Forty-four graduate students earn doctorates in 2013-2014

Forty-four graduate students earned their doctorates between June 2013 and May 2014. Honorees include:

Evgeny Beletsky
Professor Steven Kass, adviser
From Catalysis to Anion Recognition

Andrew Bierbaum
Professor Wayne Gladfelter, adviser
Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles: Doping, Inkjet Printing, and Electron Accepting from Photoexcited Porphyrin Dyes

Melissa Fierke
Professor Andreas Stein, adviser
The Utilization of Templated Porous Electrodes in Electrochemical Applications

Nicholas Frost
Professor Michael Bowser, adviser
Improving Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis Device Performance

Yuanyan Gu
Professor Timothy Lodge, adviser
L  Block Copolymer Ion Gels for CO₂ Separations

Jaebeom Han
Professor Jiali Gao, adviser
Development of Polarizable Methods for Molecular Mechanics Simulations

Jonathan Hinke
Professor David Blank, adviser
Excited State Dynamics of Metalloporphyrins Utilized in Optoelectronic Devices

Ryan Hue
Professor Wayne Gladfelter, adviser
The Study of Ruthenium Polypyridyl Complexes for Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Applications

Elizabeth Jackson
Professor Marc Hillmyer, adviser
Nanoporous Materials from ABAC Tetrablock Terpolymers

David Josephson
Professor Andreas Stein, adviser
Three-Dimensionally Ordered Macroporous Materials for Use as Color Pigments, Ultraviolet Reflectors, and Modified Thermal Emission Devices

Kyle Kalstabakken
Professor Andrew Harned, adviser
Catalytic Desymmetrization of Cyclohexadienones

Jun Sung Kang
Professor T. Andrew Taton, adviser
Graft Copolymer Stabilized Gold Nanoparticles and Their Applications and Chemically Cleavable Linkers and Their Applications

Donghyuk Kim
Professor Christy Haynes, adviser
Immune System On-a-Chip: Microfluidic-Approaches to Study Cellular Interactions Under In Vivo Mimetic Environment

Yong Wook Kim
Professor Gunda Georg, adviser
Functionalizations of Cyclic Enaminones and Applications to the Synthesis of Bioactive Compounds

Benjamin Manning
Professor Christy Haynes, adviser
Study of Cellular Mechanisms of Inflammation and the Involvement of Mast Cells in Disease

Kathryn McGarry
Professor Christopher Douglas, adviser
Synthesis and Crystal Design of Rubrene Derivatives for Use in Organic Electronics

Audrey Meyer
Professor Christy Haynes, adviser
Examining the Roles of Membrane Lipids and Secreted Bioactive Lipids on Immune System Cell Function: Studies on Mast Cells and Platelets

Deanna Miller
Professor Connie Lu, adviser
Design and Synthesis of New Ligand Scaffolds and Transition Metal Complexes for Small Molecule Activation

Maria Miranda
Professors William Tolman & Marc Hillmyer, advisers
Polymerization Kinetics of Cyclic Esters by Metal Alkoxide Complexes and Catalytic Decarbonylation of Bio-Derived Carboxylic Acids to Commodity Alkenes

Kaustubh Mote
Professor Gianluigi Veglia, adviser
Structural Characterization of Sarcolipin by Solid State NMR and Investigation of its Role in the Regulation of Sarco(endo)plasmic Reticulum Calcium Adenosine-Triphospatase

Dawen Niu
Professor Thomas Hoye, adviser
A Biomimetic Approach to Okilactomycin and Chrolactomycin and the Hexadehydro-Diels-Alder (HDDA) Reaction

Daniel O’Brien
Professor Aaron Massari, adviser
Solving the Two-Interface Problem in Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy Applied to Multilayer Thin Film Systems

Emily Pelton
Professors Kristopher McNeill & David Blank, advisers
A Mechanistic Investigation Into the Photochemistry of an Iron(0) Complex in C-Cl, C-H, and C-F Bond Activation

Makenzie Provorse
Professor Jiali Gao, adviser
Insights into Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer from Computation

Yuqiang Qian
Professor Andreas Stein, adviser
Two-dimensional Clay and Graphene Nanosheets for Polymer Nanocomposites and Energy Storage Applications

Mohammad Rashidian
Professor Mark Distefano, adviser
Site-Specific Protein Labeling Using Farnesyltransferase

Naveen Rondla
Professor Christopher Douglas, adviser
Development of New Reaction Methodologies Using Palladium Catalysts

Paul "Alex" Rudd
Professor Connie Lu, adviser
Stabilizing Metal-Alanes and Metal-Metal Multiple Bonds to Effect Small Molecule Transformations

Chad Satori
Professor Edgar Arriaga, adviser
Advancing Organelle Analysis: Development of Techniques for the Enrichment of Endocytic Organelles and to Determine Autophagosome Properties

Jacob Schmidt
Professor Steven Kass, adviser
Infrared Spectroscopy of Gas Phase Ions: Using Infrared Multi-Photon Spectroscopy to Investigate Ionization Sites and Hydrogen Bonding in Gaseous Ions

Alireza Shokri
Professor Steven Kass, adviser
Nature's Way: The Effects of Hydrogen Bond Networks on Acidities, Catalysis, and Molecular Recognition

Joshua Speros
Professors Marc Hillmyer & C. Daniel Frisbie, advisers
A Metathesis Route to Light Harvesting Polymers for Organic Solar Cells

Jacqui Tehranchi
Professor William Tolman, adviser
Copper-Sulfur, Copper-Oxygen, and Copper-Alkyl Complexes Relevant to Copper Protein Active Site Intermediates and Catalysis

Rajan Vatassery
Professor Wayne Gladfelter, adviser
Computational and Experimental Studies of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Bess Vlaisavljevich
Professor Laura Gagliardi, adviser
Quantum Chemical Studies of Actinides and Lanthanides: From Small Molecules to Nanoclusters

Kelly Volp
Professor Andrew Harned, adviser
Total Synthesis of Sorbicillactone A: Inspiration for Catalyst and Methodology Development

Bo Wang
Professor Donald Truhlar, adviser
Development of Novel Schemes for Treating Subsystem Boundaries and Electrostatic Potentials in Simulations of Complex Systems

Patrick Willoughby
Professor Thomas Hoye, adviser
Strategies for the Synthesis of Bioactive Compounds: Biomimetic Approaches to the Salinosporamides and the Hexadehydro-Diels-Alder Reaction

Gregory Wolken
Professor Edgar Arriaga, adviser
Bioanalytical Techniques for the Analysis of Mitochondrial Heterogeneity

Jing Yang
Professor Michael Bowser, adviser
Detection of Single Enzyme Molecules and Catalytic Nucleic Acids using Microfluidics and Selection of Aptamers using Capillary Electrophoresis-SELEX

Yiyun Yu
Professor Gunda Georg, adviser
Innate C-H Functionalization of Cyclic Enaminone

Christopher Zall
Professor Connie Lu, adviser
Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of Transition Metal Compounds Using Binucleating and Bifunctional Ligands: Strategies for the Multi-Electron Reduction of Small Molecules

Can Zhou
Professors Marc Hillmyer & Timothy Lodge, advisers
Thermoresponsive Hydrogels from ABC Triblock Terpolymers

Xu Zou
Professor Philippe Buhlmann, adviser
Miniaturizable Ion-Selective Electrode System: Solid Contact Electrode and Liquid Junction Free Reference Electrode

Photos from the Department of Chemistry's reception for graduate students can be found on Flickr.