2005 News Archive

Hupp receives the 2005 Carl Wagner Memorial Award
26 October 2005 - Morrison Professor of Chemistry, Joseph T. Hupp, has been named the 2005 Carl Wagner Memorial Award recipient by the Electrochemical Society. The award citation recognizes Hupp "for fundamental contributions to the field of electrochemistry, particularly in the subfields of interfacial electron transfer reactivity and molecular materials design and characterization, and for laudatory mentoring of undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral research students".

Marks elected to the German Academy of Natural Scientists
26 October 2005 - Tobin J. Marks, Vladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University, has been elected by its membership to the Leopoldina, the German Academy of Natural Scientists. The Leopoldina was founded in 1652 and is the world's oldest academy of natural sciences. Disciplines represented include the natural sciences, medicine, engineering, the social sciences, and the history of science and medicine. Members come from all over the globe, and membership is restricted to 1,000 scientists. Marks is the first professor from Northwestern to be elected to the Leopoldina.

Lieberman and Rosenzweig receive 2006 Nobel Laureate Signature Award
22 September 2005 - The 2006 Nobel Laureaute Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry from the American Chemical Society was presented to Raquel Lieberman and Professor Amy C. Rosenzweig. This award is sponsored by Mallinckrodt Baker Inc. The purpose of the award is to recognize an outstanding graduate student and her preceptor in the field of chemistry.

Raquel solved the first crystal structure of particulate methane monooxygenase, an integral membrane metalloenzyme that catalyzes the oxidation of methane, the most inert hydrocarbon, to methanol. Features of the structure, including the presence of copper, provide insight into how pMMO performs this extremely challenging chemistry. This research also contributes to our understanding of membrane proteins, of which very few have been structurally characterized.

Previous winners of the award from Northwestern include So-Jung Park and Chad Mirkin (2004) and Christy L. Haynes and Richard P. Van Duyne (2005).

Wasielewski receives the James Flack Norris Award Professor
20 September 2005 - Michael R. Wasielewski has been awarded the 2006 James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry sponsored by The Northeastern Section, American Chemical Society. The award is based on his pioneering contributions to understanding electron transfer reactions in problems ranging from biomimetic models for the photosynthetic reaction center to fundamental approaches to organic molecular electronics. The highly multi-disciplinary nature of his work encompasses photochemical processes in chemistry, biology, and materials science, and epitomizes the direction in which modern physical organic chemistry is evolving. Professor Wasielewski's research is noted for its unique combination of synthetic modeling, ultrafast laser spectroscopy, and time-resolved magnetic resonance studies that have provided insights into the fundamental relationship between molecular structure and the dynamics of electron transfer between organic molecules.

Mark Ratner receives honorary Doctor of Science degree from Hebrew University
28 June 2005 - Mark A. Ratner, Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor in Chemistry who has been widely honored as a leader in nanotechnology, received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in June 2005. Ratner is credited with starting the field of molecular electronics (nanotechnology) in 1974 when he published a paper predicting the diode behavior of particular classes of donor-acceptor molecules. The paper proposed that single molecules might behave similarly to electronic device components or wires and switches in electrical circuits and could be used to process and store information.

SonBinh Nguyen Named McCormick Professor
20 May 2005 - Prof. SonBinh Nguyen has been named Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence for a three-year term, beginning in the 2005-06 academic year. The McCormick awards recognize faculty “who have consistently demonstrated outstanding performance in the classroom” in the six undergraduate schools. The endowed professorships were established in 1991 with a $10 million gift from McCormick. The award recipients are chosen from nominations of undergraduate school deans. A student-faculty committee chaired by the Provost reviews the nominations, taking into consideration letters from deans, faculty colleagues and students.

Nguyen joined the Northwestern faculty in 1996. A principal teacher of organic chemistry, he emphasizes critical thinking, total-synthesis and real-world problem solving. His students comment that his intellectual rigor, humor and dynamism make challenging courses both memorable and enriching. While lecturing, Nguyen engages students in vibrant exchanges, encouraging active acquisition of the material. Students laud him for his approachability and enthusiastic mentoring outside the classroom. They remark that he holds office hours for several hours on evenings before a test. Each year, Nguyen writes dozens of personalized letters of reference for his current and former students. To prepare them for the professional school application process and to get them to think about their profession and aspirations, he asks each student to prepare answers to intellectually difficult questions and go through mock interview sessions with him. Nguyen is an educational innovator; one student described his drive to individualize and refine his teaching as a process of "perfecting the perfect."

His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation. He received a Sloan Fellowship, an NSF CAREER Award and a Packard Fellowship, among other research awards. Nguyen was awarded a Weinberg Distinguished Teaching Award in 2002 and was appointed to the ASG Faculty/Administrator Honor Roll in 2003 and 2004. He is a Fellow of the Residential College of Cultural and Community Studies and the Slivka Residential College of Engineering and Science.

Marks Wins John C. Bailar Medal Professor
31 May 2005 - Tobin Marks has been selected as the 2005 John C. Bailar Medallist. This annual award, given by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, honors the great American inorganic chemisty, John C. Bailar. Previous winners include: Fred Basolo, James P. Collman, F. Albert Cotton, Harry Gray, Richard H. Holm, James Ibers, Jean-Marie Lehn, and Karl Wieghardt.

Nguyen and Scheidt on 2004-2005 Faculty/Administrator Honor Roll
27 June 2005 - Professors SonBinh Nguyen and Karl Scheidt were selected for the 2004-2005 Faculty/Administrator Honor Roll, presented by the Northwestern University Associated Student Government (ASG). This is an honor that is extended only to a select few of the faculty and administrators each year, selected and presented directly by students. A substantial portion of the student population participated in an online poll in which they voted for professors and administrators who had been extremely effective in positively impacting their lives or ways of thinking.

ASG's annual ceremony honoring these accomplishments was held in the John Evans Alumni Center on Thursday, May 26 at 4:00 pm. Each winner was presented their award by a student who briefly described how the professor or administrator has personally benefited him or her.

Teri Odom Selected as a 2005 Cottrell Scholar
20 May 2005 - Prof. Teri Odom has been honored as a Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation. She is one of thirteen Cottrell Scholars named in 2005, selected from 136 applications. Cottrell Scholar Awards recognize new faculty in astronomy, chemistry, or physics who excel in both research and teaching.

Prof. Odom and her group focus on physical chemistry, researching the synthesis and characterization of nanoscale materials, the design and fabrication of tools useful in nanotechnology, and the development of methods to manipulate nanostructures and mesostructures into functional assemblies.

Frederick Gardner Cottrell founded and endowed the Research Corporation in 1912 with the patent rights to his invention, the Cottrell electrostatic precipitator. Cottrell's electrostatic precipitator removed from 90 to 98 percent of all particles from the smoke and gases escaping industrial smokestacks. The Cottrell Awards honor his generosity and his commitment to helping young scientists start their careers.

George Schatz elected to National Academies of Sciences
10 May 2005 - Morrison Professor of Chemistry, George Schatz, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is one of 72 new members recognized for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. There are currently 1,976 active members.
Membership in the National Academies of Sciences is one of the highest honors that can be offered to a scientist or engineer. The National Academies were established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation signed by Abraham Lincoln that calls on the Academy to act as an official adviser to the federal government, upon request, in any matter of science or technology.

Professor Schatz has been a faculty member at Northwestern since 1976. The Schatz research group is interested in using theory and computation to describe physical phenomena in a broad range of applications relevant to chemistry, physics, biology and engineering. Among the types of applications that we interested are: optical properties of nanoparticles and nanoparticle assemblies; using theory to model polymer properties; DNA structure, thermodynamics and dynamics; modeling self assembly and nanopatterning; and gas phase reaction dynamics.

Professor Schatz is co-author of three books and author of nearly 400 publications. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Defense Research Advanced Projects Agency.

His honors include fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society, a Max Planck Research Award, the Fresenius Award, and fellowships from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. In 2001 he was elected to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Scheidt, Zwergel and Alvarez receive Distinguished Teaching Awards
9 May 2005 - Professor Karl Scheidt has been named a recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award from Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Each year, only three tenure-track members of the college faculty receive this honor. Excellence as an undergraduate instructor is the primary criterion for this award and it recognizes Professor Scheidt's outstanding performance and contributions in the classroom. He is currently the instructor for the first quarter of introductory organic chemistry and also teaches advanced graduate level courses in organic chemistry.

Eberhard Zwergel, Senior Lecturer Demonstrator, has been named as the winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award for Building Community in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences for 2005. Each year, one lecturer from the college faculty is named a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award. The Community Building Award is given to a faculty member who has made substantial contributions to the life of the college as an intellectual community. The award recognizes faculty who foster a sense of community both inside and outside the classroom and who make students feel valued as members of the Northwestern intellectual community.

Hamsell Alvarez, a Graduate student in Chemistry, has been named as a winner of the 2005 award for Distinguished Teaching by a Graduate Student in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. The Outstanding Graduate Student Teacher Award is given annually to one student from the natural sciences and mathematics. Excellence in work with undergraduates is the primary criterion of the award.

Teri Odom receives a 2005 DuPont Young Professor Award
20 April 2005 - Professor Teri W. Odom has been named a recipient of a 2005 DuPont Young Professor Award. The award recipients are nominated by DuPont personnel based upon their research programs; Teri's programs investigate the synthesis and characterization of nanoscale materials, the design and fabrication of tools useful in nanotechnology, and the development of methods to manipulate nanostructures and mesostructures into functional assemblies. The award recognizes her work as extremely original research.

Through the award, DuPont assists young faculty members who are within five years of their tenured appointment. Grants are awarded to faculty in the United States, Europe and Asia. The Corporate Center for Collaborative Research and Education (CCRE) and the DuPont Fellows Forum (DFF) sponsor the grant program.

Laura D. Hughes to receive a 2005 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship
4 April 2005 - Laura D. Hughes, an undergraduate researcher in Prof. Teri Odom's group, was named as a recipient of a 2005 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. The Scholarship Program was created to foster and encourage excellence in science and mathematics. Four hundred twenty-seven colleges and universities had nominated 1,091 students for the awards. From that, three hundred twenty students were chosen to win this year.

Karl Scheidt receives 3M Award
7 March 2005 - Professor Karl Scheidt has been awarded a Nontenured Faculty Awardfrom 3M. This is an unrestricted research award funded by 3M to support basic research in the physical and biological sciences.

Professor Scheidt and his group focus on the development of new catalytic reactions employing organic molecules as catalysts, the efficient and methodology-driven syntheses of bioactive compounds, and the exploration of biological pathways using small molecules.
For more about the 3M corporation, go to www.3m.com

Teri Odom receives a 2005 Sloan Research Fellowship
28 February 2005 - Prof. Teri W. Odom was announced the recipient of a 2005 Sloan Research Fellowship. Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded to "enhance the careers of the very best young faculty members" in one of seven fields of science: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics. Currently, 116 fellowships are granted annually.

Tobin Marks Elected to the Royal Society of Chemistry
23 February 2005 - Professor Tobin Marks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry of Great Britain. For 2005, 34 scientists were elected from around the world, 3 of whom were Americans. He is now entitled to use the designation FRSC after his name.

Professors Chad Mirkin and William Klein report Alzheimer diagnostic testing progress
2 February 2005 - Ground-breaking research of Northwestern Professors Chad Mirkin and William L. Klein may lead to new diagnostics tests for early-stage Alzheimer's disease. The February 1, 2005 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science published results of their recent study on 30 patients using a new detection system. Chad Mirkin's bio-barcode amplified detection system is able to trace minute levels of proteins called ADDLs in spinal fluid. Median ADDL levels were nearly 10 times higher in 15 Alzheimer's patients than they were in 15 healthy patients. Detection of ADDL levels could predict whether a person had the disease, which in turn would provide the opportunity to find early-stage treatments for Alzheimer's.

For more information on the study, and to read more about the possible implications of this research, please see the following news stories:

Professor Karl Scheidt receives a New Faculty Award from Amgen
6 January 2005 - Professor Karl Scheidt has received a 2005 New Faculty Award from Amgen. This award bestowed by the Chemistry Research and Discovery Department of Amgen recognizes prominent young researchers investigating new strategies in organic chemistry. Founded in 1980, Amgen has rapidly grown from a small, Thousand Oaks, California-based company focusing on advances in recombinant DNA to world's largest independent biotechnology company. Over the last decade, Amgen has emerged as a Fortune 500 company and scientific leader developing innovative therapies in such areas as oncology, inflammation, hematology, neurology, metabolic disorders and osteoporosis.

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Special Seminar: Dr. Taner Tildirim
June 24, 2013 • 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Lewis Research Group Symposium
July 12, 2013 • 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM