CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT

Big changes continued this year for the Chemistry Department as the construction of the new science facilities took major strides. Much of the 1998-99 year was spent readying the Thompson Chemical Laboratories building for evacuation in midsummer 1999. At this juncture the Chemistry Department will move several of its offices and all of its classroom teaching activities to temporary quarters throughout the science quad. All of its laboratory teaching activities will be moved into new laboratories in the recently christened Morley Science Laboratories. Professors Koehler, Park, Richardson, Schofield, Smith, and Thoman will move into new research laboratories in this facility, as well. Although this process has been tedious and required lots of hard work, great excitement fills the Department as we prepare for these enormous changes. We all anxiously await the final phase of the construction project next summer when we will reoccupy a newly renovated Thompson Chemical Laboratory building.

Members of the Chemistry Department pose on the roof of the new Morley Science Laboratories.

This year also saw significant changes in departmental staffing. Dr. George (“Tony”) Truran, who has served the Department well as a laboratory instructor in the introductory and organic chemistry lab programs, will leave the Department to begin a career as a research scientist in industry. We also welcomed a new, tenure-track colleague, Dr. Joseph Chihade. A bio-organic chemist interested in the chemistry of novel RNA molecules, Chihade earned his Ph.D. with Professor David Horne at Columbia University, and followed this with postdoctoral study with Professor Paul Schimmel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Scripps Research Institute. Professor Chihade will teach a new non-majors course, CHEM 121, Fighting Disease: The Evolution and Operation of Human Medicines, in the coming fall semester, and CHEM 310, Enzyme Kinetics and Reaction Mechanisms, in the spring of 2000. He will be housed in the Bronfman Science Center where his laboratories will be close to other biochemistry colleagues and core biochemical research equipment.

This year we continued to participate in the Class of 1960 Scholars lecture program. Two distinguished scientists were invited to campus to meet with our students and present a seminar. Professor Patricia Bianconi of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Professor Steven George of the University of Colorado at Boulder were the 1960 Scholar speakers this year. Eleven students were selected by the faculty to be Class of 1960 Scholars during 1999 and to participate in the seminar program. This includes a preliminary meeting of the Scholars with a Chemistry Department faculty member to discuss papers by the seminar speaker; attendance at the seminar/discussion; and an opportunity for further discussion with the seminar speaker at an informal reception or dinner. The students selected for this year are:

Class of 1960 Scholars in Chemistry

During the final week of classes, a number of awards were presented to chemistry students for outstanding scholarship. Carrie P. Jones ‘02 received the CRC Award as the outstanding student in the general chemistry course and Ningchuan Zhu ‘02 received the CRC Award as the outstanding student in the advanced general chemistry course. Emily P. Balskus ‘02 was awarded the Harold H. Warren Prize in recognition of her being the outstanding student in introductory organic chemistry. At the annual senior Honors Colloquium, Professor Richardson announced the American Chemical Society Polymer Division Award for excellence in introductory organic chemistry for Mabel Djang ‘01, the American Chemical Society Analytical Division Award for Annabel H. Muenter ‘99, the American Chemical Society Connecticut Valley Section Award for sustained scholastic excellence for Christine H. Kim ‘99, the American Institute of Chemists Student Award for outstanding scholastic achievement for Geoffrey R. Hutchison ‘99, and the Frank C. Goodrich 1945 Award in Chemistry for demonstrated excellence in chemistry research to Annabel H. Muenter ‘99, Scott A. Snyder ‘99, and Matthew K. Whalin ‘99.

At Class Day activities before graduation, the John Sabin Adriance Prize was awarded to Scott A. Snyder ‘99 as the senior chemistry major who maintained the highest rank in all courses offered by the Department. Also during Class Day, Matthew K. Whalin ‘99 was the recipient of the Leverett Mears Prize in recognition of outstanding scholastic achievement, admission to graduate study in the medical sciences or to medical school, and designation by the faculty of the Department as showing outstanding promise. The James F. Skinner Prize for achieving a distinguished record in chemistry and showing promise for teaching and scholarship was presented to Annabel H. Muenter ‘99.

During the summer of 1999, 30 Williams College chemistry majors were awarded research assistantships to work in the laboratories of departmental faculty. We gratefully acknowledge support from the J. Hodge Markgraf ‘52 summer research fund, the Wege-Markgraf fund, College Divisional Research Funding Committee, Howard Hughes Foundation, Council on Undergraduate Research, Research Corporation, Merck Foundation, National Science Foundation, Petroleum Research Foundation grants administered by the American Chemical Society, and Summer Science Program funds.

In the fall, Professor Lawrence J. Kaplan taught CHEM 113, Chemistry and Crime: From Sherlock Holmes to Modern Forensic Science, and continued to work on the multimedia, interactive CD-ROM Project Sherlock which provides an exploration into the world of forensic science from the crime scene to the crime lab. Assisting in the project, Daniel M. Mason ‘00 developed three dimensional models; Nicholas S. Swan ‘99 did extensive research and development on the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry module and helped write story boards; and Daniel W. Nelson ‘99 continued to develop the animations and design elements for Project Sherlock.

Kaplan continued as an adjunct faculty member of the District Court Committee on Continuing Education and the Judicial Institute of the Trial Court. On June 25, he conducted a special workshop for the judges of the Massachusetts District Court and the Massachusetts Trial Court entitled “Understanding Some of the Basics of Forensic Evidence: The Presumptive and Evidentiary Detection and Identification of Drugs.”

In July, Kaplan was a member of a special workshop convened by the National Science Foundation to examine the potential impact of digital libraries on science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education (SMETE), with the emphasis at the undergraduate level. The results and recommendations of the study are available on-line.
(See http://www.dlib.org/smete/public/report.html.)

During August, he participated in the 60th Annual Summer Conference of the New England Association of Chemistry Teachers held at Keene State College. The conference celebrated “One Hundred Years of Chemistry Education” on the centennial of NEACT. Kaplan participated in a panel discussion “What’s Happening in College?” and conducted two sessions of a workshop “Forensic Experiments for Your Classroom.”

During the spring semester, Kaplan was on a mini-sabbatical with an appointment as a Visiting Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. There he consulted with colleagues in the forensic science program and the newly established National Center for Forensic Science. The NCFS is a joint project of the University of Central Florida and the National Institute of Justice. The goal of the National Center is to create a unique laboratory facility staffed and equipped to service the forensic and law enforcement communities in the areas of fire and explosion debris analysis.

During February, Kaplan attended the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Forensics Science in Orlando. At this meeting he became a member of the Council on Forensic Science Education. He also presented an invited lecture entitled “Chemistry and Crime: From Sherlock Holmes to Modern Forensic Science” at the Tenth International Conference on College Teaching and Learning in April.

Assistant Professor Birgit Koehler taught both semesters of the main physical chemistry sequence this year, CHEM 301 and CHEM 302, covering thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, kinetics, and statistical mechanics. This spring she also taught the chemistry component of ENVI 102, Introduction to Environmental Sciences. This experimental course is team-taught with a biologist and a geoscientist and is aimed at giving first-year students an intensive dose of field-work using one plot of Hopkins Memorial Forest as the main study site, complemented by laboratory chemical analysis of samples they collect.

On the research front, three students worked with Koehler during the summer of 1998, Annabel H. Muenter ‘99, Greg Albert ‘99, and Martijn de Koening from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. They wrapped up a study of the interaction of sulfur dioxide with soot under simulated atmospheric conditions. Koehler presented a talk on this work at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Henry Roe ‘97, who began this study and is now in graduate school at Berkeley, attended the meeting as well. During the academic year, Koehler and Annabel Muenter began studying the interaction of ammonia on n-hexane soot as a model for atmospheric gas-particle interactions. Annabel Muenter presented her work at the Center for Environmental Studies’ Log Lunch series and at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Koehler presented these results at the spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

During this past year, Koehler was paired with painter Robin Strawbridge of Buxton School in the Artist and Scientist Program sponsored by the Hoosic River Watershed Association. The team worked with a class of 3rd and 4th graders from the Hancock School. They studied water’s fascinating properties and made a collage of animals that live in or near the river. The collage was displayed at Riverfest 1999. Koehler gave a faculty lecture entitled “What’s Going On Up There: Ozone Depletion, Global Warming, and Soot” during the spring semester. She appeared as a guest on Berkshire Broadcasting’s radio show entitled “Opinion Show” discussing atmospheric concerns and answering call-in questions.

Koehler co-chaired a session at the spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union. She reviewed an electronic “paper” for the journal Mathematica, reviewed several proposals for the Petroleum Research Fund and NSF, and submitted a successful proposal to the Atmospheric Chemistry division of NSF. She also served as faculty liaison to the Chemistry Student Advisory Committee, organizing several activities over the year, including our National Chemistry Week “Demo Day” for local 4th and 5th graders, a fall hike up Pine Cobble, a dinner with thesis students and advisors, an information session for prospective majors, and the annual Chemistry/Biology picnic.

Professor Charles Lovett continued to serve as Director of Bronfman Science Center, Chair of the Science Executive Committee, Chair of the Divisional Research Funding Committee, and Director of the Summer Science Program for Minority Students. As Chair of the Building Committee for the new science facility, he has continued to serve as faculty liaison in overseeing construction for the $47 million renovation and addition to the sciences.

Professor Lovett continued his research on the regulation of DNA repair in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, currently supported by a $315,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Last summer, Williams College students Fey Akanki ‘01, Karen Chachu ‘01, Jacques Edelin ‘01, David Finkelstein ‘99, Cortni Tyson ‘01, and Christina Williams ‘99 worked on this research as full-time research assistants. Also participating in this work were Research Technician Thomas O’Gara, and Postdoctoral Fellow Kathleen Sindt. Professor Lovett also co-directed, with Professors Nancy Roseman and Wendy Raymond, the research projects of two Merck Scholars, Erin Davies ‘00 and Michael Hurwitz ‘00. During the academic year, Professor Lovett directed Ernesto Andrianantoandro ‘99, David Finklestein ‘99, and Christina Williams ‘99 as Senior Honor students and David Chung ‘02, Jordan Dubow ‘99 , Biniam Gebre ‘00, and Vickie Jo ‘02 as independent research students.

In November, Professor Lovett served on the review panel for research grants submitted to the Molecular Genetics Division of the National Science Foundation. He also served as an ad hoc reviewer for the following journals: Journal of Bacteriology, Molecular Microbiology, Journal of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Nucleic Acids Research. Professor Lovett also continued to serve on the Executive Board of the New England Consortium for Undergraduate Science Education.

Last summer, Professor Lovett taught the Chemistry lecture component of the Williams College Summer Science Program for minority students. Together with Professor David Richardson, he also developed and taught a science camp for elementary school students and teachers. In the fall semester, Professor Lovett taught CHEM 101, Concepts of Chemistry, and during the spring semester, he taught the course he developed for non-science majors CHEM 115, AIDS: The Disease and Search for a Cure. He also taught CHEM 310, Enzyme Kinetics and Reaction Mechanisms, a course he introduced several years ago, as an alternative to the second semester of physical chemistry for students interested in graduate school in biochemistry.

Professor Park taught CHEM 304, Instrumental Methods of Analysis, in the fall, and CHEM 102, Concepts of Chemistry, in the spring. She has also worked on curricular development this year, including the development of a course “cluster” in materials science with members of the Physics Department. This cluster is designed to introduce students to the growing field of materials science and related disciplines, as well as to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of research in these fields. She is looking forward to teaching a new course in Spring 2000 with Professor Sarah Bolton of the Physics Department, CHEM 318/PHYS 318, Materials Science: The Chemistry and Physics of Materials. This course will form the core of the new course cluster.

She continued her research on metal-containing liquid crystalline materials with the assistance of a number of students. During the summer of 1998, former thesis student Jim Rowe ‘98 continued work in her lab and was joined by summer research students Nii Koney ‘01 and Zuzana Tothova ‘01. They made good progress on fine-tuning ligand syntheses, and a manuscript based on work done by Jim Rowe on the synthesis of substituted bipyridyl ligands was submitted and accepted for publication in the journal Synthesis. The work was taken over by thesis student Geoffrey Hutchison ‘99 during the 1998-99 academic year. Geoff made good progress in developing synthetic routes to Pt(bipy)₂CN₂ complexes, and in identifying important structural constraints required to make liquid crystalline derivatives of these materials. Dan Clayburgh ‘01, David Chung ‘02, Willie Wu ‘02, and summer research exchange student Judith van der Zwan (University of Leiden) will continue this work during the summer of 1999. Research in Professor Park’s lab continues to be supported by grants from the NSF and ACS-PRF. In addition, two of her summer research students are being supported by a Merck Foundation grant and by monies from the Wege-Markgraf fund.

Associate Professor Enrique Peacock-López continued his research in complex dynamical chemical and biochemical mechanisms. In work involving self-replicating molecules, Gregory Albert ‘99 studied a self-replicating mechanism with a complementary template and triplex formation, and Matthew Whalin ‘99 considered a dynamic model of hormone regulation in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Bevan Londergan ‘00 analyzed a forced-damped oscillator with a soft potential and Professor Peacock-López studied pattern formation in two dimensions in the template model using a cellular automation developed by Geoff Hutchison ‘99. Finally, Professor Peacock-López served as reviewer for Biophysical Chemistry, Journal of Physical Chemistry, The Chemical Educator, and National Science Foundation grants.

In addition to his research activities, Professor Peacock-López taught CHEM 401, Quantum Chemistry and Molecular Spectroscopy, in the fall, and CHEM 306, Physical Chemistry: A Biochemical Approach, and a tutorial CHEM 314T, A Theoretical Approach to Biological Phenomena, in the spring semester. In these courses he has increased the use of MATHEMATICA and other software packages as tools to decrease time-consuming numerical and symbolic calculations in physical chemistry. Also, he participated in the McNair summer program with students from Williams, Carlton, and Mount Holyoke colleges. Finally, Professor Peacock-López continued his efforts to teach physical chemistry to children in including his demonstrations to 3rd and 4th graders from the Williamstown Elementary School. He also offered the Winter Study course CHEM 011, Science for Kids, which hosted 90 children and their parents to hands-on science workshops.

Professor David Richardson was promoted to full professor and became Department Chair during the 1998-99 academic year. He continued his research efforts directed at isolating the chemical components responsible for the toxicity of Southeast Asian dart poisons. These studies were conducted by a pair of independent research students, Albert Dang, ‘99 and Austin Chang, ‘99. In addition, during Winter Study Period, Professor Richardson supervised the research work of two students, Katy Schorling ‘01 and Katy Miyamoto ‘01, in the Department’s offering CHEM 022, Introduction to Scientific Research. These students continued work on projects, under the auspices of the College’s Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program, that had been initiated last year. The Merck/AAAS Program teams students with a collaborative pair of Williams faculty drawn from the Chemistry and Biology Departments. Katy Miyamoto worked together with Professor Richardson and Professor Dan Lynch on structural analysis of glycosphingolipids from plants. In association with Professor Hank Art and Professor Richardson, Katy Schorling researched the isolation of allelopathic agents from hay scented fern, a plant that grows widely in Hopkins Memorial Forest. Both Katys will return to campus this summer to continue their research under continued support from the Merck/AAAS Program. Professor Richardson served as a reviewer for the Journal of Organic Chemistry, as well as for the new on-line journal, The Chemical Educator. He reviewed and edited major portions of a new science textbook for Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. He also prepared grant proposals to the NSF’s Research at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) program and, together with Professor Jay Thoman, to the NSF’s Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program.

In addition to his research activities, Professor Richardson taught CHEM 201, Organic Chemistry, during the fall semester and in the spring semester he taught CHEM 308, Toxicology and Cancer, and a section of CHEM 106/108, Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section-Special Laboratory Section. During July he taught the Chemistry laboratory portion of the Williams College Summer Science Program for Minority Students. At the end of August, together with Professor Chip Lovett, he developed and led two one-week Science Camp sessions for local 3rd through 5th graders. Professor Richardson served on the Committee for Priorities and Resources and as chair of the Olmsted Committee and of the Prehealth Advisory Committee.

Assistant Professor Mark Schofield joined the Department in July of 1998 after post-doctoral work at The University of Chicago and a teaching stint at Loyola University Chicago. During the fall semester Professor Schofield taught CHEM 305, Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry, and in the spring he taught CHEM 104, Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section, as well as a section of CHEM 106/108, Concepts of Chemistry: Advanced Section-Special Laboratory Section. His research interests include the synthesis and reactivity of coordination complexes that mimic the active site of metalloproteins. Toward this end, Christine Kim ‘99 worked on the design and synthesis of tetraaza macrocyclic nickel complexes to serve as models of the nickel-containing microbial enzyme, methylcoenzyme M reductase. During Winter Study 1999, the Schofield group initiated a second project in the area of zinc chemistry with the efforts of Emily Balskus ‘02. This line of inquiry is being continued this summer by Tory Nims ‘00 and Meg Onishi ‘00. In addition, Judith van der Zwan of Leiden University is working on the synthesis of immine macrocycles of nickel (II) in a joint project with Professor Lee Park. Finally, Alexei Greig ‘02 will be joining the lab this summer to work on a project involving the development of new experiments for CHEM 106/108.

In 1998-99, Dr. Anne Skinner attended several professional meetings to present work funded in part by the NSF grant she received in the summer of 1997 in collaboration with Dr. Bonnie Blackwell, currently a research associate at Williams. This NSF grant has been renewed for another thirty months. In January she participated in a workshop on dating techniques at the Fourth World Archaeological Congress in Capetown, South Africa, where she discussed the most recent developments in ESR dating of tooth enamel. After beginning her sabbatical leave in February, she presented current work on the dating of flint artifacts at the University of Buffalo Archaeometry workshop. In March she was invited to participate in a symposium at the American Society of Archaeologists annual meeting in Chicago, organized to honor Professor Henry Schwarcz of MacMaster University who pioneered much of the work now being done in archaeological dating. During her spring semester sabbatical, Dr. Skinner wrote up research projects that include the work of Haibo Gu ‘00, her summer research student for 1998.

During his first year in the Chemistry Department at Williams, Assistant Professor Tom Smith began a research program involving the development of new methods for organic synthesis. Temporary laboratory accommodations in Bronfman were set up in July 1998, with the aid of Christine Kim ‘99, who began work on a project involving new methods for the stereoselective synthesis of tetrahydropyran ring systems using palladium catalysis. In the fall, Senior Honors student James Sieradzki ‘99 continued this project and prepared several potential precursors for synthesis of the kavalactones. These natural products are the biologically active constituents of kava root, which has been used ceremonially in South Pacific cultures for centuries and has attracted recent attention in the Western world as an “alternative” anti-anxiety remedy. Professor Smith also taught CHEM 303, Synthetic Organic Chemistry, in the fall semester.

Over Winter Study, Megumi Onishi ‘00 began the development of an asymmetric synthesis project which probes the initial steps in one of the first published syntheses of the natural product (+)-mevinolin. This cholesterol-lowering therapeutic, manufactured by Merck under the trade name Mevacor^®, will become the foundation of a new multi-week laboratory experiment for CHEM 303.

In the spring semester, Professor Smith taught CHEM 202, Organic Chemistry. Joining his research team were Tom Fleming ‘00 and Scott Snyder ‘99. Tom investigated the preparation of a class of cyclic enol ether substrates for a stereoselective Heck reaction. Scott made headway toward an efficient asymmetric total synthesis of the terpenoid natural product, pacifigorgiol, a fish toxin originally isolated from a Pacific coral. Scott also accompanied Professor Smith to the 36th Annual National Organic Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin in June 1999. All members of the Smith group eagerly anticipate moving to their more spacious permanent laboratory in July.

Associate Professor Jay Thoman enjoyed a sabbatical year starting new projects and learning new experimental and computational techniques. He continues to study free radicals of importance in combustion and atmospheric chemistry. Working in Alan Knight’s lab at Griffith University in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, he used the relatively new technique of cavity ringdown spectroscopy to measure rotational and vibrational temperatures of CH radicals in atmospheric pressure acetylene/air flames. Cavity ringdown spectroscopy is a sensitive absorption-based technique that Thoman plans to set up in his “new” laboratory, when he returns to Williamstown. In the second half of his sabbatical, Thoman worked with Andy McIlroy at the Combustion Research Facility, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California. Here, he used cavity ringdown spectroscopy to measure absolute number densities of CH radicals in low-pressure methane/oxygen flames. These measurements are useful in the testing and verification of chemical kinetic models for combustion processes.

In departmental seminars at several Australian institutions, (Griffith University, Brisbane; Queensland University; Sydney University; and Australia National University, Canberra), Thoman discussed nitric oxide collisional energy transfer. With student co-authors, he presented a paper at the Royal Australian Chemistry Institute’s Conference on Physical Chemistry. At the conference, he started a collaboration with Henrik Kjaergaard of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. On his trip back to the United States, Thoman visited Kjaergaard in Otago and presented a Departmental Seminar. Together, Thoman and Kjaergaard are studying the overtone spectroscopy and atmospheric chemistry of fire suppressants and other hydrofluorocarbon molecules using both computational and experimental approaches. Thoman also started work on a larger, multi-institutional collaboration, considering the spectroscopy and dynamics of small water clusters. He is continuing to work with Professor Joe Francisco (Sterling Brown Visiting Professor at Williams in Spring 1998) of Purdue University, on ab initio and density functional computational studies of electron affinities and ionization potentials of halocarbons.

During the summer of 1998, Assistant Professor Deborah Weiss and three students, Michelle Dunn ‘00, Elissa Hallem ‘99, and Bart van der Geest, an exchange student from Leiden University, made significant progress towards understanding how a particular DNA negative regulatory element, NEG-1, contributes to the controlled expression of the immunologically relevant gene, Interleukin-4. Matt Whalin ‘99 also began a new line of investigation for the Weiss laboratory which involves examining cytokine expression in the brains of animals from the Flinders Sensitive Rat Line. This particular rat strain has been proposed as an animal model of human depression.

During the fall semester, Weiss taught CHEM 321, Biochemistry I: The Structure and Function of Biological Molecules. To fully appreciate structure/function relationships of biomolecules it is critical to be able to visualize these large structures accurately in three dimensions. To assist in the process, Weiss began the first phase of a two-phase project to implement computer-based three-dimensional modeling in this course. She has received an institutionally-supported Mellon grant to continue the pursuit of this objective during the summer of 1999. For Winter Study 1999 Weiss, along with colleague Professor Elliot Freidman of the Psychology Department, again offered CHEM 013, Genetics and Disease: The Biology, Psychology and Ethics of Genetic Testing. This is a pilot course designed to determine whether there is sufficient interest and subject scope to generate a multi-disciplinary full semester course for non-majors. In addition to class lectures, discussions and presentations, this year the class also made a trip to the Human Genome Center at the Whitehead Institute in Boston where they were able to view the sequencing of the human genome first hand and to talk to individual researchers involved in this effort. Also, Dr. Sue Stafford, Chairman of the Philosophy Department at Simmons College, visited the class and led a discussion centered on the moral implications and responsibilities of genetic testing. During the spring term Weiss taught BIMO 406, Special Topics in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT

Class of 1960 Scholars in Chemistry

CHEMISTRY COLLOQUIA

OFF-CAMPUS COLLOQUIA

POSTGRADUATE PLANS OF CHEMISTRY MAJORS