I will continue the trend of introductions.

I grew up in upstate New York with an interest in pursuing a scientific career in some form. I entered the University of Richmond (VA) with the intention of pursuing medical school upon graduation, but after taking organic chemistry (and loving it), I quickly discovered where my real talents were. I conducted research in organic chemistry with Drs. Stuart Clough and John Gupton, who were so influential in my development that I became more interested in an academic career. I had always been interested in education and teaching (it’s in my genes, too, I think), so upon graduation in 2004, I continued my study of chemistry with the idea that I would one day teach and do research at a small PUI.

I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 2009. I worked with Professor Eric Meggers on the synthesis and biological evaluation of ruthenium(II)-based drugs. During my tenure at UPenn (with a two-year detour to Marburg, Germany to continue research), I was exposed to a lot of interdisciplinary work in organic, inorganic, and biological chemistry and was awarded an NIH Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Grant Fellowship to support my studies.

After graduation, I returned to the U.S. for postdoctoral research with Professor Seth Herzon at Yale University where I studied the synthesis and mechanism of action of the potent anticancer agents known as the diazofluorenes. With a continuing interest in an academic career that balanced both teaching and research, I decided to leave Yale in 2010 to gain some additional classroom experience. For the past two years, I have been a Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow here at Boston University (BU), where I have conducted research with Professor John Snyder on new intramolecular [2+2+2] cyclization methodology for the synthesis of hinge-binding 2-aminopyridines. My teaching obligations have been primarily in Intensive Organic Chemistry I/II. In addition to teaching the discussions, labs, and pre-lab lecture and designing the laboratory curriculum, I had a chance to make a significant contribution to course advancement by implementing an electronic laboratory notebook, designing new experiments, and creating an online repository of experiments for the exchange of ideas among faculty worldwide.

While at BU, I had a chance to become a part of the Chemical Writing Program, where I developed course materials and served as a writing assisant. I also co-directed the Chemistry Department’s Outreach Program, along with fellow PFF Dr. Katie Frato and Boston University Women in Chemistry (BUWIC).

I have found the PFF experience to have been incredibly valuable in both the classroom and research laboratory, not to mention being blessed with the best of students! In the fall 2012, I will begin a tenure-track position at Providence College (RI), where I will be performing research in organic chemistry and teaching undergraduates at all levels. While it will be sad to leave BU, I am eager to begin my new journey.

Hi all–thought I would follow Adam’s lead and introduce myself.

Here at BU I’m a chemist, but my path toward chemistry has taken many twists and turns. I did my undergraduate work at The College of Wooster in Ohio, where I was a double major in both biology and physics. Wooster gave me lots of great opportunities for research, especially through the senior Independent Study (“IS”). I also had some awesome summer research experiences: organic farming research at the OARDC, a physics REU at Bucknell University, and a biomedical research REU at the University of Rochester.

My physics/biology background lead me to graduate work at Johns Hopkins, in the Program in Molecular and Computational Biophysics. I worked with Bob Schleif on the most interesting protein in the world, AraC. I developed a method to quantify ultra-weak interactions between the two domains of AraC, and learned to view biology within a quantitative framework.

After mentoring lots of undergraduates in our lab at JHU, I was thinking that teaching at a small PUI (like Wooster) would be a great career. That lead me here, to the BU PFF program, where I’ve worked in General Chemistry CH109/110 for the past two years.

Next year I’ll be here at BU, spending an intensive year doing research in Sean Elliott’s group and getting ready to apply for “real” PUI jobs.

This purpose of this blog is to allow current and former PFFs to be able to discuss topics and ask  questions more easily.  It was also discussed that PFFs that use the blog should introduce themselves so help get an idea of where we all are, so this is my introduction.

I did my undergraduate at Wabash College (small, liberal arts, undergrad only) in chemistry.  I was involved in a lot of undergraduate research, which sparked my interest and got me to go to grad school.  My graduate work was in computational chemistry at the University of Minnesota for Dr. Darrin York (who is now at Rutgers).  My graduate work was fairly broad (e.g. implicit solvation, DFT, force field parameterization) because I was trying to get a grasp of as much of the field as I could because I knew I wanted to teach at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI).

After I received my Ph.D. I came to Boston University as a PFF.  I worked with John Straub on simulations of reverse micelles and taught general chemistry.  I got to be involved in the redesign of the general chemistry course (CH101/102) and helped start the Learning Assistant program.  As a PFF I got to be involved in a lot of course development and really evolved my teaching philosophy.  I started my own teaching blog just to help organize all the good information I was gathering as a PFF.

I recently accepted a position at Loras College and I start there in fall 2012.  I’m very excited, but also nervous because of all the demands on my time (i.e. teaching, advising, new course generation, new program development, research lab start up, external funding, having a life outside of my job, etc).