HMC Students to Present at National ACS Meeting

Twelve Harvey Mudd College students will present their research findings at the 245th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting, April 7-11 in New Orleans.

The student’s work includes subjects such as the biomimetic synthesis of natural products, HIV-AIDS gene therapy and the use of nanostructured semiconductors for solar energy conversion.

“Allowing our students to see how large, varied and vital the wider chemical community is proves a real eye opener,” said HMC Department of Chemistry Chair Hal Van Ryswyk. “Just being on site with 11,000 chemical professionals in a variety of jobs and career paths is exciting. Attending a meeting of this scale allows students to start to network, explore careers and stay abreast of the latest results and technology.”

Every year, the HMC Department of Chemistry sends 10 to 25 students to the ACS national meeting to present the results of their research in a series of symposia at the forefront of science. This year’s projects include:

Bram Carlson ’13

“Oxidation of methane by cofactor F430”

Jonathan Chance Crompton ’13

“Determination of the lyotropic liquid crystalline phases formed by green surfactants in ionic liquids through fluorescence spectroscopy”

Brian Fielder ’13

“A four-step, stereoselective synthesis of artemone”

Katie Hilleke ’13

“Tandem cross-coupling/electrocyclization cascades: a modular strategy”
“Towards a total synthesis of beilschmiedic acid C”

Marie Kirkegaard ’15

“Determination of the binary phase diagrams of n-octyl--D-glucoside and n-heptyl--D-thioglucoside in the ionic liquid 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate”

Cory Evans-Klock ’13

“Towards a total synthesis of erythrophloin C”
“Stereoselective syntheses of antifungal davanoids”

Alex Kohn ’13

“Spectroscopically validated computational study of the reduction of haloalkanes by cobaloximes”

Julia Lee ’14 and Bethany Okada ’13

“Towards a total synthesis of endiandramide A”

Morgan Luckey ’14

“Formaldehyde detection using liquid crystal birefringence”

Emma Van Burns ’13 and Sejal Shah ’14

“Coupling of a homologous series of porphyrin dyes to zinc oxide nantotube photoanodes in dye-sensitized solar cells”

Scott Rayermann ’13 will attend the national meeting, but will not do a presentation.

“As you can see, a good fraction of the students we take are underclassmen presenting their results from a summer research experience here on campus,” Van Ryswyk said.

As for HMC seniors, more than 80 percent have done research before they start their capstone senior thesis and, of these, about 65 percent have participated in HMC’s Summer Research Program, which engages students in 10 weeks of paid, full-time research.