Apr 24, 2009 - Claremont, Calif. -

Chung Receives Research Fellowship

Andrew Chung ’10 has been selected as one of 12 undergraduates across the nation for the 2009 American Chemical Society Division of Organic Chemistry Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF).

Chung will be working in the lab of HMC Assistant Professor of Chemistry David Vosburg this summer. In addition to a $5,000 stipend, the program will provide financial support to enable Chung to visit an industrial campus in the fall for a dinner, award session, scientific talks, a tour of the campus and a poster session, where the results of the summer research investigations will be presented.

This is the third consecutive year that a student from Vosburg's lab has been chosen for a SURF fellowship with an industrial site visit attached. Karen Brown ’08 and Jonathan Litz ’09 were also chosen when this program was solely organized by Pfizer.

Chung was a finalist in the "Jeopardy!" 2008 College Championship. He won $25,000 for his appearance.

Rinker and Pai Score at NCAA Championships

Jenni Rinker ’11 was a member of five relay teams that set Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) and Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) records at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III Swimming and Diving Championships at Macalester College at the University of Minnesota in March. Rinker earned All-American status in the 200-yard medley relay and 400-yard medley relay, and Honorable Mention All-American status in the 200-yard and 800-yard freestyle relays. The CMS Athenas placed 6th as a team.

Vincent Pai ’12 was an Honorable Mention All-American in two events, and was named the SCIAC Athlete of the Week for March 16-22. Pai dominated the consolation final in the 200-yard breaststroke and finished ninth overall at the NCAA Division III Championships. He had the second-fastest time in the meet and won his race by 1.85 seconds. His time of 1:59.90 broke the CMS and SCIAC record set by a former NCAA champion by more than one second. He also finished 16th in the 100-yard breaststroke after qualifying with a personal best time of 56.45 (second-fastest in SCIAC history).

Garber Part of Pitzer Art Exhibition

Matthew Garber ’09 will be part of an exhibition titled "Twelve: Senior Art Exhibition, 2009" from April 23-May 16 at the Pitzer Art Galleries at Pitzer College. Hours are noon-5 p.m., Tuesday-Friday. More information about the show is available at the gallery website or via e-mail. Garber is an off-campus art major at Pitzer and chemistry minor at HMC.

Simkin and Strieter Named Robert Day Scholars

Jonathan (Jonny) Simkin ’09 and Christopher Strieter ’09 have been named Robert Day Scholars for 2009-10, and are among the second group of students entering the Masters Program in Finance at the recently established Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna College. The annoucement was made by Day School Director of Admission Kevin J. Arnold, and was the result of a rigorous three-phase admission process that resulted in the selection of 18 scholars for 2009-10.

HMC Research Published in Organic Letters

The work of a group of HMC students, alumni and faculty on synthesis of the antifungal and antispasmodic natural product davanone was published by the journal Organic Letters.

The online ASAP (as soon as publishable) version of the paper was made available April 14. The print version of the journal will be available in late April or early May.

The paper, titled "A Concise, Biomimetic Total Synthesis of (+)-Davanone," is co-authored by Karen C. Morrison ’08, Jonathan P. Litz ’09, Kathryn P. Scherpelz (PO ’07), Paul D. Dossa ’06 and David A. Vosburg, assistant professor of chemistry. Following is an abstract of the group's work:

A concise, biomimetic synthesis of the antifungal and antispasmodic natural product (+)-davanone is described. The key stereoselective reactions are a Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation, a thiazolium-catalyzed esterification, and a palladium-mediated cyclization. All carbons are derived from isoprene units and no protecting groups are used, permitting an atom- and redox-economical synthesis.

HMC Team Wins Robotics Competition

Rebecca Green ’11, Kate Burgers ’11 and Sabreen Lakhani ’11 won first place among the six teams in the robotics competition at the Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing in Portland, Ore., April 1-3, 2009.

The team's winning entry used an iRobot-based platform that they designed last summer as part of a Baker Foundation-funded summer project. The contest challenged system designers to create an autonomous agent that, working in an unknown environment, could find distinctly-colored landmarks and return back to the starting position.

"One key to their success was the fact that the HMC team opted not to use the off-the-shelf vision software that the other five teams chose," according to Zachary Dodds, associate professor of computer science. "Instead, they developed a set of image-processing routines from scratch. They integrated their vision system efficiently and seamlessly into the finite-state-machine they designed to control the robot. Indeed, the team's vision code has proven so flexible that it has been used in three HMC classes since they developed it."