Recent Retirements

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Among the biggest recent changes in the Chemistry Department is the advancement of several of our faculty to emeritus status over the last few years.  The department wishes them well on their new adventures.

Wallace (“Pete”) Pringle retired in 2012 after 43 years at Wesleyan.  He divides his time between Connecticut and Florida.  When he’s in the state, Pete can frequently be found around Hall-Atwater, where he still collaborates with Stew Novick’s group.
Phil Bolton became emeritus in 2016 and still resides in West Hartford where he is devoting more time to his horticultural interests and going on hikes with his dog, Daphne.
Also retiring in 2016, George Petersson has relocated to the Philadelphia area where he still stays scientifically active as a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Temple University. 
Rex Pratt became emeritus at the beginning of 2017 and has returned to Melbourne, Australia, quickly becoming an expert on the local pub culture and enjoying watching a lot more international cricket.
David Beveridge has simply moved across Lawn Avenue to assume the co-directorship of the Wasch Center for Retired Faculty.
Al Fry, who officially retired in Jan 2017, is still an active presence in the department and has no plans to do anything else until his current group of undergraduate and master students, has graduated.

Phi Beta Kappa Election

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Two senior chemistry majors were elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society this fall.  The fall election is limited to just a few students and the department is particularly proud in the fact that two of them are our majors.  Maya Marshall is a double major in Chemistry and Hispanic Literatures and Cultures and plans to pursue a medical career.  Aaron Stone is pursuing degrees in Chemistry and Math is working on a senior thesis in the Westmoreland lab.  This fall he will be heading off to a Ph.D. program.

More on the fall class of Phi Beta Kappa recipients and an attractive photo may be found at:
http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2017/12/08/17-seniors-elected-to-phi-beta-kappa-honor-society/?gaclick=featured

Free Radicals

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The tie-dye tradition continues!  The chemistry majors’ group, the Free Radicals, got together on a sunny Saturday afternoon last October to make tie-died lab coats.  Organized by Associate Professor of the Practice Andrea Roberts, and the Free Radicals co-leaders Jeanette Thornton (’18), Giselle Reyes (’18) and Theo Prachyathipsakul (‘19), nearly forty chemistry majors dyed lab coats, consumed Thai food, and indulged in liquid nitrogen ice cream.  The results are shown below.

Holiday Party 2017

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The Chemistry Department’s holiday party, organized largely by the graduate students, was held on campus at the Daniels Family Commons at the end of last semester.  It is always a highlight of the year and nearly everyone attended, but the absence of Prof. Pratt resulted in fewer creative dance moves this year.  Some candid photos from the event are below.

Prof. Colin Smith, Quanli Gu, Prof. Joe Knee, Barbara Knee
Steven Bertolino, Prof. Michelle Personick, Prof. Carlos Jiménez-Hoyos, Melisa Moreno Garcia
Walter Emmons, Terry Emmons, Holly King, Tom King
Sola Adediran, Prof. Suara (Deji) Adediran
Rachel Lowe, Prof. Anthony Davis
Tore King, Melissa King, Joy Cote
Angelika Rafalowski, Jozafina Milicaj
Sean McDarby, Andrea Lee

New Scanning Electron Microscope

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The Chemistry Department welcomes a new Hitachi SU5000 field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), which arrived in mid-January, to the newly renovated microscopy classroom in Wesleyan’s Advanced Microscopy Facility. The SU5000 has a resolution of 1.2 nm and it is equipped with an energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) detector to provide elemental and chemical analysis as well as other specialized detectors. The instrument will support the growing Materials Cluster in the Chemistry Department, particularly Prof. Personick’s research with catalytic metal nanoparticles, and will also be used by other research groups in Earth & Environmental Sciences, the Planetary Sciences Cluster, Physics, and Biology. Funding for the purchase of the FE-SEM was provided by a grant from the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation program, as well as matching funds from Wesleyan. Click here for more information on this new scanning electron microscope.

Some photos of the newly renovated space and renovations: