2023 Departmental News

Prof. Mechref is elected as the spokesperson for the Horn Distinguished Professors starting January 2024.

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

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

Hans Lischka has been elected as corresponding member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, presentation ceremony on May 10, 2023, Naval Academy, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Prof. Smith Lung Cancer Discovery Award from the American Lung Association. The award is for $100,000 per year for two years. The project title is: "Resolving the protein-level effects of novel oncogenic variants of EGFR".

Prof. Jorge A. Morales received an award from the TTU Office of the Vice President of Institutional Diversity during the Hispanic/Latin Men in The Academy Luncheon on May 1st, 2023. The award recognizes Prof. Morales efforts in teaching and research.

Prof. Ge's Welch proposal was renewed. The project, “Palladium-Catalyzed Enantioselective Isomerization of Alkenes,” was funded for 3 years at $300,000.

Prof. Mechref was elected for a 2nd term to Chair the Steering Committee of the Alliance of Glycobiologists for Cancer Research. + MoreThe Alliance is funded by NIH-NCI, supporting 10 U01 projects at several Institutions, including Texas Tech University, University of Michigan, Medical University of South Carolina, Stanford University, Florida International University, Van Andel Research Institute, University of Alabama, Drexel University and the University of South Florida.

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

Song Prize: Kevin Finch

Ming Sun Family Graduate Research Awards: Peilin Jiang, Cristian Gutierrez-Reyes, Junyao Wang, Dylan Tharp Eralie, Navkiran Juneja, Maryam Yekefallah

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award in: General Chemistry: Evan van Aalst, Benedicta Quainoo,
Organic Chemistry: Olivia Villanueva Mazen Elsaid
Upper-Division Chemistry: Mychele Jorns, Mazen Elsaid

Cengage General Chemistry TA Awards: Evan van Aalst, Dong Zhang, Jun Jang, Jayendra Chunduru Benedicta Quainoo, Arun Bhujel, Joy Solomon, Umut Ozuguzel

Chemistry Graduate Student Organization Scholarship: Junyao Wang, Maryam Yekefallah, Nandakumar Katakam, Navkiran Juneja, Amirhossein Bakhtiiari

Ginny Shen Lin Endowed Scholarship (*Shared Division Award): Junyao Wang, Hongjia Qian, * Maryam Yekefallah, * Olivia Villanueva, * Ashley Moreno-Gongora, * Gary George, Juan Dominguez

Richard Goodin Graduate Research Fellowship:Yao Tang

2023 Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowships:Gary George, Olivia Villanueva, Sophia Sagala, Harsshit Agrawaal

Prof. Annie Gorden won the Margaret Wilson award as the outstanding Alumna from the Lubbock Alumnae chapter of Delta Gamma fraternity.

Prof. Yehia Mechref received a competing renewal of his NIH R01 grant entitled "Quantitative Characterization of Glycopeptide Isomers.” + MoreThis award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences totals $1.3 Million over four years (this brings the total support on this NIH project to $2.5M over the project lifetime). Both of Yehia's R01 main grants have now both been funded through competing renewal.

Prof. Quitevis served on the Ford Foundation Fellowships Online Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Sciences Panel Review on March 13-14, 2023.

Prof. Jorge A. Morales has been appointed in the editorial board of the scientific journal Frontiers.

Prof. Poirier's article last year in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (PCCP 24, 4437 (2022)) has been added to a special themed collection celebrating the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Prof. Poirier was invited to write a perspective article for ACS Omega.

Tessa Hoang, an undergraduate student in the Gorden group, has been selected for a Travel Award from the Division of Inorganic Chemistry (DIC) of the American Chemical Society. This will provide her funding for presenting her poster at the Indianapolis ACS meeting at the end of March.

Sophia Sagala (graduate student in Prof. Quitevis's group) was selected to receive a Texas Tech University Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowship for Fall 2023.

Prof. Carol Korzeniewski has been elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). https://today.ttu.edu/posts/2023/01/Stories/Texas-Techs-Carol-Korzeniewski-Named-AAAS-Fellow

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