is currently available听. |
June, 2022:听Congratulations to Dr Boulesbaa, who has been renewed for a second year on his $25,000 grant from Pasadena City College, titled "Utilization of Undergraduate Research to Promote Equity and Completion in Micro Nano Technology Professional Workforce Education". Good work, Aziz! |
June 1, 2022:听Congratulations to graduate student Janelli Pineda (Fischhaber lab), who was awarded a $1500 travel grant from CSUPERB! This grant will support a trip she will take next summer to a collaborator's lab at Columbia University Health Sciences Center in New York City. Well done, Janelli! |
May 20, 2022:听This afternoon we held听our departmental awards ceremony, in advance of commencement in the evening, for the first time in three years! Undergraduate students Cynthia Avedian, Erick Gonzalez, Jonathan Hakimian, Oscar Arevalo Soto, Edward Bryan Huseman, Joie Yuson, Walter Torres, Vanessa Estrada and Christi Thomas have been given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors. Graduate student Jander Cruz was given the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award, and graduate students Isabella Crisostomo and Leticia Reque were co-honorees for the Sandra L. Jewett Scholarship in Biochemistry. More details about the awards and awardees can be found on our department's听听webpage. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments! |
May 13, 2022:听This semester we had one student successfully complete her MS Biochemistry degree. Congratulations to Hafridha Hadi, from the Fischhaber lab!听 Hafridha has already landed a great job in the biotech industry - good luck your next chapter, Hafridha! |
April 25, 2022:听Three of our faculty have been awarded RSCA grants from 快活林性息 for their research! Dr Jeffery Charonnat was awarded a $5,000 min-grant, and Drs. Miao and Ye were each awarded 3 units of release time for the upcoming academic year.听 Congratulations to everyone! |
April 7, 2022:听The Teprovich group has published an article titled 鈥淐loso-borate gel polymer electrolytes with remarkable electrochemical stability and a wide operating temperature window鈥 in the journal听.听 Matthew Green (current graduate student), Katty Kaydanik (former graduate student), and Miguel Orozco (former undergraduate student) are all coauthors on the manuscript.听 This research is funded by the NSF鈥檚 LEAPS-MPS program (award No. 2137973).听 This work features a gel polymer electrolyte that enables a lithium ion battery (LIB) to operate at -35 掳C and allows for the fabrication of a flexible LIB.听 The article can be accessed听. |
April 1, 2022:听Numerous听students from our department presented their research projects at听, which was held virtually again this year. Several of our participants won awards in their respective categories. Congratulations to graduate students Matthew Green (Teprovich lab) and Jander Cruz (Eller lab), who won first and second place, respectively, in their 10-minute oral presentations group! First place honors also go to undergraduate student Christi Thomas (Medh lab) for her poster. Congratulations to all of our students for their efforts! |
December 20, 2021:听Dr Abrol has published a chapter in the latest volume of the journal听, titled "Development of enhanced conformational sampling methods to probe the activation landscape of GPCRs". His two co-authors,听Erik Serrano and Luis Jaimes Santiago听are former undergraduate researchers from the Abrol group. |
September 27, 2021:听Dr. Fischhaber has published her latest manuscript in听. The paper, titled "SAW1 is increasingly required to recruit Rad10 as SSA flap-length increases from 20 to 50 bases in single-strand annealing in听S. cerevisiae" is co-authored by former graduate students Jane Odango, Juan Camberos and Fred Fregoso. The paper will be published in the December 2021 issue of the journal, but is available now听. |
September 21, 2021:听Dr. Miao has received confirmation that his Major Research Instrumentation grant has been funded by the NSF!听 The grant, awarded to PI Miao along with co-PIs from our department Drs. Eloranta, Boulesbaa and Teprovich as well as co-PI Lau from Physics, funds the project titled "" and is worth just over $455,000. The grant will provide important computing infrastructure for researchers in the College of Science and Math.听 Congratulations to the PI and co-PIs! |
September 10, 2021:听Dr. Crowhurst has been awarded a SCORE-SC3 grant from the National Institutes of Health. It is a four-year grant, worth $435,000, for the project titled "". The grant money not only funds the research in her lab; money is also budgeted to support student researchers in her lab. Congratulations, Dr. Crowhurst! |
September 7, 2021:听Dr. Teprovich has been awarded a Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) research grant from the National Science Foundation.听 The two-year grant, worth $248,526, will support his proposal titled 鈥.鈥澨 Preliminary results included in the proposal were collected by current graduate students Matthew Green and Katty Kaydanik and former undergraduate student Miguel Orozco.听 Congratulations, Dr Teprovich! |
June 30, 2021:听Dr. Crowhurst has published another manuscript, with co-authors Imex Aguirre-Cardenas, a former undergraduate in the lab, and Dane Geddes-Buehre, a former MS student. The paper, titled "Removal of disulfide from acid stress chaperone HdeA does not wholly eliminate structure or function at low pH" is published in听, September 2021 edition, and is available as an Open Access article听.听 |
June 4, 2021:听Dr Miao has published his latest manuscript, titled "Multistep Dissociation of Fluorine Molecules under Extreme Compression" along with international collaborators, in the journal听.听Using a large-scale crystal structure search method based on first principles calculations, he and his collaborators found that, before reaching an atomic phase, F solid transforms first into a structure consisting of听 F2 molecules and F polymer chains and then into a structure consisting of F polymer chains and F atoms, a distinctive evolution with pressure that has not been seen in any other elements. |
June 1, 2021:听We have received confirmation that Dr. Crowhurst has been promoted to full Professor and Dr. Miao has been granted tenure to accompany his promotion to Associate Professor last year. Both positions will be effective as of the start of the 2021-2022 academic year.听 Congratulations, Drs. Crowhurst and Miao! |
May 2021:听Dr Eller has published his first paper since he joined the faculty at 快活林性息! The paper, a collaborative effort with scientists in Texas and Minnesota, is titled "Nanoprojectile Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry for Analysis of Extracellular Vesicles" and was published this month in the journal听. Congratulations, Dr. Eller! |
May 24, 2021:听Today the College of Science and Mathematics held its virtual graduation ceremony听(see link above). After its completion, the听听- please watch the recording and celebrate with us!听 |
May 18, 2021:听Congratulations to Jane Odango, who has been named one of the awardees for the campus' Distinguished Thesis/Graduate Project Competition.听 This is a campus-wide competition, and only four students are given the award each year.听 Jane did her thesis research in the lab of Dr Fischhaber.听 Great work, Jane!听 |
May 14, 2021:听This semester five of our Master's students successfully completed their degrees!听 Jane Odango (Fischhaber lab) earned her MS Biochemistry degree, while Anthony Bernot (Teprovich lab), Osma Gomez (Teprovich lab), Daniel Gonzalez (Eloranta lab) and Dalar Khodagholian (Miao lab) earned MS Chemistry degrees. All of our graduates have already landed either jobs in industry or acceptance to PhD programs.听 Congratulations to all of you! |
May 3, 2021:听Dr Ye has published a paper in the journal听. The paper, written with former undergraduate student Candido Moreno and current graduate student Duyen Pham is titled "Chemistry self-efficacy in lower-division chemistry courses: changes after a semester of instruction and gaps still remain between student groups" and is available听. |
May 3, 2021:听Undergraduate students Guliayi Ainiwaer, Blanca Aparicio, Arlet Artoonian, Pouya Bahrami, Nanor Bedrosian, Justina Gorgy, Akemi Hinzer and Joie Yuson have been given听听for excellence in their academic and research endeavors. Graduate student Osma Gomez has also been given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments! |
April 30, 2021:听Drs. Andersen, Eller, Kelson and Miao have each been awarded a RSCA minigrant! Each minigrant is worth either 3 units release time or $5,000, to be used during the 2021-2022 academic year. Congratulations to all of you! |
February 1, 2021:听Profs. Teprovich and Boulesbaa have received an additional $30,000 in funding through their ongoing contract with DOE鈥檚 Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) for a project titled "Nanocomposite Spectroscopy Characterization for Solar Batteries.鈥澨鼵ongratulations, Joe and Aziz! |
January 10, 2021:听Congratulations to Jane Odango, who was awarded the prestigious Crellin Pauling Student Teaching Award at the virtual CSUPERB Symposium! The award, which includes a $2000 scholarship, celebrates her work as a teaching assistant in our lower division Chemistry labs. A story about Jane and her award can be found in听. Congratulations, Jane! |
January, 2021:听Dr Eller has been awarded a research grant from the Semiconductor Research Corporation!听 The grant, worth $83,500, is to support his proposal, titled "Nano-projectile SIMS for evaluating molecular homogeneity in ultra-small domains".听 Congratulations, Dr Eller! |
December 11, 2020:听This semester four of our graduate students successfully presented their thesis research and completed their degrees.听 Jonathon Benson and Misael Sanchez earned MS Biochemistry, and Matthew Ledesma and Parijat Sharma earned MS Chemistry degrees.听 Congratulations to all of you!听 |
December 7, 2020:听The Crowhurst lab has published an article in the journal听听with former graduate students Marlyn Widjaja and Jonathon Benson and former undergraduate student Jafaeth Gomez. The research paper, titled "Detection of key sites of dimer dissociation and unfolding initiation during activation of acid-stress chaperone HdeA at low pH" is available听听and will be formally published in the February 2021 issue of the journal.听 |
October, 2020:听The Boulesbaa lab has been awarded a $50,000 BUILD PODER pilot project grant for a project titled "Evaluation and research on utilization of targeted nanoparticles for use as cancer therapies". Congratulations to Aziz Boulesbaa! |
September 20, 2020:听Dr. Miao, along with collaborators at 快活林性息 as well as in Buffalo and China have published a review article, titled "Chemistry under high pressure" in听. The article is now available online. |
July 20, 2020:听Dr Boulesbaa has published his first paper with 快活林性息 student co-authors, in collaboration with a lab at Auburn University.听 The article, titled "Ultrafast dynamics of exciton formation and decay in two-dimensional tungsten disulfide (2D-WS2) monolayers" is published online in the journal听.听 Chemistry graduate student Zeynep Eroglu is the first author, and chemistry undergraduate Olivia Comegys as well as physics graduate student Leo Quintanar are co-authors. Congratulations, Boulesbaa lab! |
July 15, 2020:听Drs Abrol and Crowhurst have published a collaborative paper, with former students Sayuri Pacheco, Marlyn Widjaja and Jafaeth Gomez as co-authors.听 The paper, titled "The complex role of the N-terminus and acidic residues of HdeA as pH-dependent switches in its chaperone function" will be published in the September issue of the journal听. They were also asked to provide cover artwork for the issue.听 |
July 10, 2020:听Congratulations to our colleagues for their promotion successes!听 Dr Miao has been promoted to Associate Professor, while Drs. Abrol and Andersen have been promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure.听 Additionally, Dr Schrodi has been promoted to full Professor.听 Congratulations again to you all! |
June 4, 2020:听Dr Abrol has been awarded a NIH SCORE SC2 grant!听 The grant, titled "Probing the Structural Basis of Innate G Protein Specificity in G Protein-Coupled Receptor Signaling鈥 is funded for 3 years and is worth $300,000 in direct funds to the lab. Congratulations, Ravi, on your first major grant at 快活林性息!听 We are sure it is the first of many. |
June 1, 2020:听Congratulations to Rowen Jane Odango on being awarded one of the coveted College of Science and Mathematics 2019鈥20 Graduate Fellowships for Outstanding Research Promise in Science & Mathematics. She is also the co-recipient of the听Leslie & Terry Cutler Scholarship!听 Both are much deserved.听 This is our acknowledgment of a tremendous talent and the hard work that she has put into her M.S. research projects.听 We expect great things of her in the future.听 This is a wonderful achievement and we are very proud of you! |
June 1, 2020:听Our students were successful this year in competing for awards in the College of Science and Mathematics!听 Congratulations go to undergraduates Michael Peterson for being the 2019鈥20 recipient of the Gilbert and Jacki Cisneros Foundation Scholarship, and听Alisha Holden for being awarded the college's Robert Nolan Scholarship! These are wonderful achievements and we applaud your success. |
May 18, 2020:听Our department was quite successful in obtaining grants through the campus-wide Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (RSCA) program competition.听 Congratulations go to Drs. Andersen, Kelson, Miao and Ye, each of whom will receive either a $5,000 mini-grant or 3 units of release time for the 2020-2021 academic year! Well done. |
May 15, 2020:听Congratulations to Dr Crowhurst for being awarded a Summer Grant through Research and Sponsored Programs!听 The grant provides $3,000 in summer salary to allow her time to develop and write a proposal for a large external grant. |
May 2020:听A new research article has been published by Dr Ye, in collaboration with Dr Jack Eichler at UC Riverside, and with 快活林性息 student co-authors Alex Gilewski,听Emily Mallory and Mikhail Litvak. The paper, titled "The impact of coupling assessments on conceptual understanding and connection-making in chemical equilibrium and acid鈥揵ase chemistry" can be found in the听. |
May 14, 2020:听Congratulations to Alex Gilewski, whose MS Chemistry thesis has been selected as one of only four recipients of the campus-wide 2020 Outstanding Thesis/Graduate Project Competition! Alex's research advisor, Li Ye, is very proud of his accomplishment, as is the rest of the department! |
May 13, 2020:听Congratulations to all of our undergraduates receiving their bachelor's degrees in Biochemistry or Chemistry this semester!听 It is too bad that we cannot be there in person to celebrate with our students; normally we have a reception to honor all our graduates. As a small way to mark their accomplishments Dr Garrett has recorded a听听to honor everyone.听Your hard work has finally paid off - we wish all of you the very best in the next stage of your careers. Be sure to stay in touch and keep us updated on your future endeavors! |
May 12, 2020:听Undergraduate students Mario Aguirre Cardenas, Nicole Babayans, Kristine Bislamyan, Jesus Cruz, Nicole Gardon, Alejandro Leon, Joanna Mae Ohide, Mehrnaz Siavoshi and Derek Stavich as well as graduate students Hafridha Hadi and James Nguyen have been given听听for excellence in their academic and research endeavors. Graduate students Jane Odango and Joseph Yoon have also been given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments! In lieu of our usual departmental reception, Dr Garrett has recorded a听听to honor each student. |
May 12, 2020:听We hit a new听record this semester: nine graduate students successfully defended their theses! Benjamin Azmon (Minehan lab), Adam Freund (Eloranta lab), Alex Gilewski (Ye lab), Kevin Ng (Minehan lab), Nazaret Rptchian (Kelson lab), Cal Weeks (Kelson lab) and Joseph Yoon (Schrodi lab) are receiving their MS degrees in Chemistry, while Dane Geddes-Buehre (Crowhurst lab) and Benjamin Cordova (Tamae lab) will earn their MS degrees in Biochemistry. In lieu of honoring these students at our annual departmental reception Dr Garrett has recorded a听听to give them their due credit.听Congratulations, everyone! |
May 11, 2020:听Congratulations to Dr Miao, who has been awarded 快活林性息's "Preeminent Scholarly Publication Award" for 2020. The four primary dimensions of this award are Originality, Professional Recognition, Significance, and Clarity. Professor Maosheng Miao鈥檚 publication, 鈥淩eactivity of He with ionic compounds under high pressure,鈥 published in听听in 2018, stands out in all four dimensions. Miao鈥檚 publication on the 鈥渘anny鈥 role of helium is lucid, impactful, and well-recognized by the scientific community. |
May 11, 2020:听Congratulations to Dr Nguyen-Graff, who has been awarded 快活林性息's "Extraordinary Service Award" for 2020. A faculty member in Chemistry and Biochemistry since 2006, Dr. Nguyen-Graff developed the Peer Learning Facilitators program for Chemistry 100 with 15 facilitators serving more than 300 students per semester providing small group discussion and problem-solving sessions. She also manages the chemistry tutoring center, and she spent spring break transitioning both programs online. An innovative and motivating instructor, she acts as a technology resource for her chemistry colleagues and has been recognized for her energetic embrace of technology by serving as a Canvas Insights early adopter. Dr. Nguyen-Graff has helped to organize Earth Day events at 快活林性息 attended by elementary and middle school students. She has led chemistry workshops to prepare pre-credential students for the California Subject Examination for Teachers (CSET). She also works with the 快活林性息 Science Learning Collaboratory, which offers summer institutes and monthly presentations for middle school and high school science teachers. |
May, 2020:听Dr Abrol's lab has published its latest manuscript in the May issue of the听. The article, titled "Pseudo鈥慡ymmetric Assembly of Protodomains as a Common Denominator in the Evolution of Polytopic Helical Membrane Proteins" is co-authored by 快活林性息 undergraduate student Alexander Tran. A figure from his paper was also chosen for the cover of the May issue of the journal. |
March 27, 2020:听Many of our students participated in presenting their research at 快活林性息posium this year, which was held virtually. Our department can celebrate a few student participants in particular who won awards in their specific categories. Congratulations to graduate student Benjamin Cordova (Tamae lab) and undergraduate student Matthew Green (Teprovich group), who both won first place in their respective groups of 10-minute oral presentations! Second place honors were also given to undergraduate Nicole Babayans (Melikyan lab) in her 3-minute oral presentation group, undergraduate Akemi Hinzer (Crowhurst lab) for her poster, as well as graduate students Emily Mallory and Alex Gilewski (Ye group) for their joint poster. Congratulations to all of our students for their efforts! |
March 2020:听Dr Melikyan has co-authored a chapter in the book "" with former student Elen Artashyan. Their chapter is titled "Ionic and Radical Reactions of pi-Bonded Cobalt Complexes". The book is available from Wiley in electronic and hardcover versions (as well as other booksellers). |
March 2020:听Congratulations to Profs. Teprovich and Boulesbaa for their recent award of almost $68,000 over one year to work with Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) on a project titled "Nanocomposite Spectroscopy Characterization for Solar Batteries.鈥 |
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