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Chemistry Guest Seminars

A&P Seminars 2017

Analytical & Physical Seminars

Faculty Recruitment Seminar 

Thursday, December 14, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720

Combining chemical dynamics and electronic structure methods to describe chemical processes in complex systems

Philip Shushkov

Postdoctoral Fellow

Caltech

Tom Miller Group Page

ResearchGate Page

PhD, Yale University, 2013

Nature exhibits dynamics that span extraordinary ranges of space and time. In some cases, these dynamical hierarchies are well separated, simplifying their understanding and description. But chemistry and biology are replete with examples of dynamically coupled scales. Electron- and proton-transfer reactions couple intrinsically quantum-mechanical and classical-mechanical motions. Molecular motors convert atomic-scale reactions into nano-scale motion and work. And signaling pathways use molecular recognition processes to regulate activities at the cellular level. Understanding processes that bridge dynamical hierarchies is a fascinating and ongoing challenge. Our research focuses on the development of new theoretical methods to simulate and understand complex dynamics in chemistry and biology.


Publications (Google Scholar)

Author Metrics

h-index:  6  Total Publications:  12  Total Citations:  114  (Web of Science, Nov. 2017)

h-index:  7  Total Citations:  156  (Google Scholar Citations, Nov. 2017)

Faculty Recruitment Seminar  lydia kisley

Tuesday, December 12, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720

Proteins in nanoporous hydrogels: adsorption, diffusion, and folding

Lydia Kisley

Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow

University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign

ORCID:  orcid.org/0000-0002-8286-5264

ResearchGate Page

PhD, Rice University, 2015

Forbes 30 Under 30


Publications (Google Scholar)

Author Metrics

h-index:  11  Total Publications:  29  Total Citations:  222  (Web of Science, Nov. 2017)

h-index:  13  Total Citations:  330  (Google Scholar Citations, Nov. 2017)

Faculty Recruitment Seminar  shahar sukenik

Thursday, December 7, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720

Changing the cellular environment to measure and control protein dynamics

Shahar Sukenik

Postdoctoral Associate, Center for the Physics of Living Cells; Department of Chemistry

University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign

Research Web Page (Gruebele Group)

ResearchGate Page

PhD, Hebrew University, 2014

The cell has an incredible aptitude to rapidly adapt to environmental changes by altering its shape, volume and internal composition. Factors that affect protein structure and interactions, including crowding, ionic strength, and quinary interactions can all change due to this adaptation. I take advantage of the cell’s remarkable plasticity, and use it as a tool to perturb and study the dynamics of its proteome.


Publications (Google Scholar)

Author Metrics

h-index:  8  Total Publications:  21  Total Citations:  345  (Web of Science, Nov. 2017)

h-index:  8  Total Citations:  207  (Google Scholar Citations, Nov. 2017)

Council of Graduate Chemists Seminar 

Thursday, November 30, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, WEL 2.122 

Water technologies by interface engineering: Purification and pollution remediation

Seth Darling

Director, Institute for Molecular Engineering

Argonne National Laboratory

Research Web Page

Seth's research at Argonne has included blending chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering, and nanoscience to create and study materials for energy and water. With colleagues at Argonne, Seth invented a new materials synthesis technique called sequential infiltration synthesis, which has found applications in areas ranging from nanolithography to optical coatings to advanced sorbents and membranes.


Author Metrics

h-index:  34   Total Publications:  106   Total Citations:  4980  (Web of Science, Nov. 2017)

Thursday, November 16, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720  jason hafner

Lipid Membrane Structural Analysis by Enhanced Raman Scattering

Jason Hafner

Associate Professor, Physics & Astonomy, Chemistry

Rice University

Research Web Page

  • Surface-enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) for membrane structural biology
  • Gold nanobelts
  • Membrane electrostatics
  • Plasmonic biosensors
  • Single particle plasmonics

Publications (Google Scholar)

ResearcherID

Author Metrics

h-index:  46   Total Publications:  75   Total Citations:  16,039  (Web of Science/ResearcherID, October 2017)

h-index:  54   Total Citations:  30,570 (Google Scholar Citations)

Council of Graduate Chemists Seminar

Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 3:30pm - 5:00pm, WEL 2.122  nathan neale

Energetic Control of Semiconductor Photoelectrodes via (Un)Intentional Surface Chemistry

Nathan Neale

Senior Scientist, Molecular and Catalysis Science Group

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Researcher Profile

  • Solar energy conversion strategies featuring quantum-confined and bulk semiconductors
  • Synthesis of nanostructured inorganic materials
  • Charge transport processes in inorganic semiconductors
  • Photoelectrochemical properties of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts

Publications (NREL)

ORCID   orcid.org/0000-0001-5654-1664

Author Metrics

h-index:  26   Total Publications:  64   Total Citations:  3938  (Web of Science, October 2017)

Thursday, November 9, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, WEL 2.122 

Title TBD

Philippe Guyot-Sionnest

Professor of Chemistry

University of Chicago

Research Group Web Page

Chemistry and physics share tremendous potential at the nanoscale. This is where chemistry excels and where physics predicts that many properties can be tuned.  For example, quantum states, charging, spin, phonons, and plasmons show dramatic effects at this scale.  Colloidal synthesis enables the construction of nanostructures by chemical precipitation.  Our research is therefore driven by physical concepts and enabled by synthesis.


Publications (Google Scholar)

Author Metrics

h-index:  45   Total Publications:  128   Total Citations:  9782  (Web of Science, October 2017)

h-index:  71   Total Citations:  20,090 (Google Scholar Citations, October 2017)

highly citedWOS Highly Cited Paper:

Pandey, A.; Guyot-Sionnest, P.  Slow electron cooling in colloidal quantum dots.  Science 322 2008, 929-932.  DOI:  10.1126/science.1159832

Thursday, October 26, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720 

Time-Resolving Reactions in Bulk and Interfacial Water with Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Steve Bradforth

Professor of Chemistry

University of Southern California

ORCID:  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6164-3347

Small Molecule Reaction Dynamics in Liquids

  • Ultrashort pulse UV development and application to solution photochemistry
  • Anion photodetachment: a window on liquid phase electron transfer and chemical reaction transition state dynamics
  • Electronic structure and radiation induced pathways in liquid water
  • The solvent influence on photodissociation; novel probes of the solvent non-equilibrium response

Energy Transfer and Excited State Photophysics of natural and synthetic polymers and their building blocks

  • < 50fs photophysics of aromatic molecules and nucleobases
  • 2D biomimetic Light Harvesting arrays based on cyclic polymers
  • Energy Transport and Initial Photophysics in DNA

Publications (not current)

Author Metrics

h-index:  45   Total Publications:  172   Total Citations:  6223

(Web of Science, October 2017)

Thursday, October 12, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm  NHB 1.720

Metabolomics: a tool for systems biology, disease diagnosis and drug discovery

Robert Powers

Professor of Chemistry

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has proven itself an extremely versatile tool for exploring a variety of biological problems. NMR has been successfully used to determine the structure of numerous biomolecules, investigate biomolecular interactions, screen for potential drugs, determine structures of drug-complexes, and more recently as an important tool of metabolomics and systems biology. Metabolomics is used to monitor in vivo drug activity and to analyze biofluids (blood, urine, etc.) for drug toxicity, disease biomarkers, and personalized medicine. As a result, NMR is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry to aid in drug discovery efforts. Our research interest is focused on the application and development of NMR methodologies to improve the success rate and efficiency of drug discovery. This effort includes the development of NMR- and MS-based methods for metabolomics; and the application of NMR and bioinformatics to understand the structure, function and evolution of novel proteins and their corresponding therapeutic utility in structure-based drug design programs.


Publications List

Author Metrics

h-index:  24   Total Publications:  98   Total Citations:  2077

(Web of Science, October 2017)

chowdhuryThursday, October 6, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720

Mass spectrometry-cleavable Chemical Strategies for Identifying Protein Interactions and Protein Modifications

Saiful Chowdhury

Assistant Professor

University of Texas at Arlington

Research Web Page

  • Global and targeted discovery of protein-protein/protein ligand interactions by chemical cross-linking and mass spectrometry
  • Identification and quantitative characterization of protein posttranslational modifications(PTMs)
  • Elucidation of protien structures by mass spectrometry
  • Quantitative Proteomics(bio-markers discovery)

Publications List

 

Thursday, September 28, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720

Fine structure of fatty acids by gas phase mass spectrometry

Tom Brenna 

Professor, Pediatrics

Dell Medical School

Research Web Page

Our research group is concerned with three areas, requirements for polyunsaturated fatty acids in the perinatal period, development of advanced analytical chemical instrumentation, particularly mass spectrometry, for biomedical applications, and development of high precision isotope ratio mass spectrometry for anti-doping applications. Our polyunsaturated fatty acid work focuses on factors that influence demand for omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, notably prematurity, and most of our studies are conducted in non-human primates. Our instrumentation work is aimed at development of high precision isotope ratio mass spectrometry for tracer applications and for detection of natural physiological isotopic fractionation.


Google Scholar Publications

Thursday, September 07, 2017, 3:30pm - 4:30pm, NHB 1.720

Imaging Mass Spectrometry of Three-Dimensional Cell Cultures

Amanda B. Hummon amanda hummon

Associate Professor

University of Notre Dame

ORCID ID:  0000-0002-1969-9013

Research Web Page

The Hummon research group seamlessly combines analytical chemistry and the study of cancer biology to explore gene products deregulated in the development and progression of cancer. Cancer arises from insults to the genome. With genomic damage, the expression levels of genes are altered from their normal state. Changes in the genome, transcriptome and proteome are highly conserved among samples from adenomas to carcinomas to metastases. Because genetic changes are commonly repeated among cancer patients, a better understanding of which genes, transcripts, and proteins are affected could have broad health implications. Therefore, the best way to understand the molecular underpinnings of cancer is to dissect the deregulated pathways that are contributing to the cancer phenotype, identify the aberrantly expressed genes and their products, and decipher their effect on downstream targets. The Hummon Research Group develops methods to evaluate both the transcriptome and the proteome in cancer cells.


Recent Publications

Author Metrics

h-index:  18   Total Publications:  53   Total Citations:  2020

(Web of Science, August 2017)

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