Around the Area

DFW Section of the ACS Chair-Elect 2021 Mihaela C. Stefan

Mihaela C. Stefan received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Politehnica University Bucharest, Romania. She worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Matyjaszewski’s group at Carnegie Mellon University from 2002 to 2003. She also worked as a Research Scientist in Richard D. McCullough's group at Carnegie Mellon University on the synthesis of block copolymers containing semiconducting polythiophenes.

She joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2007, and she is currently an Eugene McDermott Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the School of Natural Science &Mathematics. She received the NSF Career Award in 2010, the NS&M Outstanding Teacher Award in 2009 and 2017, the Inclusive Teaching Diversity Award in 2012, the President’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2014, and the Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring in 2015. Her research group is developing novel organic semiconductors for organic electronics, biodegradable and biocompatible polymers for drug delivery applications, and rare novel catalysts for polymerization of dienes and cyclic esters. At the University of Texas at Dallas, she supervised 32 graduate students and 21 Ph.D. students graduated with a Ph.D. under her supervision. She also mentored ~130 undergraduate students who worked on her research lab on various projects.

Around the Area

UT Dallas

Assistant Professor Gabriele Meloni received a NSF CAREER Award titled "Plasticity, Promiscuity, and Transport Mechanism in Transmembrane Metal Pumps".

From the Editor

For the first virtual meeting of 2021 of the DFW Section. Angela K. Wilson, National President-Elect of the American Chemical Society. Dr. Wilson will present a talk entitled, “The ACS: Past, Present and Future.” It’s at 6.30 pm this Friday, February 19, and you can access it via zoom (no password required but you’ll have to bring your own snacks!):

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7176687551

My favorite press release this month is on the analysis of the bitumen used in mummification by the ancient Egyptians. Bitumean, which is also asphalt or tar, is notoriously hard to analyze. These researchers, Charles Dutoit, Didier Gourier and colleagues, used a non-destructive technique called electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to “…detect two components of bitumen formed during the decomposition of photosynthetic life: vanadyl porphyrins and carbonaceous radicals, which could provide information on the presence, origin and processing of bitumen in the embalming material”. For example, this gives information as to the source of bitumen: marine origin (such as from the Dead Sea) or land-plant origin (from a tar pit).

This wasn’t in C&EN, but it was interesting: a group of archaeologists have discovered a large, ancient Egyptian brewery that could produce almost 6,000 gallons of beer when it was up and running 5,000 years ago, in southern Egypt at North Abydos. Mostafa Waziry, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said it was the oldest high-production brewery in the world and was located at a larger ancient funeral site: Ancient Egyptian brewery.

We are still under a winter storm warning and a pandemic, so stay warm and stay safe.