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Eight New Faculty Members Joined our Department...

Janet Bond-Robinson Associate Professor - Dr. Bond-Robinson came from the University of Kansas where she was an assistant professor. She received her PhD in Science Education (Chemistry) from the University of Iowa. Her research exists at the intersection of science education, cognitive science, and knowledge and reasoning in the discipline of chemistry. The two major lines of research are associated with graduate students learning of empirical and pedagogical chemical knowledge and are funded from NSF.
(more information on Janet Bond-Robinson)

Ulrich Häussermann Assistant Professor - Dr. Häussermann joined our department in Fall 2005. He received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology(ETH) in Zurich in 1995. He has worked as Postdoctoral Associate at Lund University (Sweden); Assistant Professor at the Department of Physical, Inorganic and Structural Chemistry, Stockholm University; and Research Scientist at the Department of Physical Inorganic and Structural Chemistry, Stockholm University. His research focuses on "solid state chemistry", "intermetallic compounds", "metal hydrides", and "high-pressure materials".
(more information on Ulrich Häussermann)

Jeff Yarger Associate Professor- Dr. Yarger came (returned) to ASU from the University of Wyoming, where he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry. He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University. His research focus is on structural and dynamic elucidation of amorphous materials, polymorphism, nanoparticles, soft matter materials and biopolymers. Applications of our current research on amorphous materials include the areas of battery materials, fuel cells, artificial tendons, tempered glass, optical fibers, membrane transport and plague related diseases (chronic wasting disease and amyloid diseases).
(more information on Jeff Yarger)

Marcia Levitus Assistant Professor- Dr. Levitus received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her experiences include Postdoctoral Researcher at Garcia-Garibay Lab, University of California Los Angeles: Postdoctoral Researcher at Bustamante Lab, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Physics Department, and Molecular and Cell Biology Department, University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests involve the use of state-of-the-art techniques of Single Molecule Detection in solution to study conformational changes of biologically interesting macromolecules.
(more information on Marcia Levitus)

Anne Katherine Jones - Assistant Professor- Dr Jones will start working for ASU as of January 2007. She came from the University of Pennsylvania where she was an NIH-NRSA Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She received her P.Phil from Oxford University. The goal of her research group is to understand how redox enzymes work and to reproduce their activities in synthetic peptide systems.
(more information on Anne Katherine Jones ).

Marc Porter- Professor- Dr. Porter comes to ASU from Iowa State University where he was a professor in the Department of Chemistry. He received his PhD in analytical chemistry from The Ohio State University, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Bell Laboratories. Dr. Porter will start for ASU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the Fall of 2006. His research interests focus on the role of interfaces in analytical chemistry, including electrochemically modulated liquid chromatography; electrocatalysis; organic monolayer films; chemically modified surfaces; scanning probe microscopy; infrared and Raman spectroscopies; nanoparticle labels for highly multiplexed bioassays; and more broadly, the chemistry and physics at liquid-solid interfaces
(more information on Marc Porter ).

Arjan Van der Vaart- Assistant Professor- Dr. Van der Vaart will begin working for ASU as an Assistant Professor. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University. Before he came to ASU he was a postdoc at Harvard University. His research aims to elucidate the fundamental principles responsible for the conformational behavior by computer simulations. These simulations complement experiments by providing detailed insights into the molecular recognition process, the transition pathways, and the interactions involved. Insights gained from the simulations will be used to build predictive models for the conformational activity of biomolecules and to uncover some of the principles that guide their evolution.
(more information on Arjan Van der Vaart).

Andrew Chizmeshya-- Associate Professor - Dr. Chizmeshya received his PhD from Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada), and comes to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from the (ASU) Center for Solid State Science, where has served as a Research Scientist. His current research interests include experimental and theoretical aspects of CO2 mineral sequestration, the chemistry and physics of semiconductor heterostructures, and low-temperature surface phenomena such physisorption, wetting transitions and quantum reflection. Dr. Chizmeshya will join the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry this fall. His teaching interests include quantum mechanics, solid state and materials chemistry.