Spring 2010 Graduate Courses

Graduate :: Courses

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  • GLG598/CHM598, GLG481/CHM481 3 credits,
    MW 10:45a-12:00p (PSH 450) (prerequisites: GLG321 or CHM341 or 345/346 instructor permission)
    Instructor: Hilairy Hartnett, PSF 538; 965-5593, h.hartnett@asu.edu

    Course Objectives: This course is intended as an introduction to the chemistry of the Earth for students in Geological Sciences and Chemistry & Biochemistry. The goal of the course is to examine the role of chemistry in Earth systems and to employ basic principles of thermodynamics, kinetics, chemical bonding and mass transfer in solving chemical problems related to the Earth. We will survey a variety of geochemical principles and applications, including: aqueous equilibrium speciation, solution-mineral equilibria, kinetics, oxidation-reduction reactions, stable and radio isotopes, organic and environmental chemistry and biogeochemical cycles. A strong emphasis will be placed on quantitative problem solving and the practical application of chemical principles to Earth systems, materials and processes.

    Textbook: Principles of Environmental Geochemistry, G. N. Eby, 2004. (Course flyer)

  • BCH 494 / BCH 598
    Monday & Friday, 2-5PM
    Instructor: Kevin Redding (Note: instructor's permission required)

    This course is a survey of how organisms on this planet make a living, in terms of obtaining energy and carbon. As most standard biochemistry courses deal with fermentation and aerobic metabolism, this course would focus on the more “exotic” bacteria, including the following:
    • Oxygenic photosynthetic bacteria (Synechocystis)
    • Anoxygenic phototrophs: purple sulfur bacteria (e.g. Rhodobacter), green nonsulfur bacteria (Chloroflexus), and green sulfur bacteria (Chlorobium)
    • Fe2+- and sulfide-oxidizing bacteria (Acidithiobacillus, Geobacter)
    • Sulfate-reducing bacteria (Desulfobacter, Archeoglobus)
    • Methanotrophs & methylotrophs (Methylococcus, Methylosarcina)
    • Methanogenic archaebacteria (Methanothermobacter, Methylosarcina)
    • Bacteriorhodopsin-based photosynthetic archaebacteria (Halobacterium)

    Goals:

    1. Gain an appreciation of the huge differences in the way organisms make a living on this plant, as well as the underlying similarities between them.
    2. Learn how to search the scientific literature, and how to read scientific papers.
    3. Learn how to summarize data and give presentations. The course will be team-taught by the students.
    4. Learn how to design and perform experiments, interpret data, and report it. (The bacteria under discussion will be growing in the lab. Students will design experiments and perform them, interpret their data, and write up a report summarizing their findings.)
    5. Write a proposal and review other students’ proposals, in the process learning how to write a concise research proposal.
    6. By the end of the semester, the entire course (instructor + students) will coauthor a research paper from the results of some of the experiments performed on one or more of the bacteria.

    Note that there 2 over-arching goals in this course:

    1. Learn about how life on this planet extracts energy from the environment.
    2. Gain valuable skills that will serve you well in your future career, whether it will be in a teaching, research, medical, administrative, or other context.
    (Course flyer)

  • CHM 598: ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF SOLIDS
    SLN: 10449
    Time: TTH 10:30 – 11:15 PM
    Room: PS H331
    Instructor: Don Seo

    This course is for graduate students and senior undergraduates that want to learn the structure-property relationships of solid state materials based on their electronic structures. Its intention is to present principles of electronic structure formation and to understand structural and physical properties of "real" materials with a minimum degree of theoretical sophistications. Some background in crystallography and coordination chemistry is required.

    There will be no textbook but the course will loosely follow "The Electronic Structure and Chemistry of Solids" by P. A. Cox with additional handouts on recent works in the literature. Some parts of “Transition Metal Oxides: an introduction to their electronic structure and properties” by P. A. Cox and “Inorganic Structural Chemistry” by Ulrich Müller will be covered as well. The books have been reserved for the course and can be checked out from the Noble library for 4 hours (no overnight) each time during the semester.

    The topics to be covered include

    I. Description of crystalline solids (symmetry, lattices, reciprocal space, unit cells, etc)
    II. Structure formation principles
    III. Description of electronic structure of solids (band diagrams)
    IV. Electrical, optical and magnetic properties
    V. Lattice distortions
    VI. Defects, impurities and disorder

    Grading will be based on three take-home exams and a final presentation.
    (Course flyer)

  • PHY494/PHY544/NAN544/CHM544: INTRODUCTION TO NANOSCIENCE
    Instructor: Stuart Lindsay Stuart.Lindsay@asu.edu.
    Tu, Th, 12.00 - 1.15 PSF 462
    Book: "Introduction to Nanoscience", S.M. Lindsay, OUP, 2009 IBSN 978-019-954421 (paperback)

    This is the rst integrated interdsiciplinary curriculum for nanoscience, covering basic physics and chemistry through engineering, materials, molecular electronics and nanobiology. Calling on no more than basic college calculus, it will give seniors a comprehensive overview, but makes contact with research literature for graduate students.
    Contact: Stuart.Lindsay@asu.edu.

    (Course Flyer)

Fall 2009 Graduate Courses
  • CHM 553: Advanced Inorganic Chemistry - Organometallic Chemistry
    T,Th 3-4:15 PM
    Instructor: Ulrich Haussermann

    Description: This course is for seniors and beginning graduate students primarily in chemistry. Organometallic chemistry grew out of an exchange between inorganic and organic chemistry. By associating a metal center and an organic fragment into a single molecule, the properties of both components are profoundly modified. Organometallic chemistry has provided a series of important cenceptual insights and useful catlysts for both industrial processes and organic synthesis. Importantly, the field has established clear links with Biochemistry. The course intends to demonstrate principles and concepts of organometallic and coordination compounds, and further present important classes of organometallic compounds as well as their reactions and applications. A prerequisite for this class is knowledge of the concepts of group theory and MO theory (at the level of CHM 453). ( Course Flyer)

  • CHM 598: Quantitative Foundations of Modern Biochemistry
    T, Th. 10:30AM - 11:45AM. PSH 433
    Instructor: Maria Levitus

    Description: We will deconstruct some of the most exciting recent publications in biologically-related fields and learn about the physical concepts that are involved in the paper. The course is open to all graduate students in biologically-related fields. (Course Flyer)

  • CHM 598: Peptides and Proteins
    T,Th 9-10:15
    Instructor: Sidney Hect

    Description: This course will consider current topic in the area of peptides and proteins from the perspective of biological chemistry. Topics to be covered include: chemical synthesis of peptide and proteins, structural analysis of peptides and proteins, protein structure, site-directed mutagenesis, engineered proteins, use of enzymes in organic synthesis, antibody catalysis, peptide horomones and mimetics, and peptide libraries. (Course Flyer)

  • CHM598 Chemistry of Atmospheres
    T,Th 9-10:15
    Instructor: P. Herckes (pierre.herckes@asu.edu)

    Description: Lecture based class that introduces the concepts of atmospheric chemistry. It will cover the physical and chemical mechanisms responsible for the formation and evolution of planetary atmospheres in general and of Earth atmosphere in particular. A main focus will be on the mechanisms responsible for the rapid change in Earth’s atmospheric composition and its consequences on life in terms of air quality and climate.(Course Flyer)

  • CHM598 Advanced Analytical Chemistry: Bioanalytical Microfluidics
    T, Th: 1:30-2:45 pm
    Instructor: Alexandra Ros

    Since first impressive demonstrations of (bio-)analytical applications in microfluidic systems in the early 1990's, high interest exists for the development of autonomous lab-on-a-chip systems, on which complete biochemical and chemical analyzes could be carried out in the size of a check card. In order to develop such lab-on-a chip systems for (bio-)analytical applications, we need to understand the chemical and physical concepts at the nano- and microscale and know about necessary microtechnological fabrication techniques. This class is composed of an introductory part giving a comprehensive overview of microtechnological fabrication followed by fundamentals of physical and chemical principles taking place at the micro- and nanoscale. We then review important microfluidic components, mixing at the microscale, detection in microfluidic systems, separation principles, cytommetry/cell sorting and single cell analysis. We will finally focus on selected publications, which demonstrate exciting analytical and bioanalytical achievements for potential and "real" labon- a-chip systems.(Course Flyer)

  • BCH 568: Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis
    M, W 2:00-3:15PM in PSH 552
    Instructor: Kevin Redding

    The course is very interdisciplinary and students from Chemistry and Biochemistry, Life Sciences and Physics had been enrolled in the course in the past. The course provides an introduction to the underlying principles and most recent discoveries in the understanding of the process of photosynthesis. It is designed for a broad interdisciplinary audience and covers the structure and function of photosynthetic complexes and the mechanism of energy conversion in plants, bacteria, and model systems. The course also includes topics on bio-energy and artificial photosynthesis. Specific topics include: photosynthetic organisms, gene regulation, evolution, membrane organization, biosynthesis and assembly, pigment and antenna types, mechanism of electron transfer reactions, light harvesting and energy transfer, proton pumps, cytochromes, type I and type II reaction centers, Photosystem I and II, ATP synthase, carbon dioxide metabolism, and model systems of photosynthesis. The course will include guest lectures from members of the ASU Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis. This course is interactive and the grading of the course is based on a presentation and an essay, which students write in form of an invited review. (Course Flyer)