• Message from the Chair
• Dept New Administration
• Alumni in News
• Eye on Faculty
• New Faculty Members
• Spotlight on Students
• Department Awards
• Newly Graduated Students
• In Memoriam

Eye on Faculty

• Ian Gould was honored as one of the first recipients of the President's Professor award. This new prestigious award is designed to reward enthusiasm and innovation in teaching the ability to inspire original and creative work by students: mastery of subject matter; and scholarly contributions. As an organic photochemist, Dr. Ian Gould has distinguished himself in industry and academia. He achieved an international reputation for his research into the interaction of light and matter while at Eastman Kodak. While researching, he helped to uncover the basic chemical principles underlying photography and photosynthetic solar energy harvesting.
  

---

• Joseph Wang has been selected for the 2006 ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Cole Parmer Award in Electrochemistry. This distinguished professor and researcher has been recognized for his life-long contributions to the fields of electroanalytical chemistry and electrochemical biosensors. During his career, Dr. Joseph Wang has authored 700 papers, 8 books and 25 chapters. He was also the recipient of another ACS Award (for Chemical Instrumentation) in 1999.
  

  ---

• Hao Yan has been chosen to receive an NSF CAREER Award for "DNA Directed Self-Assembly of Multicomponent Nanoarchitectures". Dr. Hao Yan's research centers on self-assembly of nanostructures, particularly using DNA as an assembly element to develop molecular motors, sensors and templates for more complex nanostructural systems and biotechnology applications. With this five-year, $400,000 grant, Dr. Yan will concentrate on developing a research and education program in the area of directed molecular self-assembly. He believes that this program will advance our understanding and capability to self-assemble rationally designed nanoarchitectures from nanoscale building blocks with increased complexity, and will provide a unique environment to prepare students for careers in the rapidly growing area of bionanotechnology. In addition, this program will also provide outreach of DNA based nanotechnology research to high school students through a partnership between Dr. Yan's lab and local high schools.
  

  ---

• Giovanna Ghirlanda is also the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award: "Towards the Rational Control of Redox Potential and Catalytic Activity of Designed Functional Membrane Proteins". Her research focuses on the de novo design, i.e. design from scratch, of artificial model proteins that can perform a desired function. Possible applications include the preparation of novel drugs, catalysis, biosensors, and smart materials. With the support of this five-year, $450,000 grant, Dr. Ghirlanda will focus on designing metal binding membrane proteins. A deeper understanding of the relationship between protein structure and function in the membrane environment will permit the preparation of artificial miniaturized proteins tailored to specific biological applications. As part of this program, Dr. Ghirlanda will partner with "Science is fun" to bring classroom experiments in K-12 schools. In this service and learning activity, participating undergraduates perform demonstrations in the classrooms, thus integrating the outreach aspect with the training of future science teachers.
  

  ---

  
• Don Seo has won a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award for 2006. The Camille andHenry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc., was established in 1946 by chemist, inventor and businessman Camille Dreyfus who directed that its purpose be "to advance the science of chemistry, chemical engineering and related sciences as a means of improving human relations and circumstances around the world." Since its first years of activity, the Foundation has sought to take the lead in identifying and addressing needs and opportunities in the chemical sciences. With the introduction of the Teacher-Scholar Awards Program in 1969, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation launched an initiative to provide talented young faculty with significant, flexible support during the early stages of their careers. From the program’s inception, Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars have been selected for their research and teaching accomplishments, their commitment to education, and the promise they show of continuing strength as independent investigators. More than 28 Teacher-Scholars have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and two have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
  

  ---

• John Kouvetakis is a principal investigator on a highly sought-after grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program. The team from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which includes faculty and graduate students, could receive as much as $2.6 million to develop inexpensive lasers based on a new family of silicon-based semiconductors. Enabling silicon to perform optical functions will impact virtually all sensing, security, communication and computing systems, according to the Department of Defense.
  
  This project is the outgrowth of several years of collaboration between Dr. Kouvetakis and ASU professor Jose Menendez, in the Physics and Astronomy Department. MURI has also funded an aerospace research project lead by four Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering faculty members.