Departmental News Hans Lischka has a presentation, “The Explanation of Non-Kasha Fluorescence of Pyrene by means of Surface-Hopping Dynamics”, on February 4, 2024, at the Mesilla Workshop 2024, Mesilla, NM, USA Prof Mechref gave an invited keynote lecture, “Nano-Sclae Separation of Glycan Isomers Derived from Biological Samples,” at the 28th Latin American Symposium on Biotechnology, Biomedical, Biopharmaceutical, and Industrial Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis, Microchip, and Mass Spectrometry Technologies (LACE), December 4-7, 2023, Mexico City, Mexico. Prof. Mechref gave an invited Keynote lecture, “Defining Glycan and Glycopeptide Isomers of Biologics and Biosimilars by Mass Spectrometry, Advanced QM/MM Modeling and AI,” at the DU-Pharm 2023, the 2nd International Conference of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Delta University for Science and Technology, 2-3 December 2023, Cairo, Egypt. Prof. Mechref gave an invited panelist lecture, “Development of Therapeutics through AI: Fact and Fiction,” at the DU-Pharm 2023, the 2nd International Conference of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Delta University for Science and Technology, 2-3 December 2023, Cairo, Egypt. Prof. Poirier and Ankit Pandey had an oral presentation at the Mesilla Workshop in Honor of Bill Hase in Mesilla, New Mexico. The topic was “Plumbing potentials for molecules with up to tens of atoms: How to find saddle points, fix leaky holes, build hole-free PESs, and find CI seam minima” Prof. Poirier and Jonathan Jerke had an oral presentation at the TACCSTER 2023 Symposium for Texas Researchers, Texas Advanced Computing Consortium in Austin, TX. The topic was “Subspace Methods in Era of Quantum Computing.” Prof. Poirier and Jonathan Jerke displayed a poster at the TACCSTER 2023 Symposium for Texas Researchers, Texas Advanced Computing Consortium in Austin, TX. The topic of the poster was “Classic Subspace.” Prof Poirier and Juan Garcia presented a poster at the TTU Department of Physics and Astronomy Poster Competition at TTU Department of Physics and Astronomy. The poster topic was “Heterojunctions in Cryogenic Conditions: Quantum and Operational Analysis.” Prof. Poirier and Mahdi Aarabi presented a poster at the ACS Southwest Regional Meeting, American Chemical Society in Stillwater, OK. The topic of the poster was “Creating potential energy surfaces on the fly, using the Crystal code.” Prof. Poirier and Maik Reddiger presented a poster, Quantum Effects in Gravitational Fields, Leipzig, Germany. The topic of the poster was “Towards a Probabilistic Foundation of Relativistic Quantum Theory The One-Body Born Rule in Curved Spacetime” Prof. Poirier and Jonathan Jerke presented a poster at Royal Society of Chemistry virtual conference. The topic of the poster was “Three Electrons in a Harmonic Trap.” Prof. Poirier, Sarah Mahasin, and Benjamin Nguyen presented a poster at the National Meeting of the Association of Academic Physiatrists titled “Complications of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) for Long COVID Symptoms”. Dr. Henry Shine turned 101 in January. Prof. Mechref served as a member of an NSF study section panel, January 10-12, 2024. Prof. Mechref's article published in Biomolecules, 13 (2023) 1589, https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13111589, is selected as the journal cover page.
The Park Group has been awarded an NSF CAREER grant for the project titled, "CAREER: Tiny Drops of Acid: Microwave spectroscopy and isomer-resolved IR spectroscopy of hydrohalic acid-water clusters." The award is for a total funding of $569,970 over the 2024-2029 period.
Prof. Georgieva was selected as a recipient of a Gilead Research Scholars Program (HIV) Award to advance her studies in HIV-1 Vpu complexes with host proteins.
Prof. Korzeniewski's lab is part of the new Center for Ionomer-based Water Electrolysis (CIWE) led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in connect with the DOE Energy Earthshot Research Center program+ More(https://science.osti.gov/Initiatives/SCEarthshots/EERCs). The Center aims to improve hydrogen generation by analyzing the use of ion-conducting polymers (ionomers) for low-temperature electrolysis. CIWE partners are Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Colorado School of Mines, Texas Tech University, University of Oregon, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UC Merced. Texas Tech will receive $670,000 over the four-year project period beginning Jan 1, 2024.
Prof. Mechref is elected as the spokesperson for the Horn Distinguished Professors starting January 2024.
Hans Lischka was awarded the European Chemical Society, Division of Computational and Theoretical Chemistry: Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing Computational and Theoretical Chemistry to new frontiers and contributing to the impact of the discipline on chemical research on August 28, 2023
Tan Nguyen, a student of Prof. Kristufek, placed 3rd in the 3-minute thesis competition out of a pool of competitors. He was awarded $100 as a prize. His thesis was about modifying current plastic bottles with an additional monomer to increase in the efficiency of the recycling process. If this modification works, it'll increase the prices of plastic bottles but it will ensure that most of those bottles don't end up in the ocean or landfilled
Two articles from Prof. Gamez' group were selected as top finalists for the 2022 Edward Steers Memorial Award for the Best Paper in Glow Discharge Spectroscopy, + Morefrom the European Working Group on Glow Discharge Spectroscopy: - 3rd Place: Zhang, D.; Zeldes, D.; Gamez, G.* Three-Dimensional Mass Spectral Imaging of Polymers via Laser-Assisted Micro-Pyrolysis Program Flowing Atmospheric-Pressure Afterglow Ambient Mass Spectrometry, Anal. Chem., 2022, 94, 3335-3342. DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c05413. - 2nd Place: Gamez, G.*; She, Y.; Rivera, P.; Shi, S.; Finch, K. High-Throughput Single-Pixel Spectral Imaging System For Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectrometry Elemental Mapping Enabled by Compressed Sensing, J. Anal. Atom. Spectrom., 2022, 37, 805 – 813. DOI: 10.1039/D2JA00021K.
Judith Nawaiwu, a Ph.D. Student in Prof. Mechref's Laboratory was awarded a James D. and Mary Hazlewood Memorial Graduate Fellowship
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is committed to providing high quality education in the chemical and biochemical sciences for undergraduate and graduate students, producing research contributions that are recognized nationally and internationally, and making service contributions at all levels.
The Bill Hase Memorial Scholarship continues to receive a steady flow of donations, with 21 new non-anonymous donors having contributed since November, 2021. These come from around the country and around the world—and of course, from TTU. Click here for more details.
Monday, March 18th, 2024• Ph.D. DEFENSE Mychele JornsWednesday, March 20th, 2024• DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR Dr. Matthew EddyFriday, March 22nd, 2024• Ph.D. DEFENSE Peilin JiangMonday, March 25th, 2024• Ph.D. DEFENSE Yao Tang• Ph.D. DEFENSE Hongjia QianWednesday, March 27th, 2024• DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR Dr. Elfi Kraka
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