Around the Area UT Dallas
UT Arlington After serving six years as Department Chair, Dr. Fred MacDonnell is returning to full time teaching and research. The new Department Chair will be Dr. Carl Lovely. The Associate Chair is Dr. Peter Kroll. Dr. Robin Macaluso has received a $250,000 NSF grant for her solid state and material chemistry program. She was also elected as project coordinator for the Inorganic Chemistry Division of IUPAC. Dr. Junha Jeon received a continuation of his NSF grant to study “Hydrogen Atom Transfer Lewis Base Catalysis.” The research of Dr. Sherri McFarland and student Houston Cole was recently featured in The Dallas Morning News. Presentations from the McFarland group at the European Society for Photobiology (ESP) meeting were given by Houston Cole and Elam Rawasamy. There were also presentations from the group at the Fall ACS meeting by Cole, Rawasamy and undergraduate Wesley McDonald. Dr. Kayunta Johnson-Winters has been selected by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to serve on their Nominating Committee. Dr. Johnson-Winters also received a silver EXCEL Award or her opinion piece “Being Black in the Ivory Tower.”
Septemeber 2021
Assistant Professor Allison Stelling and her collaborator Associate Professor Raymond Trievel at the University of Michigan won a NSF Science, Engineering & Education (SEE) Innovation award to study the Role of Tetrel Bonding in the Reaction Mechanism of Methyltransferases. Assistant Professor Sheena D’Arcy recently facilitated a donation of about 800 science backpacks to local fifth and sixth graders. Michael Luzuriaga (Ph.D. 2021, Gassensmith Lab) won the 2021 David Daniel Best Thesis Award. Professor Mihaela Stefan won the 2021 Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Graduate Research Mentoring. Dr. Stefan has also been named the new Chair of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry.
“2021 Awards” Continued from page 15 tant and educational researcher during a TRIO Upward Bound Summer Chemical Research program at Texas Christian University. She received science teacher of the year award in 2013. Her Master's thesis research focus was on technology integration for immediate formative assessment feedback to students. Heather is currently focused on science language acquisition and laboratory use to enhance the acquisition of multiple science language modalities.
The Southwest RETORT
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