Month: March 2021

Congratulations to Joseph Goodwin, for being selected to participate in the summer course for “Nuclear Nonproliferation, Safeguards, and Security in the 21st Century”

This summer course is designed to give students a sound understanding of the framework created by the international community to address the threats of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. The focus is on the central element of this regime, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its verification mechanism, the IAEA safeguards system. More information about this course is available at https://www.bnl.gov/nnsscourse/.

Joseph is a first-year graduate student working with Dr. Ken Marcus.

The 2021 Chemistry Research Symposium, highlighted research performed at Clemson by our students and at other institutions by our honored guests. All of these students have worked very hard to highlight the variety and importance of research being done in chemistry. As Dr. Pennington mentioned, science isn’t hard work for the curious, but it does provide education and training for a wide variety of careers and vocations, and chemistry, as the central science, provides a jumping-off point to a world full of opportunities. Celebrating their curiosity and success, this year’s winners for best posters presented at the 5th Annual Chemistry Symposium are:

First Place – Graduate Poster: Paola Benavides
Heteroleptic coordination-driven self-assembly of planar tricomponent supramolecular coordination complexes
Paola A. Benavides, Mónica A. Gordillo, Ashok Yadav, Sourav Saha

Second Place – Graduate Poster: Tatiana E.M. Wrege
Optical studies of hybrid silver/silver sulfide nanoparticles
Tatiana E.M. Wrege and George Chumanov

Third Place – Graduate Poster: Supun Mohottalalage
Effects of Solvent Polarity on Segmental Dynamics in Slightly Sulfonated Polystyrene Ionomers: Quasi Elastic Neutron Scattering Study
Supun S. Mohottalalage, Sidath Wijesinghe, Manjula Senanayake, Chathurika Kosgallana, Naresh Osti and Dvora Perahia

First Place – Undergraduate Poster : Inara Devji
Cloning of Candidate Stress Response Genes from Paspalum vaginatum
Inara Devji, Charles Henry, Joshua Stapleton, Sarah Powers, Dr. Zhigang Li, Hong Luo

Congratulations to Hui Xu, graduate student with Professor Casabianca for receiving this year’s Outstanding Graduate in Discovery Award!

Hui Xu joined the lab in December 2016 after receiving her B.S. from Shandong University in China. Hui has been using solution-state NMR to study the interaction between small molecules and nanoparticles. You can read more about her contributions in her Google Scholar profile.

This is a well-deserved achievement in a highly competitive field of nominees throughout all departments in our college! We would also like to congratulate your advisor, Dr. Casabianca. The award consists of a certificate and a monetary prize of $1,000, and will be presented at the SCIENCE Honors and Awards ceremony that will be held on Friday, April 9.

Again, congratulations and we are looking forward to learn more about your exciting research!

The department of Chemistry announces that our Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Sites Program has been extended for another 3 years.

This project will allows supporting 10 participants per year, who will form small teams and will be mentored by a cluster of faculty members with complementary expertise. Participants in our program will select a project (under the broad area of Materials with Targeted Functions, form small teams and be mentored by a cluster of faculty members with complementary expertise. The research projects include the synthesis and characterization of new materials (both organic and inorganic), development of methods to unveil chemical interactions of nanoparticles, preparation of deep euctectic solvents, as well as application of new routes to enhance energy harvesting.

Learn more and apply at https://chemistry.sites.clemson.edu/garcia/REU.html