Awards and Accolades
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
The Liang Group has been honored with the distinguished Maximizing Investigators'
Research Award (MIRA, R35) from the National Institutes of Health, under Grant No.
1R35GM150780. The Liang group is awarded a total funding of $1,788,834 for the period
spanning from 2023 to 2028.+ MoreThis prestigious national award acknowledges the distinguished achievements of early-stage
principal investigators in the biomedical sciences.
Dimitri Pappas has received an NIH SBIR grant entitled “Development of A Novel Nanoparticle
Biosensor for Rapid, Point-of-Care Sepsis Diagnosis and Risk Assessment” alongside
NaMi Diagnostics, LLC, a start-up company led by his former student, Dr. Ke Liu. Dr.
Pappas's share of the 1-year Phase 1 grant is $65,306.
Prof. Kristin Hutchins received the Margaret C. Etter Early Career Award from the
American Crystallographic Association (ACA) on July 9, 2023 at the 73rd Annual ACA
Meeting.+ MoreShe also delivered a plenary lecture entitled "The Dynamic Side of Crystals: How Structure
Influences Function in the Solid-State". Link: https://www.amercrystalassn.org/etter-hutchins-2023
Additional Departmental News
Student Highlights
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
Our Vision
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.

Bill Hase Memorial Scholarship
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.
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