News

Bob Hamers participated in two briefings to US Congressional staff as part of a “Sparking Economic Growth” program hosted by the Science Coalition.   Bob and seven other faculty entrepreneurs presented two briefings to congressional and federal agency staff. One was for the House of Representatives (sponsored by Rep. Bill Foster) and one for the Senate (sponsored by Senators Jerry Moran and Chris Coons).  The briefings included introductions by Foster, Moran, and Coons and were attended by approximately 100 staff. Dr. Hamers is featured in this Youtube clip highlighting his testimony for the Science Coalition hearings. The clip includes statements from Representative Bill Foster (D-IL), Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), and Orin Herskowitz (Columbia University) about the importance… Read More »Director Bob Hamers Participates in US Congressional Staff Briefings

CSN Associate Director Christy Haynes has been named a fellow of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. According to the announcement, “Fellows have demonstrated excellence and innovation in one or more disciplines related to environmental protection or sustainability. The Fellow honors Haynes for her distinguished intellectual contributors representing a range of disciplines and fields of professional expertise.”

Cathy Murphy helped organize, and was featured in, a virtual issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, which honors Marie Curie’s 150th birthday and highlights female physical chemists “who have been JPC Editors, who have been JPC Editorial Advisory Board members, or who have won JPC/ACS Division of Physical Chemistry Lectureship Awards.” Read the editorial highlighting the online issue here, and her featured article here, which is entitled “Anisotropic metal nanoparticles: synthesis, assembly and optical applications.”

CSN Associate Director Christy Haynes was featured in a new PBS Kids’ science show, Hands-On Science produced by Twin Cities Public Television. You can watch the episode online at the TPT website here. Photo courtesy of Christy Haynes

CSN graduate student Arielle Mensch (Hamers group) recently defended her thesis, entitled Characterizing Nanoparticle Interactions at the Cellular Membrane.” Congratulations, Dr. Mensch!   Arielle with her parents and advisor Bob  (note her periodic table shoes!)

CSN faculty member Sara Mason received another XSEDE allocation for her project “Density Functional Theory Calculations for Nanomaterials in Energy Applications and the Environment.”  The award includes the following very precise resources: PSC Regular Memory (Bridges): 1,043,401.0 SUs, PSC Storage (Bridges Pylon): 500.0 GB, SDSC Dell Cluster with Intel Haswell Processors (Comet): 1,185,094.0 SUs, SDSC Medium-term disk storage (Data Oasis): 500.0 GB.  For any non-computational chemists out there, the NSF says, “The allocation of SU/GBs awarded to this PI would amount to approximately an additional $82,244.05 to support the scientific goals of the project.” Congratulations, Sara!

CSN graduate student Alicia McGeachy (Geiger group) was recently featured in a C&E News sponsored article entitled “How to empower the next generation of chemists – The chemical industry can take several approaches to build a dynamic and diverse 21st-century workforce.”   Read more here. Alicia was also been granted a Student Travel Award to attend the NOBCChE conference in Minneapolis this November. Congratulations, Alicia!

Our CSN external evaluator, Dr. Lizanne DeStefano, was recognized as a Georgia Power Professor of Excellence. As the the Georgia Power Facebook post says, “Her research interests include the evaluation and sustainability of innovative STEM programs; multi-site initiatives; and programs serving special populations, such as students with disabilities or those at risk for academic failure.” Congratulations, Lizanne! Photo from Georgia Power Facebook page

CSN graduate student Laura Olenick (Geiger group) defended her thesis at Northwestern University. Her thesis was titled “Sum Frequency Generation Spectrosocpy of Interactions at Model Biointerfaces.” Franz & Laura Congratulations to Dr. Olenick!

CSN graduate student Mimi Hang (Hamers group) defended her thesis at the University of Wisconsin, entitled “Investigating and controlling technologically relevant complex metal oxide nanomaterials to mitigate environmental impact.” Congratulations, Dr. Hang! Bob & Mimi