Union had a significant presence at the Spring 2022 American Chemical Society National Meeting, held in hybrid format in late March. Twelve students and four faculty members traveled to San Diego for the in-person portion of the meeting and several other students and faculty members participated virtually or contributed to work presented at the ACS meeting.
Ellen Robertson, assistant professor of chemistry, gave a presentation in a symposium held in honor of Dr. Bettye-Washington Greene, the first African American female Ph.D. chemist employed at The Dow Chemical Company. “Gold nanoparticle-embedded peptoid nanosheets: A new class of solution-based two-dimensional plasmonic materials” was co-authored by current and former students Walter (Ross) O’Connor ’22, Chris Avanessian ’21, Jana Davis ’22, Anna Mahony ’20 and Elizabeth Whitney ’20. Robertson’s current thesis students O'Connor and Misty Zaczyk ’22 gave poster presentations in the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry (COLL).
Yijing Stehle, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, presented a talk, "Dielectric and mechanical property of graphene oxide membrane: Effect of aluminum cation modification,” in the symposium on Colloid, Nanomaterial, and Interface Chemistry Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions. Faculty co-authors were Rebecca Cortez, the Thomas J. Watson Sr. and Emma Watson Day Department Chair of Mechanical Engineering, Ronald Bucinell, associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Robertson. Stehle’s students Hayden Qualls ’22 and Zoe Lyon ’22 presented posters in the COLL Division. Qualls’ poster was co-authored by Sang Duong ’23.
Three students from Union’s Aerogel Lab working under the direction of Mary Carroll ’86, the Dwane W. Crichton Professor of Chemistry, presented posters in COLL Division sessions: Patrick Barry ’22, Jacob Bowser ’22 and Margeaux Capron ’22. Ann Anderson, the Agnes S. MacDonald Professor of Mechanical Engineering, co-authored Barry and Capron’s presentations, and Bradford Bruno, professor of mechanical engineering, co-authored Barry’s.
Camille Parker ’22 presented a poster on a project directed by Lee Pedzisa, visiting assistant professor of chemistry, in the Division of Organic Chemistry. Her poster was also selected for presentation in the interdisciplinary Sci-Mix poster session. Sophie Danziger ’22 gave a poster presentation in the Division of Medicinal Chemistry.
Lukas Baker ’22 presented in the Division of Physical Chemistry (PHYS), on a project directed by Timothy Barnum, assistant professor of chemistry.
Union researchers contributed three poster presentations to the Division of Environmental Chemistry: Amber Birt ’22 presented work performed under the direction of Laura MacManus-Spencer, associate professor of chemistry, and Joanne Kehlbeck, professor of chemistry and chair of the Chemistry Department, with Emily Andrews ’20 as co-author. Madison DiMauro ’22 and William Duprey ’22 jointly presented a poster on a project co-directed by Sudhir Khetan, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and MacManus-Spencer. And a poster presentation titled, “Investigating interactions of per- and polyfluoroalkyl acids (PFAS) with human serum albumin using equilibrium dialysis,” authored by Sabrina Rufrano ’22 and MacManus-Spencer, is available on-demand to meeting attendees.
