News and Events (News Archives)
ACS Student Affiliate Receives Honorable Mention Chapter Award
UCA’s American Chemical Society group has received an Honorable Mention Chapter Award for its 2010-2011 activities from the ACS Society Committee on Education. To earn this award the students had to demonstrate in an annual report their efforts to promote chemical education on departmental, college, university, and community levels. Additionally, the chapter had to indicate its efforts in promoting a unified chapter through chapter meetings and social activities. The report was submitted and reviewed by three faculty advisors that provided helpful feedback to the group. The overall comments from the reviewers stated: “This is a solid chapter. They are active in attending meetings and in departmental service. This chapter is on the cusp of taking a significant step forward.” The chapter officers plan to continue these efforts and take the chapter to new heights for the 2011-2012 academic year.
ACS Student Affiliate at Ecofest 2011
On September 10, 2011, UCA’s American Chemical Society group volunteered at Ecofest at Laurel Park in Conway. Venusa Phomakay, Jordan Wilkerson, Katie Primm, and Ashley McKinney helped attendees make a memory game and officiated a relay race relating to the recycling of polymers. The memory game involved kids coloring recycling symbols, gluing the symbols to construction paper and cutting the symbols into squares to make the game. The relay race involved teams of kids identifying the recycling number on a series of plastics, running to the opposite end of the playing field and matching it to the appropriate symbol and polymer name, and then running back and tagging the next player in line. This continued until a team won by identifying the polymers correctly. The kids that attended the booth had a fantastic time learning about recycling.
Dr. Kelley receives research grant
Dr. Melissa Kelley has been awarded a grant funded by the National Institutes of Health entitled: Understanding Immune Cell Signaling: Effect of Retinoids on ADAM Shedding. The grant will provide $500,000 over a five-year period. This work will examine the ability of vitamin A to maintain proper immunity in living organisms. The grant focuses on how vitamin A derivatives (retinoids) mediate biochemical events necessary to initiate and regulate vital immune-cellular signals and will provide research experience for a number of undergraduate students. Students will be working closely with Dr. Kelley to determine which particular vitamin A derivatives are responsible for maintaining proper immunity. The training of UCA undergraduate students in biochemistry will be enhanced and opportunities will be provided to present their research findings at significant scientific meetings.
UCA tops in acceptances to Pharmacy School
UCA students have a long record of successful acceptances to the UAMS College of Pharmacy and 2011 was no exception. Of the 120 students accepted to start matriculation in the fall, 34 of those were from UCA - almost 30% of the total. This means that once again this year UCA is the largest feeder institution for the College of Pharmacy.
2011 Graduating Senior Awards
The American Chemical Society (ACS) Local Section held their annual banquet at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock on April 19, 2011. At the banquet several individuals from the University of Central Arkansas Chemistry department were recognized for outstanding achievements. Brian Besel received the Research Award for outstanding undergraduate research. Brian has been doing research with Dr. Patrick Desrochers for the last three years. This research has lead to two publications in peer reviewed journals and presentations at national meetings. Kaleb Smithson received the Scholarship Award for outstanding performance in academics. Both Casey Thurber and Jabin Miller received the Service Award for their service to the department. Casey serves as the Treasurer for the UCA ACS Chapter and has assisted with Museum of Discovery activities during National Chemistry Week to name just a couple of things. Jabin has gone above and beyond in helping the department in the office and in the stockroom.
In addition to the recognition of our students at the banquet, Dr. Karen Steelman was recognized for her efforts as Past President of the local ACS section and was surprised when she received the Professor of the Year award. Casey Thurber and Kaleb Smithson, two individuals that submitted letters of recommendation, were present to share their reason for the nomination. Casey said “This was an amazing accomplishment for Dr. Steelman and an award that she absolutely deserved because of her service inside and outside the department.”When asked about the evening, Kaleb said “I was very honored to have been invited to the Local ACS banquet to receive my award. It really meant a lot coming from all of my past and present professors.”Nineteen UCA Chemistry Students Present Research Posters at National ACS Meeting in Anaheim.
Six faculty members from the UCA Chemistry Department along with nineteen undergraduate researchers attended the Spring American Chemical Society meeting in Anaheim, California. Students were required to make a poster presentation of their results of their research as a prerequisite to participation in the trip. Funding for travel expenses was provided by the UCA Chemistry Department, the College of Natural Science and Mathematics, the Joe and Laura Allison Travel Fund, the local ACS Student Affiliate, individual faculty members' research grants, and travel grants from JEOL instruments, the national ACS, and the UCA Student Government Association.
Dr. Mellisa Kelley is finalist for 2011 Teaching Excellence Award
Faculty members from the Department of Chemistry have received consistent recognition through the UCA faculty awards program and this year was no exception. In recognition of her excemplary record in the classroom Dr. Mellisa Kelley was selected as a final for the Teaching Excellence Award for the spring of 2011. The award was won by Dr.Balraj Menon from the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
UCA Students Celebrate National Chemistry Chemistry Week
The Museum of Discovery in Little Rock was a site for celebration of this year’s National Chemistry Week. Approximately 200 students from local public elementary and middle schools gathered at the museum and participated in a variety of science demonstrations and hands-on activities. They were guided in these studies by faculty and students representing the UCA Chapter of the Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society. Twelve UCA chemistry students participated along with faculty sponsors Drs. Karen Steelman and Faith Yarberry.
Hands-on activities included writing using pigments from cabbage and radishes, creation of chemical snow from sodium polyacrylate, and the use of guar gum to make slime. In addition, UCA students provided demonstrations involving Cartesian divers, dry ice, and iodine clock reactions.
UCA students who participated were Casey Thurber, Derek Watts, Mary Freres, Kaleb Smithson, Elizabeth Dourlain, Elana Huelle, Mishal Benson, Brian Besel, Phillip Cook, Venusa Phomakay, Bryce Grant, and Desiree Shaw.
National Chemistry Day is observed each October 23 in recognition of Amedeo Avogadro, the first chemist to propose a method for counting molecules. This cleared the way for chemists to obtain accurate atomic masses for the first time. He is most famous for Avogadro’s number, 6 x 1023, the unit used for counting small items such as atoms and molecules.
Chemistry Student Wins First Place
Brian Besel, a senior chemistry major, won first place for the best oral presentation in the chemistry division at the INBRE conference in Fayetteville on Friday, October 16th. Twelve schools from Arkansas and Oklahoma attended the conference. Brian's research, funded by the National Science Foundation, was directed by Drs. Rick Tarkka and Patrick Desrochers. The title of his talk was "Scorpionate Immobilization by Facile Substitution of a Pyrazole Ring on an Existing Tris(pyrazolyl)borate and Functional Nickel(II) Coordination. “ The award included a $400 cash prize, part of which Brian used to buy lunch for his fellow travelers!
Faculty Research Grants
Faculty members in the Department of Chemistry received word this summer that they were awarded nearly $500,000 in external funding by the National Science oundation. Three research grants, totaling $498,622, will fund projects for UCA undergraduate chemistry students to conduct research in gas-phase chemistry, surface chemistry, and archeological chemistry.
Dr. Bill Taylor's project, entitled "RUI: Exploring Mechanistic Parameters Regulating Bond-Activation in the State-Specific Reactions of Gas Phase Transition Metal Ions with Halogenated Molecules," will examine the reactions of gas-phase metal ions with a number of small molecules. Understanding the mechanisms of these processes can aid in the design of new and better catalysts for use in chemical synthesis, and in the production of alternative fuels. Undergraduates participating in this work will gain research experience which serves them well in a variety of subsequent career choices including graduate/professional programs and science-related jobs. Dr. Taylor received a $173,413 grant for this project.
Dr. Don Perry received a $131,611 grant for the project "RUI: Development of Organic and Biological Films on Vapor-deposited Metal Nanostructures.” Silver and gold nanostructures formed on solid supports have a dramatic impact on organic and biological film growth. This work will aid development of new nanoscale metal/organic and metal/biological composites and devices and add to the knowledge of metal nanoparticle interactions with organisms and the environment. The Macromolecular, Supramolecular, Nanochemistry Division of Chemistry through the National Science Foundation supports this work.
Dr. Karen Steelman is the principal investigator of a two-year grant for $193,598 to investigate the use of supercritical fluids to remove organic contamination from archaeological artifacts prior to radiocarbon dating. Dr. Jerry King of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville is a co-principal investigator on the project. Dr. Steelman’s laboratory has already utilized plasma oxidation to collect microscopic amounts of carbon from an artifact surface non-destructively. An equally non-intrusive pre-treatment method to remove organic contamination from a burial environment is now needed. The grant is from the National Science Foundation's Archaeometry Program.
Chemistry Alumni Win National Awards
Bill Deese (76) and Joe Allison (79) received prestigious awards at the National ACS Meeting held in Boston in August of 2010.
Bill was awarded the Helen M. Free Award for Public Outreach which recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of public outreach by a member of the ACS who improves public recognition and appreciation for the contributions of chemistry. This award was established in 1995 by the American Chemical Society Committee on Public Relations and Communications. Bill, the T.W. Ray Johnson Professor of Chemistry at Louisiana Tech University, has made presentations full of exciting demonstrations that incorporate the history of science, juggling and unique methods of performance art, music and multi-media. He has presented before tens of thousands of school children and university students. In addition, he has led chemistry demonstration programs at local and national meetings of science teachers.
Joe was named a fellow of the American Chemical Society in the second year of the fellows program at the Boston meeting in August. The fellows program began in 2009 to recognize and honor ACS members for their outstanding achievements in and contributions to the science, the profession, and service to the society. Joe has been active in ACS activities at the local, regional and National level for many years. Joe was also recognized in September as a 2010 outstanding alumnus of the Department of Chemistry at Purdue University where he received his Ph.D. degree. Joe has been employed since his graduation by Conoco-Philips where his research in a variety of areas has resulted in numerous patents. In 2008 he was selected as the outstanding Oklahoma chemist by the Oklahoma Section of the ACS.