Chemistry Highlights 2020 & 2021, Harvey Mudd College

CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2020 & 2021

Dear Friends of HMC Chemistry, I hope this newsletter finds you safe, healthy and well. We are pleased to share with you updates from the Harvey Mudd College Department of Chemistry. Our annual newsletter was put on hiatus last year due to the COVID pandemic, and a lot has happened since our last edition.

Starting on a sad note, our dear colleague Bob Cave passed away in December 2020. The loss of Bob is felt everyday by the people who worked closely with him, and we miss him dearly.

This issue of our newsletter includes a brief tribute to Bob and describes the impact that he had on generations of students, coworkers and collaborators.

Another major challenge of the past two years has been the COVID pandemic and the resulting changes in how we delivered our curriculum. I am incredibly proud of the resilience and creativity of our students, faculty and staff who worked together to keep the magic of HMC chemistry going in a virtual world. You can read more about some of their innovations in the pages that follow. With the return of in-person instruction in fall 2021, we were able to return to many of our cherished in-person traditions, including the annual awards luncheon and the December cookie decorating contest.

There have been some exciting developments related to the faculty and staff. Kathy Van Heuvelen has been serving a three-year term as the associate dean of faculty, a position with significant college-wide responsibility. Lelia Hawkins was named the inaugural Hixon Professor of Climate Studies. She will be leading the College’s efforts to develop climate education across the curriculum while retaining her membership in the chemistry department. In addition to these changes, we have been fortunate to recruit three outstanding visiting faculty—Sandra Brown, Matt Kromer and Carine Nemr—and a dynamic postdoctoral fellow, Sarah Kavassalis. You can read more about Sandra, Matt, Carine and Sarah in this newsletter. On the staff side of the department, we were sad to say goodbye to Penny Manisco, who left HMC after 13 years as our laboratory coordinator and chemical safety officer, a position now held by Annalee Sendis, who joins us from the University of La Verne.

The faculty and staff of the chemistry department send you our warmest regards and best wishes for the start of the new year. We love hearing from you, so please keep us posted on all of your exciting news.

This Issue:

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Professor Cave Tribute Teaching in a Pandemic Kubota & Myhre Fellows Awards Celebration ACS Classes of 2020 & 2021 Senior Theses Alumni Happenings Summer Research Research in France Meet New Faculty & Postdoc Publications & Presentations Faculty & Staff

On behalf of the chemistry department,

_______ II

Karl Haushalter, Chair

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

Tribute to Professor Cave Robert. J. Cave B.S., Michigan State University PhD, California Institute of Technology Physical Chemistry

For 32 years, Bob Cave was a vital part of the Harvey Mudd community. His warmth, intelligence and famously loud laugh brightened the lives of the students, staff and faculty around him. Our department lost a shining star when Bob passed away in December 2020. You can read more about Bob and his career in chemistry.

The Professor Robert J. Cave Memorial Endowed Scholarship has been established in honor of Bob and to provide scholarship support for future HMC students. Donations to the fund are welcome, just designate your HMC gift to the Cave Memorial Endowed Scholarship. In addition, if you are interested in making a leadership gift toward the establishment of a unique, lasting way of remembering Bob, please contact Karl Haushalter (haushalter@hmc.edu) and/or Kim Stafford (kstafford@hmc.edu).

As this newsletter was being prepared, plans for a celebration of Bob’s legacy at Harvey Mudd were on hold pending an improvement in the COVID situation that would allow for an in-person gathering. Once details are available, we will share them widely. In the meantime, the department has gathered a collection of some of our favorite memories with Bob. “Bob was the very first person that I met during my interview at Harvey Mudd, and he immediately put me at ease with his warmth and humor. I remember him talking with me about going boogie-boarding with his sons at Newport Beach, and it gave me inspiration that HMC faculty cared about family. During my candidate presentation the next day, he was smiling brightly at me the whole time from the audience, and he laughed at all of my dumb jokes, which gave me much-needed confidence. I often told my senior thesis students to look for Bob in the audience during their presentations and keep eye contact with him because it would give them good vibes for their talk.” —Karl Haushalter “Much of my job interview is a blur, but I clearly remember seeing Bob during my teaching demonstration.

He smiled and nodded and laughed at all the right places, and he actively engaged in my little think-pairshare activities. That hour was a small window into the kind of colleague and mentor he was every day: present, engaged, good-humored and unfailingly kind and supportive.” —Kathy Van Heuvelen “Bob was an exceptional colleague, friend, teacher and research collaborator. He had a generous spirit, a love of music and sports, a steady faith and a tremendous laugh! My favorite memories with Bob include walking through the Scripps campus during my interview, being introduced to San Biagio's pizza with him and his research group, writing a research paper together and talking about sports (especially the Clippers) all the time. He was a great role model to me as a chemist, a sports fan, a believer, a father and a husband.”

—David Vosburg “I heard Bob’s laugh before I ever saw him, met him or knew who he was. It was on my interview for the position at Mudd, and I was giving my research talk. This is a chance for a would-be faculty member to show that they command a classroom while engaging students in a topic they feel confident in teaching. This memory is crystal clear for me. I even remember the joke that made Bob laugh (it wasn’t very funny, a halfjoke really about how all the cool kids use a term for a certain kind of phytoplankton), and hearing him roar with laughter was exactly what I needed at that moment. Later in the interview, I commented on the fact that “someone” laughed really well at my joke; they said, “Oh that’s Bob. He’s the dean, and you’ll love him.”

Just a few weeks later, and Bob was on the phone, telling me I was being offered the job at Mudd. Bob had a way of always being what I needed at the moment, from conversations about specific concepts or just managing the job in general. But these two early memories are especially precious to me now, a decade later, because they mark the start of my belonging at HMC.” —Lelia Hawkins “Bob would stop by my office from time to time to see what music I was listening to, and we started a game of “Name That Tune.” I once challenged him, and he said he could do it “in one note.” Both of us expecting failure, I queued up a song, hit play and hit stop (to be fair, I couldn’t stop it in time, and two notes played).

We both stared at each other, laughing, and then his eyes widened and he gasped, “Edgar Winter!

'Frankenstein!'” And then he turned and walked away.” —Adam Johnson

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

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Tribute to Professor Cave, continued

Robert J. Cave Group Members When Bob stepped down as Dean of the Faculty, his colleagues gathered to thank him for his service to the College. At the party, Bill Daub and Jon Jacobsen performed this song, which Bill wrote in honor of Bob.

of Bob Bob's Dear of of Faculty.

On the the occasion occasion of 's retirement as as the Dean Faculty.

The Dean Tiie Dean

(sung to to the the tune of of "The "The Gambler") Gambler") On a cold winter's evenin', on aa plane plane to to California California on named Sheldon, they they were both too tired lo to sleep sleep Bob met met with with a man named 1l1ey They both took tums turns a starin' starin' out out ll1e the window window at at the the darkness darkness ' T i lboredom boredom overtook overtook them and and Sheldon Sheldon began began to speak speak Ti! He said, "Bob, "Bob, I'I've made aa life, life, administratin' administratin' people people ve made And were by And knowin' knowin' what what their their agendas agendas were by the the way way they they held held their their eyes eyes But you' you're damed if you re damed you do, and and damned damned if ifyou you don't don 't But For a taste of your your Mountain Mountain Dew, Dew, I'llI'll give give you some advice" Bob handed handed him him his his bot1l bottle, Sheldon drank down the last swallow So Bob e, Sheldon Then he be bummed bummed an M & & M, M, and and took took Bob's Bob 's last red vine 1lien And the night got deathly qui quiet, got deathly et, and and his his face lost all expression " I fyou're you're gomia gonna play the Deanin' game, you gotta "If Deanin ' game, gotta learn learn to to play play itit fine"

Chorus: You You got got to to know know when to stulf'em, stuff'em, know when to bluff'em bluff 'em Know when when someone someone's run full of of it,it, and and know know when when to to nm Know 's full You when you're you're livin' li vi n' on oor You never never write write any any papers, papers, when on the the fourth fourth flfloor There'll be time time enough enough for research when when the Deanin's Deanin's done done 1l1ere'II Every the secret to survivin' survivin' Every Dean Dean should should know, that that the secret to knowin' who who to to di disregard, and whose whose advice to keep Is k.nowin' sregard, and 'Cause every every Chair's Chair's a winner, and every every Chair's Chair"s a loser And knowin' knowin' you you have have tenure, tenure, makes itit easier easier lo to sleep Ai1d Chorus On a wet October's October's evenin', cvcnin', on on aa plane plane to to New New York York City City shared a drink, drink, they they were were both loo too tired lo to sleep sleep Bob and Jeff shared Then Bob said itit was was easy, easy, it was was all all just just smoke smoke and mirrors 111en in his his fuial final words words Jeff Jefffound, found, an an ace ace that that he could could keep But in Chorus Chorus

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

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Tribute to Professor Cave, continued

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

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Teaching in a Pandemic The COVID pandemic and the resulting pivot to online teaching was a significant challenge for our students, staff and faculty. Class sessions, office hours, advising, lab safety training and even the winter holiday mixer all migrated from in-person to Zoom. During the months of remote learning, our faculty became experts in using the online tools to sustain the community while providing the best education we could. IPads with ExplainEverything and Notability replaced chalkboards and whiteboards. Zoom breakout rooms and shared Google slides replaced small group work at the board. Some office hours shifted. For instance, a special session of PChem office hours met at 4 a.m. PT to include our international students studying from afar. Whatever it took, chemistry faculty and staff members did their best to support students through a challenging time.

One of the most challenging aspects of teaching chemistry in the online world was teaching our laboratory courses. Our faculty exercised their creativity in myriad ways to provide as much of an authentic laboratory experience as possible in the remote-learning environment. One approach, used by Professor Haushalter in Biochemistry Lab, was to lean in on computational methods and retain the investigative character of the lab by providing open-ended biochemical computational questions to work through. Highlighting another approach, students in Professor Hawkins’ Instrumental Analysis Lab met with her synchronously on Zoom and directed Professor Hawkins in her live use of the instruments on camera. Probably the most popular approach in the department was using pre-recorded videos of the instructors performing the experiments that would normally be done by the students and then having the students analyze the resulting data. Here are some of our favorite videos.

The unboxing of the Hatch Colorimeter VR

Professor Johnson made this video in March 2020 before the campus closure.

Kim Young filmed three or four Chem 24 experiments with Professor Johnson, and Emily Fok ’23 did the video editing. Watch the whole thing for the blooper.

Our department continued the tradition of being leaders in the chemical education world and published several articles about lessons learned teaching in the pandemic. Here are some examples:

“A Community Springs to Action to Enable Virtual Laboratory Instruction,” –Professor Johnson

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

“Disorientation, Adaptation, Empathy, and Grace,” –Professor Vosburg

“Emergency Remote Instruction During the COVID-19 Pandemic Reshapes Collaborative Learning in General Chemistry,” –Professors Van Heuvelen, Daub, Van Ryswyk

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The Kubota and Myhre Research Fellowships The Department of Chemistry has research fellowships in chemistry in honor of Mitsuru Kubota and Philip C. Myhre, former professors of chemistry, in recognition of their dedicated service and significant contributions to the College.

These fellowships provide research support for chemistry and chemistry/biology majors to conduct research on campus with a chemistry faculty member in the summer following their sophomore year, continuing through the junior academic year, and in the summer following their junior year. Due to the pandemic, both fellowships were awarded in 2021. This year’s Kubota Research Fellowship was awarded to Ezra Bacon-Gershman ’23 in the lab of Professor Van Ryswyk. The Myhre Research Fellowship was awarded to Drew Pronovost ’23 in the lab of Professor Hawkins.

Kubota Fellow Ezra “Bacon” Bacon-Gershman ’23 Over the next two years, Ezra “Bacon” BaconGershman ’23 will be studying the surface chemistry of lead sulfide quantum dots in his quest to improve the efficiency of bulk heterojunction solar cells.

Quantum dot solar cells are third-generation, thin-film photovoltaics with a total thickness of roughly 400 nm.

This contrasts to the photoactive region of a typical silicon solar cell which is 200-500-um thick. Bacon’s work has two parts. The first is to develop a synthetic protocol for the synthesis and subsequent phasetransfer ligand exchange of circa 3-nm diameter photoactive quantum dots. The second part involves assembly of pinhole-free thin-film bulk heterojunction solar cells. Challenges in the first part include tuning the phase transfer reaction to work effectively without resort to an inert atmosphere, while the second part involves the creation of quantum dot “inks” to allow facile printing of solar cells.

Bacon’s work will be advanced by a recent National Science Foundation-Major Research Instrumentation award to create an instrumentation “toolset” in Claremont for advanced study of photovoltaics. Tools in the set include an FE-SEM (field effect scanning electron microscope) capable of 2-nm resolution equipped with EDX (energy dispersive x-ray analysis), an IPCE/EQE (incident photon conversion efficiency/external quantum efficiency) bench, an opto-electronic test bench, an automated metal evaporator, and a wide array of simulated solar spectrum sources. Pomona College physics professors Janice Hudgings and David Tanenbaum ’88 are co-PIs with Professor Van Ryswyk on the toolset award.

Myhre Fellow Drew Pronovost ’23 As this year’s Myhre Fellow, Drew Pronovost ’23, will be working with Professor Hawkins in the field of atmospheric chemistry. Pronovost will be part of an NSF-funded project investigating how oxygenated phenolic compounds, prevalent in wildfire plumes, can change composition and color during atmospheric reactions. This chemistry could be important for understanding the impact of these emissions on both air quality and climate change.

Specifically, the experiments planned for summer 2022 in Paris, France, will be part of a collaboration with the University of San Diego and the University of Paris, Créteil, making use of an atmospheric

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

simulation chamber capable of reproducing cloud and fog conditions. In these conditions, browning reactions are thought to be an important source of atmospheric brown carbon. Their role will be to use aerosol mass spectrometry to probe the chemical changes taking place in real-time in the chamber.

In order to prepare for this work, Pronovost spent summer 2021 training with Professor Hawkins on this technique. The Hawkins Lab has an instrument quite similar to the mass spectrometer in France, making Pronovost especially well-prepared for this exciting research endeavor.

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Annual Departmental Awards Celebration The chemistry department holds this event each fall to recognize chemistry and joint chemistry/biology majors who have been selected for departmental awards. We have included both the 2021 (in-person) and the 2020 (Zoom) celebration winners. As a traditional part of the program, our two seniors, Ben Moul ’22 and Jake Weber ’22, shared their experience working on summer research in Paris, France (2021).

Campbell Prize 2021 Jason Misleh ’22, Hanna Porter ’22 and Anandi Williams ’22 2020 Yuanzhou Chen ’21 and Sydney Towell ’21

ACS Analytical Division 2021 Jason Misleh ’22 2020 Sydney Towell ’21

Sly Prize 2021 Ethan Flanagan ’23, Eugene Gao ’23, Jacob Kelber ’23 and Nate Luis ’23 2020 Stephen Gross ’22, Jason Misleh ’22, Hanna Porter ’22 and Anandi Williams ’22

ACS Environmental Division 2021 Anandi Williams ’22 2020 Linden Conrad-Muat ’21

ACS Organic Division 2021 Jason Misleh ’22 2020 Yuanzhou Chen ’21

ACS Inorganic Division 2021 Emily Fok ’22 2020 Justin Tai ’21

ACS Physical Division 2021 Stephen Gross ’22 2020 Oliver Baldwin ’21

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

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American Chemical Society National Conference, Spring 2021 Virtual

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Sydney Towell ’21 presented her work at the virtual American Chemical Society meeting on April 7, 2021. The meeting was held as part of the Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists session titled “Undergraduate Research at the Frontiers of Inorganic Chemistry.”

Towell’s project evolved quickly in fall 2020 as HMC moved to remote instruction. Her original plan was to work in the laboratory of Professor Santana in the Department of Engineering, and fortunately, we were able to provide her with a computational project in collaboration with Professor Chip Nataro at Lafayette College. Towell studied a large number of nickel diphosphine dichloride complexes, comparing the structure obtained by x-ray crystallography (downloaded from a

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

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database) to that determined computationally (her work). The goal of the work was to attempt to predict the solid or solution phase structures of this class of compounds using density functional theory.

The title of her talk was “When Computational Chemistry Fails,” so the big picture results of her study are clear.

However, she presented a number of smaller successes, including learning how to manage frustration, how to carry out research on an open-ended project and, importantly, how to develop qualitative trends even if quantitative ones do not work. Towell began attending the University of North Carolina in fall 2021, studying polymers synthesis or characterization.

"'

ACS

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The 258th National Spring ACS conference was virtual.

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Class of 2021

Oliver Baldwin, Yuanzhou Chen, Linden Conrad-Marut, Joshua Hunter, Dylan Sotir, Justin Tai, Sydney Towell (no picture available)

Class of 2020

Emily Hwang, Emily Shimizu, Jennifer Zhu, Johnson Hoang, Brandon Wada, Rogelio Aguilar

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

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Senior Theses 2021 Oliver Baldwin Creating a Safety Case for Assessing Risk Decisions on a Sample-Return Mission Advisor: E. Spjut

Yuanzhou Candice Chen

Senior Theses 2020 Rogelio Aguilar Ametek Ameron Halon 1301 Purification Clinic Advisor: N. Lape

Johnson Hoang

Making Contents of Research Articles more Accessible: A Reflection on my Alternative Thesis Project Advisor: K. Haushalter

Kinetics of RpoS-induced Genes in E. coli Across Different Stresses Advisor: D. Stoebel

Linden Conrad-Murat

Emily Hwang

Characterization of Organic Aerosol Components in a Cloud Chamber Study Advisor: L. Hawkins

Joshua Hunter Drug Development: Raltegravir as a Case Study Advisor: K. Haushalter

Dylan Sotir Meggitt Advisor: G. Krauss

Justin Tai Developing a Simple Speech-to-Text Lab Notebook Advisor: J. Hur

Sydney Towell Computational Studies of Inorganic Complexes Advisor: A.R. Johnson

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

Computational Indicators of Ductility in B2 Alloys Binary Mixtures of Organic Acids Have Potential Applications in Thermal Energy Storage Advisor: L. Bassman

Emily Shimizu Titanium and Tantalum Catalyzed Asymmetric Hydroamination with Sulfonamide Alcohol and Tertiary Amine Diol Ligands Advisor: A.R. Johnson

Brandon Wada Kinetic Study of [Ni(II)(cyclam)(BH₄)](BH₄) mediated Dehalogenation of Tetrachloroethylene Advisor: K. Van Heuvelen

Sydney Towell Computational Studies of Inorganic Complexes Advisor: A.R. Johnson

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Alumni Happenings Bob Luke ’65 and Barbara, his wife of 55 years, play online bridge and enjoy bodysurfing in the warming but still frigid Atlantic Ocean (wetsuits are for weenies), but they must endure poorer snow conditions while downhill skiing (tangible climate change during their 45 years in Maine). COVID means no traveling, and they miss convening with memories, alumni and HMC students who are the future of chemistry. Their daughter, Christina (SCR) ’95, and her husband are archeologists living in Istanbul, Turkey. Derek (Colby ’98) brews beer commercially and his wife writes children's books in Newport, Rhode Island. Their three grandchildren span kindergarten to pre-college. During 15 years of retirement from pathology, Bob found a “use for thermo” as original Chemistry Chair Arthur Campbell predicted and merged a novel macromolecular model with a unique anatomically relevant glomerular model only to find that peer review means protecting data and established theory rather than publishing a credible innovative new theory.

Michael Beug ’66 has followed his coauthored 2014 book Ascomycete Fungi of North America with the publication in June of 2021 of his second mushroom identification book, Mushrooms of Cascadia: An Illustrated Key, a solo effort (see it at mushroomsofcascadia.com).

Michael and his wife, Ann, live in the Columbia River Gorge roughly halfway between Mount Adams and Mount Hood.

He has retired from 32 years as a professor and senior academic dean at The Evergreen State College. Winemaking has come to an end, but Michael still gardens and maintains an orchard, hunts mushrooms and takes on speaking engagements (he has found nearly 100 new mushroom species in 10 genera).

After graduation, Betty Dean ’66 became a social worker which included two years in adoptions. After her marriage, she began a life on the sea with her husband. She’s now retired from their company, Bold American Enterprises, after 35-plus years delivering boats (sail and power) and small commercial vessels worldwide. There were many adventures: California to Spain, Spain to

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

South Africa, many trips through the Caribbean, Great Lakes, Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast, and even a paddle wheeler from Florida to Iowa.

She’s enjoying gardening for wildlife, especially pollinators and birds, and her property is certified as a backyard wildlife habitat.

Ken Brown ’67 was a physician practicing general internal medicine and critical care medicine in ClaremontPomona for 35 years. He retired in 2012. He moved to Mount San Antonio Gardens (retirement community in Claremont) in 2016. Ken does woodworking, hiking, singing and playing on his 40 acres of Redwoods on the Northern California Coast. He also enjoys the ocean his house in Gualala, Mendocino County.

Brian Dorman ’67 has horses and mammoth riding donkeys on six acres in McKinleyville, California. He graduated from UCSF medical school 50 years ago and practiced telemedicine as a urologist. He is part of the open-heart team in Eureka because in California they need a second surgeon when they do heart cases. He is a large animal shelter lead and on the animal evacuation team for the North Valley Animal Disaster Group in Butte County and worked during the Bear North Complex fire. Brian is also a volunteer at the California Native Plant Society Nursery in Eureka.

Jay Labinger ’68 writes that he and his wife, Andrea, moved to Mt. San Antonio Gardens in Claremont this year (although he hasn’t yet retired—still working as administrator of the Beckman Institute at Caltech), joining one other chem alum (Ken Brown ’67) along with many more former HMC people (particularly retired physics professors). Jay hasn’t been doing much chemistry lately; most of his scholarly work in recent years has been focused on the borderlands between science and the humanities. He just completed a book, Connecting Literature and Science (Routledge). Jay’s HMC experience gets a nice plug therein, particularly literature professors George Wickes and Benjamin Saltman.

Bryan Cashion ’70 worked for the National Park Service for five years, then went to graduate school for an M.S. and PhD in environmental engineering. He says those from his era will laugh at the irony of him switching to engineering! He then worked for Exxon for about 30 years, mostly with the chemicals subsidiary. This included living in New Jersey, Louisiana, Houston (that was 50 years all by itself!) and Belgium. Bryan has retired to Western Colorado, where he “converted” his focus to astronomy. He is the president of the Black Canyon Astronomical Society. In 2017, the “Great American Eclipse” was a great reason to get together with other HMCers in Madras, Oregon. Bryan says, “Let’s do it again in 2024!”

Michael Hughes ’73 has retired from his law practice. He and his wife, Lisa, have moved to Medford, Oregon, and are enjoying life.

Brian Rohrback ’74 says that in the world of changing employment, he finds himself in the same position he took on 36 years ago: running a scientific software company specializing in the field called chemometrics. Brian is very happily married to his Claremont girlfriend, Lisa (Scripps/CGS), and says it is hard to believe they met 50 years ago!

Andrew Lees ’75 reports that his company Fina Biosolutions celebrated its 15th year in August. Conjugation chemistry, the linking of molecules of biological interest, remains a central focus of his work. A vaccine for Streptococcus pneumonia, Pneumosil® from the Serum Institute of India, uses chemistry he developed and was given WHO approval last year. In December, Andrew published an update to the conjugation chemistry he developed in 1993. FinaBio was issued several patents for a unique bacterial strain, so their molecular biology group is providing another growth area. Andrew still rides his bike to work several times a week and has no plans to retire. His wife, Julie, has been teaching piano teaching by Zoom, and it has been challenging. Their son, Adam,

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Alumni Happenings (continued) completed a second B.S. degree in biology and will be going to graduate school, and their daughter, Lizzy, and her husband purchased a house and can work remotely.

Brian Williams ’77 retired from Bucknell University in May 2020 after 31 years. He has done a little traveling, done a little research work to finish a mathbased manuscript and worked on remodeling his basement. Since Brian’s significant other is planning to move to Denver, and he has a small place out on Whidbey Island on Puget Sound, the immediate plan is to move to Whidbey, and split thier time between Denver, Whidbey and travel. He messes around with math a bit (any advice on relearning Lie methods from scratch would be appreciated!) and is also trying to learn how to play the piano. Life is good!

Paul Kenney ’78 is in the DNA sequencing business, using synthetic organic chemistry to help invent and develop new DNA sequencing technologies. He also has been doing a lot of tie-dye. Be sure to look up “Kenney Style” on Instagram or google Kenney Style tie-dye.

Greg Elden ’81 reports that after Mudd, he spent five years at Tektronix, then six years in Madison to get a PhD in physical chemistry. He married Ann and they had their first child, Madeline Rose. He then was a postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and his second child, Jack Aloysius, arrived. Finally, after 27 years at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a third child, Benjamin Braun was born. Greg says they finally figured it out: They have a baby every time they move, so they stopped moving! He now works on nuclear non-proliferation and other national security-related R&D for PNNL and USG clients. He says it is very fulfilling to see the impact. Shameless plug: Greg chairs review panels of such research, conducts 60+ such reviews each year, and is always looking for expert reviewers. You can drop him a line with a CV. He would love to sign up some Mudders for reviews. Greg hopes all is well with all Mudders everywhere!

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2021

David Campbell ’85 is the founder, president and CEO of Janux Therapeutics (Nasdaq: JANX) that is developing tumor-activated immune system modulators to treat cancer. He invented the underlying technology and has led the company from its origin as a platform technology company through the discovery and development of multiple therapeutics currently undergoing IND enabling studies to support the company's first two-drug programs. Key financings include a $233M IPO in June 2021 and Seed, Series A and B rounds totaling $201M. In addition, David completed a $1.05B agreement with Merck to develop tumor-activated therapeutics.

Prior to Janux, over the last decade or so, he has been a serial biotech entrepreneur having founded multiple companies, a few of which have been acquired by pharmaceutical companies.

For the past six years, Darwin Popenoe ’85 pursued a second career in information security. With the generous cooperation of my employer, The Procter & Gamble Company, he moved from analytical chemistry to infosec in 2015. A few years later, Darwin obtained CISSP certification, leading to a position of Technical Information Security Leader at P&G. His deep and broad foundation from Mudd serves him just as well in his new job as previous ones!

Bob Blackman ’89 has been named Squires Professor of History at Hampden-Sydney College. He says it’s a result of the work ethic he picked up as a chemistry major at HMC. Paul Vahey ’90 celebrated 25 years married to Sheri! He is completing 15 years at Boeing as an analytical chemist (and associate technical fellow) and enjoys seeing fellow Mudd alums at martial arts class, online escape rooms and old-fashioned in-person visits.

Rachel Watson-Clark ’91 is the R&D director at The Clorox Company. She oversees all global technical discovery efforts for Cleaning, Clorox Professional Products and Cleaning International.

Where does the time go?” asks Cybele Gabris ’91. It’s been 30 years since she graduated from HMC, and she’s lived in Upstate New York for over 20 years. She works at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory —Knolls Laboratory and is an advisor scientist, working on materials corrosion. Cybele’s two kids, Gus (11) and Cora (9), keep her and husband, Steve, busy. In their free time, they like to travel, ski, hike and partake in other outdoor activities in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains.

Marie Kao-Hsieh ’94 reports that after 17 years of working in private practice as an associate dentist in Maryland, she was fortunate to become the chief of dental clinic operation/hospital dentist/staff clinician at the National Institutes of Health, where she's been for 2.5 years. She’s participated in clinical research within the National Institutes of Dental Craniofacial Research. She loved her chemistry research years at Mudd with Professor Karukstis. To be able to apply her clinical experience with research at NIH has been a dream job for Marie. Her husband, Matt, has been a hematologist/staff clinician at the NIH focused on research in stem cell transplant for sickle cell disease for 20 years. They enjoy carpooling to work.

Marie says they are a family of five with three children: Natalie (20), Joey (15) and Emily (11).

Jake Garcia ’96 went to medical school at UCSD and then the University of Washington for pediatric residency and an oncology fellowship. After several years in clinical practice in the Bay Area, he made the transition to pharmaceuticals and eventually immuno-oncology biotech. Jake has lived up and down the West Coast and now resides in Seattle. He has continued singing since he graduated from Mudd, and music remains an essential part of his life. He has stayed in touch with others from his class,

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Alumni Happenings (continued) especially his former Case roommate, best friend and current faculty member Darryl Yong ’96. Jake says his time at Mudd has benefited him tremendously through the years.

Jennifer Whiles ’96 has been working at Sonoma State University as a chemistry professor since 2003. She has been active in the California State University-wide program for Education and Research in Biotechnology as well as faculty and administrative leadership at SSU. She serves as the interim associate dean for undergraduate studies. Jennifer has two kids in 11th and 7th grade, two chihuahuas and two ducks!

Jolene White ’97 is supporting health equity at Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, a nonprofit biopharma developing drugs and vaccines for low- and middle-income countries and fully funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her role is bioanalytical and safety lab testing, measuring drug immunogenicity and diagnostics in patient samples. The mission statement, “Our bottom line: lives saved,” deeply resonates with Jolene, and she is proud to be part of this effort.

Kaitlyn Gray ’06 recently relocated to Groton, Connecticut, to join Pfizer as a principal research scientist in process chemistry. Since starting, she has had the opportunity to support the COVID vaccine and work on a new COVID treatment.

During the 2020–2021 academic year, Glennis Rayermann ’09 taught the Conservation Science: Inorganic Materials in Art & Conservation lecture and laboratory courses and conducted research in the Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department at State University New York, Buffalo State. She is in Amsterdam as a research associate with the Netherlands Institute for Conservation+Art+Science+ project “A Global Infrastructure for Heritage Science,” made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Collaborating with an international, multidisciplinary team of six RAs—each with a different material category focus—she is identifying opportunities for and challenges to interdisciplinary, interinstitutional and international research. Glennis focuses on metal, stone, glass and ceramic cultural heritage materials.

Laura (Poindexter ’11) Rowe graduated from podiatry school at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, in 2017, she spent three years doing podiatry surgery residency at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, and graduated in 2020. She started work as a surgical podiatrist in Fresno, California, and is happy to be back in San Joaquin Valley (though having real seasons was nice)

Katie Mouzakis ’07 was awarded tenure and was promoted to associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Loyola Marymount University.

In July, Karen (Brown ’08) Morrison was named acting chief deputy director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. She has been working at DPR since 2018 and is now responsible for overseeing all of the department’s programs, ranging from scientific review and enforcement of pesticide products to budgeting and regulatory changes.

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Katherine (Muller ’14) Stephens is with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation as an environmental consultant in the air pollution control division. She says she loves living in Tennessee and has awesome in-laws that bake her a lot of cakes.

Laura married engineer Justin Rowe in 2018 after being introduced by another Mudd alum. She now spends time hiking in the Sierras whenever not on call (Laura) or on fire (the Sierras).

Laura also boasts that she can make reproducibly tasty pies and is working on gardening skills.

Lydia Jahl ’14, a former Hawkins Lab researcher, received her PhD in chemistry in 2020 from Carnegie Mellon University studying the emissions of biomass burning. She now works at the Green Science Policy Institute, where she collaborates with academia, industry, government and more to remove harmful classes of chemicals from everyday products.

Eun Bin Go ’15 completed her PhD at UCLA and is now at Emerald Cloud Lab. Shannon (Wetzler ’16) Quevedo recently married, graduated with her PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Michigan and is an assistant professor of chemistry (a major) at Virginia Military Institute.

Michelle Lum ’17 says that since graduating from Johns Hopkins University’s Materials Science & Engineering M.S. program, she has been working at HP Labs in Palo Alto. She is focusing on the 3-D printing metals program while occasionally working on the polymers side as well.

Hannah Welsh ’17 works for a company called Terra.do (an online climate change school and community) as an instructor for their flagship course, Climate Change: Learning for Action, a 12-week boot camp designed to help mid-career professionals transition toward climate and sustainability work. She guides fellows through the course content and mentors them as they develop a personalized climate action plan. Hannah works with fellows from around the world, with backgrounds ranging from business and finance to science and engineering, to journalism. Terra’s mission is to get 100 million people working to solve climate change by 2030, and she is

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Alumni Happenings (continued) honored to be a part of this historic effort! Hannah currently lives in Oakland with her partner, Jesus Villegas ’18 (engineering), who just started a new job at Form Energy; their friend, Nava Dallal ’17 (CS) and their cat, Violet. Hannah says she is also involved in local climate justice organizing in Oakland.

Hannah Slocumb ’19 started her third year in University of California Irvine’s organic chemistry PhD program, where she has been working in Professor Vy Dong's lab. In 2021, she was awarded the NSF GRFP, had a paper published on the asymmetric hydroamination of dienes with pyrazoles in ACIE and earned a master’s degree in chemistry.

Talia Evans ’18 says that most notably, Kareesa Kron ’18 proposed in May 2021 at Disneyland. On the academic side of things, during the past three years, she investigated the impacts of deoxygenation of ocean chemistry, most notably sulfur, iron, nitrogen and iodine speciation. Talia has published two papers deconvoluting the causes of deoxygenation and its spatiotemporal variability and passed her qualifying exam for doctoral candidacy. Most recently, she helped write an NSF proposal to fund research into the transport of dissolved iron off the Oregon continental shelf, then helped plan the research expedition, designed and built most of the hardware for it and conducted this fieldwork aboard the R/V Oceanus in March 2021 and May 2021.

Johnson Huang ’20 rejoined the Stoebel Lab as a one-year post-bac researcher.

.

Yuanzhou Chen ’21 accepted a research associate position in the lab of Professor Tejal Desai at University of California San Francisco.

Justin Tai ’21 accepted the position of lab technician in the Chen Lab at Yale.

Kareesa Kron ’18 has spent the past three years modeling organic photoredox catalysts for CO2 reduction.

She has published twice (one with Professor Cave, whom she misses dearly) and has some manuscripts in the works.

She passed her qualifying exam in April 2021 and celebrated by going to Disneyland. While at Disney, Kareesa proposed to Talia Evans ’18 (chemistry) and ate lots of Dole Whip. Kareesa has also spent her free time at USC doing educational outreach to high school teachers through Women in Chemical Engineering. Through these projects, they bring computational chemistry into high school classrooms and explore environmental pollutants and fundamental organic chemistry. She also participates in several social groups, her favorite of which is Queer Fandom Fanatics.

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Summer Research Undergraduate chemistry and chemistry/biology majors strongly considering a major in either discipline were invited to participate remotely in the 2020 Summer Research program and on-campus for the 2021 program. Both programs ran for 10 weeks under the direction of Professor Hawkins. Students conducted research, learned about the chemistry profession and honed their presentation skills.

Professor Cave (2020) The Cave Lab used electron transfer theory, quantum mechanics, and lots of computing to understand how to make accurate predictions of tunneling propensities and then apply these methods to electron transfer in frozen glasses.

Oliver Baldwin ’20 Chris Couto ’23 Austin Froelich ’23 Nathan Luis ’23 Nathan Roche ’22

Professors Daub and Cave (2020) Penelope Hernandez ’23

Professor Hawkins (2021 and 2020) The Hawkins research team was able to return to the University of Paris in Creteil, France, in 2021 to conduct chamber studies of the formation and transformation of atmospheric pollutants. Other members of the team worked with specialized instrumentation designed to characterize the chemical and optical properties of organic components in air pollution.

2021 2020 Ivy Jaguzny ’24 Linden Conrad-Murat ’21 Ben Moul ’22 (France) Benjamin Moul ’21 Eva Pronovost ’23 Ellie Smith ’22 Ellie Smith ’22 Jake Weber ’22 Jake Weber ’21 (France)

Professor Johnson (2020) The Johnson Group studies the asymmetric hydroamination of aminoallenes with chiral titanium and tantalum catalysts.

Emily Fok ’22 Veronica Show ’22

Professor Karukstis (2021) The Karukstis Lab focused on integrating and scaffolding research into undergraduate STEM curricula: probing faculty, student, disciplinary and institutional pathways to transformational change.

Stephen Gross ’22 (remote)

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE | CHEMISTRY HIGHLIGHTS 2019

Professor Van Heuvelen (2020) The Van Heuvelen Lab partnered with Stephen Gross ’22 on a chemical education project where they investigated how students learn to explain complex chemical topics. They designed materials that were used in Chem 23A and B in the subsequent academic year.

The lab had a second project working with metalcontaining enzymes found in nature that can break down carcinogenic pollutants found in groundwater, but there were many questions about the fundamental chemistry that governs this process. A team of five HMC students used computational chemistry methods, as implemented on the extreme science and engineering discovery environment (XSEDE) to investigate this process. They studied the ability of several small molecules to carry out these important reactions.

Keo Chui ’22 Jacob Kelber ’23 Jason Misleh ’22 Mihira Sogal ’23 Jada Thomas ’22

Professor Van Ryswyk (2021) The Van Ryswyk Lab does fundamental materials chemistry research on photovoltaics, aiming to improve the efficiency of cells constructed from low-cost materials that can be applied to large-area surfaces.

Ezra Bacon-Gershman ’23 Ethan Flanagan ’23 Anandi Williams ’22

Professor Vosburg (2021) The Vosburg Lab is developing eco-friendly reactions to rapidly prepare complex molecules (many of which have never been synthesized) with potential medical and optical applications.

Eleanor Bentley ’23 Keo Chui ’22 Kelvin Lee ’22 Celine Wang ’22

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Summer Research 2021

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Summer Research 2021 (continued)

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Summer Research in France, 2021 Harvey Mudd College chemistry majors Ben Moul ’22 and Jake Weber ’22 joined Professor Hawkins for an international research project in Paris, France. Professor Hawkins has an ongoing collaboration with the University of San Diego and the University of Paris in Créteil to better understand the chemical transformations occurring in clouds. Lab Director Jean-Francois Doussin was very excited about the team and its results. There are fewer than five chambers in the world capable of simulating atmospheric clouds.

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Summer Research in France, 2021 (continued)

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Meet Our New Faculty Members and Postdoctoral Scholar Sandra E. Brown Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry PhD, University of California, Irvine Theoretical Chemistry A major highlight of the last year for me has of course been joining the chemistry department here at Mudd! I continue to be impressed every day by the thoughtful, enthusiastic, talented and hard-working students, faculty and staff here at the College. I have been enjoying getting to know the Class of 2025 through teaching Chem 23A and Chem 24, as well as the older students through their Summer Research and senior thesis presentations, and their active roles as graders, TAs and tutors. I also appreciate the older students stopping by to introduce themselves and sharing with me their academic pursuits, professional goals and personal interests (which I find to be delightfully varied, ranging from literature to running to travel).

Sarah Kavassalis Postdoctoral scholar in interdisciplinary computation PhD, University of Toronto Atmospheric Chemistry I joined Mudd as a postdoc through the Program in Interdisciplinary Computation after finishing my PhD in Toronto. During my time here, I’ll be teaching chemistry, climate and computer science courses and having students join me in research at the intersection of those fields. We’ll be using state-of-the-art chemical transport and climate models along with machine learning techniques to study the impacts of air quality on climate and the impact of climate on air quality. My family is really enjoying Southern California living so far, with our 3-year-old navigating preschool and swimming lessons, and our two cats enjoy the constant parade of hummingbirds outside our windows. We’re looking forward to exploring the area more and excited to get to know the HMC community.

Matthew L. Kromer Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Materials Chemistry I just started teaching at HMC last fall, and I am having a great time so far! I’m honored to be a part of the Core chemistry teaching teams for the first-year lecture and lab courses. My absolute favorite aspect about this position is the students. I’ve never worked with individuals so curious and so ready to dive into the details and nuances of chemistry. It's immensely satisfying for me to help them explore those curiosities, and I hope I can help them find their dream careers to pursue once they graduate. Aside from teaching, almost all of my free time goes toward hiking with my dog, Bowie. We’ve been having a lot of fun exploring Angeles National Forest, as there are many trails in the area.

Carine Nemr Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry PhD, University of Toronto Analytical Chemistry After moving to Claremont from Toronto this summer (and escaping the cold Canadian winters!), I’m excited to be teaching as a visiting faculty member at Harvey Mudd. I’m instructing two sections of Chem 24 this fall and I am very happy to be back in the lab doing interesting science with students. This fall, I am also shadowing the analytical chemistry series to help make sure we can keep the fish in our tank alive! Looking forward to the coming months, I plan to work on educational development and pedagogical research in the department. In my spare time, I’ve been enjoying sightseeing and traveling the West Coast, as well as staying active through hiking, biking and practicing yoga.

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Publications and Presentations Publications (*Denotes undergraduate co-authors) “Turning STEM Education Inside-Out: Teaching and Learning Inside of Prisons.” J. Hardin, J.; Haushalter, K.A.; Yong, D, Science Education & Civic Engagement an International Journal, 2020, 12, 2:84-90.

“Synthesis, characterization and electrochemistry of [Pd(PP)MeCl] compounds with 1,1′-bis(phosphino)ferrocene ligands.” Hendricks, M. E.*; Xu, X.*; Boller, T.R.; Samples, E.M.; Johnson, A.R.; and Nataro, C. Polyhedron, 2021, 199, 115104. (special issue entitled “Undergraduate Research in Inorganic Chemistry 2021”) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poly.2021.115104 “Intramolecular hydroamination of trisubstituted aminoallenes catalyzed by titanium complexes of diaryl substituted tridentate imine-diols.” Fok, E.Y.*; Show, V.L.* and Johnson, A.R. Polyhedron, 2021, 198, 115070. (special issue entitled “Undergraduate Research in Inorganic Chemistry 2021”) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poly.2021.115070 “4-Fluoro-2-({[(2R)-1-hydroxy-1,1,3-triphenyl-propan-2yl]imino}methyl)phenol.” Sha, F.* and Johnson, A.R. IUCrData, 2021, 6, x201580. https://doi.org/10.1107/S2414314620015801 “2-({[(2S)-1-Hydroxy-1,1,3-triphenylpropan-2yl]imino}methyl)-4,6-bis (4-methylphenyl)phenol.” Show, V.L.; Fok, E.Y.; and Johnson, A.R., IUCrData, 2020, 5, x201576. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S241431462001576X “Teaching Molecular Orbital Theory Better. In Advances in Teaching Inorganic Chemistry Volume 1: Classroom Innovations and Faculty Development.” Johnson, A.R. and Nataro, C., Jones, R.M., Ed.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington DC, 2020; Vol 1370. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/bk-20201370.ch005 “Catalytic intramolecular hydroamination of aminoallenes using titanium and tantalum complexes of sterically encumbered chiral sulfonamides.” Sha, F.; Shimizu, E.A.; Slocumb, H.S.; Towell, S.E.; Zhen, Y.; Porter, H.Z.; Takase, M.; Johnson, A.R. Dalton Transactions, 2020, 49, 12418-12431. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/D0DT02557G “A Community Springs to Action to Enable Virtual Laboratory Instruction.” Nataro, C. and Johnson, A.R. J. Chem. Educ., 2020, 97, 3033-3037. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00526

“Reinvigorating general chemistry by emphasizing connections between chemistry and society.” Van Heuvelen, K.M., Daub, G.W., Hawkins, L.N., Johnson, A.R., Van Ryswyk, H., Vosburg, D.A., J. Chem. Educ., 2020, 97, 925-933. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00281 “Photooxidation of water with thin film tungsten oxides.” Van Ryswyk, H.; *Loar, A.; *Kelber, J.; *Meznarich, Z.; *Sabin, J.; *Griffith, S.; *Stevenson, L.E., J. Chem. Educ., 2020, 98, 2, 614-619. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00976 “Emergency Remote Instruction during the COVID-19 Pandemic Reshapes Collaborative Learning in General Chemistry.” Van Heuvelen, K.; Daub, G.W.; Van Ryswyk, H., J. Chem. Educ., 2020, 97, 9, 2884-2888. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00691 “Estimating Quantum Dot Size with Pulsed Field Gradient NMR.” Van Ryswyk, H; *Porter, H. Z.; *Lopez, Ixchel; m *Dy, E., J. Chem.

Educ. (submitted) “Engaging undergraduates in sustainability education and research.” Vosburg, D.A., In Chemistry Education for a Sustainable Society. Vol 2: Innovations in Undergraduate Curricula, ed. S.O. Obare, C.H. Middlecamp, K.E. Peterman, Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 2020, pp. 63-73, DOI: 10.1021/bk-2020-1345.ch006.

“Anthraquinones: Versatile organic photocatalysts.” CervantesGonzález, J.; Vosburg, D.A.; Mora-Rodriguez, S.E.; Vázquez, M.A.; Zepeda, L.G.; Villegas Gómez, C.; Lagunas Rivera, S., ChemCatChem, 2020, 12, 3811-3827, DOI: 10.1002/cctc.202000376.

“How do I design a chemical reaction to do useful work?

Reinvigorating general chemistry by connecting chemistry and society.” Van Heuvelen, K.M.; Daub, G.W.; Hawkins, L.N.; Johnson, A.R.; Van Ryswyk, H.; Vosburg, D.A. J. Chem. Educ. 2020, 97, 925-933, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00281 “Emphasizing learning: The impact of student surveys in the reform of an introductory chemistry course.” Van Heuvelen, K.M.; Blake, L.P.; Daub, G.W.; Hawkins, L.N.; Johnson, A.R.; Van Ryswyk, H.; Vosburg, D.A., Journal of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness, 2019, 9, 1-28, https://doi.org/10.5325/jasseinsteffe.9.1-2.0001

“Scaffolding research into undergraduate STEM curricula and cultures: An emerging model for systemic change.” Malachowski, M.R.; Osborn, J.M.; Karukstis, K.K.; Kinzie, J.; and Ambos, E.L. In: White, K., Beach, A., Finkelstein, N., Henderson, C., Simkins, S., Slakey, L., Stains, M., Weaver, G., and Whitehead, L. (Editors), Transforming Institutions: Accelerating Systemic Change in Higher Education, pages 59–69. Pressbooks. OpenBook link to the chapter. 2020.

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Publications and Presentations (continued) Presentations (*Denotes undergraduate co-authors) “What can HIV-AIDS teach us about COVID-19? Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities,” Haushalter, K.A. Virtual SENCER Summer Institute. July 2020.

“When computational chemistry fails: modeling geometries of Nickel(II) diphosphine complexes,” Towell, S.E.*, Nataro, C. and Johnson, A.R. Virtual National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, INOR-3530076. March 2021.

“Titanium and tantalum catalyzed asymmetric hydroamination with bulky sulfonamide ligands,” Sha, F.* and Johnson, A.R. Virtual National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, INOR-74. Fall 2020. (Presentation Given as an Honorable Mention for the ACS DIC Undergraduate Research Award.)

“IONiC: The professional network for inorganic chemists.”

Williams, N.S.B., Nataro, C., Bentley, A.K., Crowder, K.N., Eppley, H.J., Fernandez, A., Grice, K.A., Jamieson, E.R., Johnson, A.R., Lin, S., Pratt, J.M., Raker, J.R., Reisner, B.A., Smith, S.R., Stewart, J.L., Stone, K. and Watson, L.A. Virtual Meeting of the American Chemical Society, INOR-76. Fall 2020.

“Creating Greater Equity by Scaffolding Research into Undergraduate Curricula,” Malachowski, M.R.; Osborn, J.O.; Karukstis, K.K.; Kinzie, J.; Ambos, E.L.; and Lindsay Currie, L. Council on Undergraduate Research Conference. June 2021.

“Catalyzing Transformational Change through the Integration of Research into Undergraduate STEM Curricula,” Karukstis, K. American Chemical Society meeting, Division of Chemical Education, Philadelphia, August 2021. Invited talk.

“Integrating and Scaffolding Research into Undergraduate Curricula and Cultures,” Malachowski, M. and Karukstis, K. Council on Undergraduate Research Biennial Conference, PreConference Workshop. June 2020.

“Ni(II)borohydride converts perchloroethylene to trichloroethylene.” Van Huevelen, K. Virtual American Chemical Society, Division of Inorganic Chemistry. March 2020.

“Green Chemistry Commitment Summit.” Vosburg, D.A., American Chemical Society, June 2020.

"Making molecules: The greener, the better." Vosburg, D.A., Harvey Mudd College Summer Research Seminar, July 2020

“Fluorescence Delineation of Self-Assembled Aggregates of Amphiphilic Surfactants and Chromonic Dyes,” Award Address, Karukstis, K. American Chemical Society National Meeting, Division of Colloid and Surface Science. April 2021.

“Using undergraduate research to enhance STEM education at the individual and departmental Level,” Malachowski M. and Karukstis, K. American Chemical Society National Meeting, April 2021.

“Creating and Supporting Systemic Change: Scaffolding Undergraduate Research as a Vehicle for Equitable Transformation”, Malachowski, M.R.; Osborn, J.M.; Karukstis, K.K.; Kinzie, J.; Ambos, E.L.; and Currie, L. Accelerating Systemic Change Network. June 2021.a

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Faculty and Staff 2021 Updates G. William Daub B.S., Pomona College PhD, Stanford University Organic Chemistry My last missive to all of you (two years ago) read as follows: “At last, 2020 is here! What fun another decade promises for us.”

Stay cajfeinare_;;(

myfr~,i,b.

What a joke. My crystal ball seems a bit unfocused. In any event, take what I say in this statement about the future with a couple of grams of salt.

When you last heard from me, I was describing the beginning of a one-and-a-half year stint as associate dean of academic affairs. The position proved to be both challenging and interesting. It required a postponement of my sabbatical, but the opportunity was worth waiting an extra year. As I finished the job, another “opportunity” presented itself when leadership losses in the Computer Science Department (a sad departure and an even sadder passing) arose that required someone to serve as interim department chair. I shifted gears and helped out in computer science (yes, we all know how little I know about CS) for about 15+ months before taking my final sabbatical (2021–2022). I am comfortably ensconced on a terminal sabbatical and preparing to retire at the end of June 2022.

In terms of teaching, I taught first-year Core chemistry and organic lecture and lab for the past two years. A nice summary of the types of courses I taught to you all during all of these years as I head out the door.

On the personal side, my extended family has grown 400% to include three new grandchildren during the pandemic years. We welcomed James (to son Michael and wife Taryn) as COVID broke in 2020, followed by Teddy (to daughter Mary Beth and spouse Andrew) in the fall, and then finally a granddaughter Delphine (to Eric and wife Camille) in this past spring to the Daub-Hollenberg family. Trips to Seattle, Greenville, South Carolina; and Exeter, UK, over the past six months have allowed Sandy and me to begin getting to know these new additions.

Our eldest son, Eric, continues to work at the Alan Turing Institute in London doing data science with people in both industry and academia. Our second son, Brian, continues his work at the National Lab in Livermore, California, where he lives with his wife, Ginger. The third son, Michael, works for Google in Seattle, and our daughter, Mary Beth, teaches organic chemistry at Furman University. My wife, Sandy, and I are keeping our cats (Cyrus and Charlie) company as we finish working and plan just how and where we will spend our Golden Years.

On a good note, I continue to ride my bike, play golf, cook and roast my own coffee. Still lovin’ the espresso every morning.

And on a sadder note, I miss Bob Cave more than you all will ever know. Rest easy, my friend.

Here’s hoping that 2022 will be a better year for everyone and that the world settles down a bit. And good health to everyone.

Daniel A. Guerra B.A., California State Polytechnic University M.S., California State Polytechnic University Laboratory and Stockroom Manager

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Faculty and Staff 2021 Updates (continued) Karl Haushalter B.A., Rice University PhD, Harvard University Chemical Biology

In July of 2020, I was honored to step into the role of department chair for chemistry. I am grateful to the brilliant, caring and hard-working faculty and staff who make chairing this department such a joy and relatively easy—I mostly just need to make sure everyone has the resources that they need and then get out of their way. One of my favorite jobs as chair has been meeting biweekly with the student advisory committee, which has provided a lot of helpful feedback on our department’s activities and has provided valuable insight into the student experience at Mudd.

My teaching has been largely in the first-year Core general chemistry course and also biochemistry. For the latest iteration of biochemistry, in addition to the amino acid structures and the citric acid cycle, I am including an overlay on “Racism as a Public Health Emergency” that was developed by a colleague at Pomona College and will engage students in conversations about equity and access in biochemistry and related fields.

At the Haushalter home, our daughter, Laura, graduated from high school this past summer and embarked on a gap year prior to starting college in fall 2022. With fewer people in our home, my wife, Jenny, and I are enjoying reading, binge-watching TV shows, walking the dog and traveling. I have also been working on my running and hope to complete my second marathon sometime during 2022. I hope that you and yours have a healthy and happy year ahead.

Lelia N. Hawkins B.S., University of California San Diego PhD, Scripps Institute of Oceanography Environmental Chemistry It is truly wonderful to be back on campus, in the lab with students and in our classrooms. During the previous year, I had the pleasure of teaching my largest climate change course ever: 84 first-year students signed up in fall 2020 for Introduction to Global Climate Change. Although we were online, students had opportunities to work in small groups and to speak with me one-on-one in-office hours. Since returning to campus this year, I have come across many of my students, excited to meet in person. In spring, I taught our Instrumental Analysis course, also remotely. This was a unique challenge since the purpose of the laboratory companion course is to get “hands-on experience” with our large inventory of research-grade instrumentation! However, students were able, through sometimes comical videos, to see the instruments in action. In some cases, we actually ran the experiments live (me in the lab on Zoom, them eagerly watching from home). With such a strong group of students, it’s hard to go wrong. Finally, in May 2021, some students came back to campus for summer research. I led a team of five students this summer on two projects: local measurements of particulate pollution chemistry and cloud chamber simulations in Paris, France. By some luck, we were able to travel to Paris during the time of the lowest spread of COVID19, and our experiments were the most successful yet. Back in Los Angeles, my remaining students independently managed six different pieces of equipment, ranging in complexity from low-cost sensors to aerosol mass spectrometers. We are now swimming in data!

Another exciting development is the opening of an inaugural line in climate studies at HMC, which will allow me to spend more of my teaching efforts in the fields of climate and environmental chemistry. As part of this new assignment, I am offering two climate change courses this fall: a first-year introductory course on climate change and a collaborative seminar on climate science and behavioral science, cotaught with Pomona psychology professor Adam Pearson.

At home, my son Taj (age 7) is enjoying his own return to in-person school. While he is excellent on Zoom, recess is a lot more fun when you can actually play with other children. We are all hoping for a safe and happy school year.

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Faculty and Staff 2021 Updates (continued) Adam R. Johnson B.A., Oberlin College PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Inorganic Chemistry It’s been a year, hasn’t it? Since my last annual report writing in fall 2019, the world has changed a lot. I am really happy to be back teaching in person this fall!

The pandemic hit me halfway through inorganic and inorganic lab, and I quickly converted that to an online format and got everyone through the course. I now also have a YouTube channel. I didn’t set foot on campus for more than a few minutes for several months, and then late in the summer (with much help from Kim Young) I filmed four experiments for frosh chem lab, which was taught virtually in fall 2020. Spring 2021 was a fully virtual inorganic and lab, and I did not take research students in summer 2021. Sydney Towell did a virtual computational senior thesis for 2021, and this fall I had three students in the lab, Veronica Show ’22, Emily Fok ’22 and Ellie Kim ’22. I decided to end the hydroamination project with two final publications over the last two years and have launched into a new project studying later transition metals such as cobalt, copper and iron. We are trying to build complexes that can react with carbon dioxide.

It is too early at this point to know if we have anything to report, but we will have a poster at ACS in San Diego, hopefully in person, spring 2022.

This fall I taught Writ 1 with Professor Anna Ahn from the biology department. Our readings focus on the topic of race relations in America. I am also the lead instructor for first-year laboratory, and I am training our three visiting faculty who all report that they enjoy the laboratory experience.

My kids have both been home for the last 18 months; my older child has been taking classes at a local community college and my younger is now a senior in high school. Wow. We’ve done a few college visits and have that whole process to look forward to. Crista and I are doing a lot of cycling and a lot less running, with three events planned for fall 2022. I’ll be on sabbatical for 2022–2023 so who knows, maybe I’ll show up unexpectedly at your doorstep!

Kerry K. Karukstis B.S., Duke University PhD, Duke University Physical Chemistry I hope this message finds you and your family healthy and thriving. After more than a year of virtual classes, it’s absolutely wonderful to be back on campus even with all of our COVID restrictions. I’m currently teaching P Chem and P Chem Lab, and I’m happy to report that our beautiful, recently renovated P Chem lab easily came back to life despite having sat empty for 20 months. In fact, day-to-day life on campus almost seems normal.

Professional life beyond Harvey Mudd has migrated to Zoom for the foreseeable future. I’m serving as the 2021 chair of the ACS Committee on Professional Training, the group responsible for reviewing and granting approval to chemistry departments throughout the country enabling programs to offer ACScertified chemistry degrees. I also continue to serve as co-principal investigator on my National Science Foundation IUSE (Improving Undergraduate STEM Education) grant assisting 24 departments of biology, chemistry, physics and psychology across the country integrate and scaffold the components of undergraduate research throughout a four-year curriculum. This research project aims to develop a model for systemic change for other departments and institutions seeking to implement research-rich undergraduate curricula. During the past year, we focused on presenting our findings at a variety of conferences and are now drafting a book and online toolkit for dissemination. One of our senior chemistry majors joined me during our summer 2021 research program to analyze data on the curricular transformation process on these campuses. I also continue to serve as a reviewer for the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship program to recognize students with outstanding research potential in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics. The award symposium and award ceremony for my 2020 ACS Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution were held virtually in April 2021.

On a personal note, I can’t believe that I have not been on a plane for more than 21 months! I did take a summer road trip to Charlotte to visit my brother, and I am anxious to start traveling again as life around the country improves. I hope you all are happy and healthy. Please stay in touch.

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Faculty and Staff 2021 Updates (continued) Penny Manisco B.S., University of Southern California Laboratory Technician & Chemical Hygiene Officer The last academic year brought challenges as I sought productive ways to fill my time working from home.

I mostly attempted to stay current with best practices that would help researchers minimize the possibility of COVID transmission. I spent many hours on webinars from safety groups, medical organizations and even ventilation experts to learn how to best protect our workers while in the lab.

I took advantage of the work-from-home-in-my-sweatpants days to develop policies that I have long seen a need for. I was able to draft a Lab Decommissioning Policy to assist researchers who plan to leave their lab spaces due to retirement, renovation or a host of other reasons. The policy includes instructions for chemical, biological or radiological agent disposal or relocation, instrument removal and general cleaning.

The policy draft was reviewed, revised and ultimately recommended by the Faculty Safety Committee for approval. We also have a Minors in Laboratories Policy in the works.

I was also asked to present a talk at the annual CSHEMA conference, virtually, of course! CSHEMA is the Campus Safety, Health, and Environmental Management Association, to which I belong. I spoke on the benefits of having an embedded safety professional who works within a particular department. Benefits may include providing training that is tailored to specific labs, groups or teams. Being embedded facilitates getting to know faculty and students and understanding their research and safety needs and concerns The more routine aspects of safety took some time off. There was little to no active research happening.

Our Student Lab Safety Officer program took a pause last year and this year. Hopefully that program will ramp up full speed next year. [Note: Penny recently left HMC after 13 years]

Annalee Sendis B.S., University of La Verne Chemical Hygiene Officer & Chemistry Laboratory Coordinator Since Penny recently relocated to the beach area, we warmly welcome Annalee as our new chemical hygiene officer and chemistry laboratory coordinator,

Peter Sanchez Scientific Instrumentation Technician

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Faculty and Staff 2021 Updates (continued) Gerald R. Van Hecke ’61 B.S., Harvey Mudd College PhD, Princeton University Physical Chemistry Being on sabbatical, and dodging COVID did not lead to a great deal of classroom time, but what was a great adventure was a particular travel.

Some of you older alumni might remember the General Motors advertisement for Chevrolet cars—it was a jingle that went something like “See the USA in your Chevrolet; America is asking you to call!” With that challenge, I drove my Chevrolet (Silverado 1500) across 7,500 miles of the USA, visiting 14 National Parks, four National Monuments, one National Memorial and two National Seashores in the space of 19 days. It is amazing to relate, yet alone to experience, driving 80 mph on two-lane highways and not encountering cars for 100 miles, yet that can happen in the open spaces of Arizona, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Of course, 19 days does not a year make, so what else happened? Most of the professional year was spent on writing manuscripts based on the work of Bandon Wada ’20 and Oliver Baldwin ’21. The manuscripts have been submitted, and the work is now to appease the reviewers, which is underway.

Return to the classroom this semester means teaching P Chem lab after it had been dormant for two years and Industrial Chemistry in its 42nd year.

Stephen Gross ’22 has cast his lot with me for his thesis work. He will be pursuing molecular dynamic simulations aimed at calculating some of the physical properties that Brandon and Oliver measured over the past three years. These are new calculations for both of us, so we'll see what happens.

I usually conclude these remarks with “keep us in your thoughts, and us tell what your adventures and successes have been.” I would also encourage you to join the HMC “chapter” on LinkedIn to keep up with your classmates and maybe even look for new jobs. Look into the new MuddCompass which is another web-based means of keeping up with the College.

Katherine Van Heuvelen B.A., St. Olaf College PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison Inorganic Chemistry Sending good wishes to you and yours for a safe and healthy year ahead. It’s always lovely to hear from alums; never hesitate to reach out or, if you are in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello.

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Faculty and Staff 2021 Updates (continued) Hal Van Ryswyk B.A., Carleton College PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison Analytical and Materials Chemistry

Say what you will regarding the quality of laboratory instruction during a pandemic, but we set a record in the chemical analysis lab, aka “the aquarium project,” during the spring 2021 semester: We did not lose a single, virtual fish!

As you might expect, it was spectacular to get back into the research lab with student coworkers during the ensuing summer of 2021. We made great progress on tuning the surface chemistry of nanostructured, dual-layer zinc oxide photoanodes for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (the Rube Goldberg system of lowcost photovoltaics). In our lead sulfide quantum dot bulk heterojunction system, we moved closer to our goal of being able to synthesize the quantum dots and perform a phase-transfer ligand exchange to form a quantum dot “ink” that can be used to print thin-film, air-stable photovoltaics. The ensuing ITO/ZnO/PbS/Au cells are the most efficient solar cells of any type made at HMC to date. A recent NSFMajor Research Instrumentation award in support of a Claremont-wide “toolset” for the creation and characterization of photovoltaics has greatly enhanced our ability to work in the nanometer length scale.

We augmented our existing field emission scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive x-ray analysis (FE-SEM/EDX for instrumentation acronym aficionados) with an IPCE/EQE (incident photon conversion efficiency/external quantum efficiency) bench, an opto-electronic test bench, an automated metal evaporator and a wide array of AM1.5G solar simulators. Pomona physics professors Janice Hudgings and David Tanenbaum ’88 are our co-PIs. Charlotte and I take every available opportunity to visit our family. We were able to spend a week in Oregon during August providing childcare for our grandchildren. Three years ago, we won the Yosemite National Park High Sierra Camp lottery wherein hikers are permitted to book a five-day, ranger-lead hike of the high country with each night at a different backcountry camp where staff cook for the hikers. After being deferred three times (too much snow, COVID, COVID) perhaps summer 2022 will be the year that we finally go! Finally, we look forward to returning to the Optical Materials Engineering Lab at ETH-Zürich in the fall of 2022 for a year of writing, research and travel.

Please drop us a line; we would love to hear what is new with you!

David A. Vosburg B.A., Williams College PhD, The Scripps Research Institute Organic Chemistry March 2020 was the start of a challenging year, as we all pivoted to remote instruction. Thankfully, I was able to adapt our organic chemistry courses and laboratories to virtual formats that still helped students grow and feel part of a supportive learning community. Even some of the new green chemistry experiments I had been eager to introduce could be incorporated into online laboratory courses. While much of the synthetic work in my laboratory took a one-year hiatus, I was able to find other ways to be productive. I’ve continued collaborative work with colleagues in Mexico and wrote a chapter for an ACS book on green chemistry education.

The pandemic forced a pause in our cherished tradition of hosting meals with students at our home, but we hope to restart those. Having all five of us (Kate, me, and the kids) at home all day with schools closed was tough, but it became more bearable with a trampoline in our backyard that kept Diego entertained. He soon mastered both front and backflips and can do several in a row. Isabella is jumping horses now, and Nate is closing in on Eagle Scout and enjoying high school chemistry. Kate is figuring out how to do online campus ministry. Here's a family picture from December 2020 (Nate, Kate, Izzy, Dave, Diego)

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Faculty and Staff 2021 Updates (continued) Kimberly Young A.A., Chaffey College PACE Certified Administrative Coordinator It was wonderful to return to campus in May and actually run a small, successful summer research program with students in person. Things even got better when all our students and faculty returned to campus for the fall semester.

On a personal note, my youngest daughter, Jessica, was recently married, and I gained a terrific son-inlaw, Matthew. He recently earned a master’s in business and is a GM for Target. Jessica was working in social services but decided to head back to school to earn her esthetician license. My oldest daughter, Cynthia, opened up her own salon, transforming an old dental office into a beautiful haven. She and her husband, James, who is the fiscal manager for the city of Redlands, recently bought a home. She is a very busy business owner and homeowner. Once Jessica takes her state boards, she will be joining her sister in the salon. Lately, I have taken an interest in jigsaw puzzles—go figure!

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