Dave Vosburg, Donald A. Strauss Professor of Chemistry, has been at the College since 2005. Inside the lab, Vosburg leads a group of molecule-making students, and outside he strives \u201cto generally be a blessing\u201d to the people around him on campus. Vosburg and his students seek to make medicinally useful molecules in new ways, especially in biomimetic ways, using chemistry that imitates how such molecules are believed to be formed naturally in plants. \u201cIn ideal cases, it almost seems like the molecules are making themselves!\u201d he says. They also seek to use environmentally friendly methods that minimize waste, toxicity and hazards. \u201cSome of our target molecules can be used to fight inflammation, bacteria, fungi or tuberculosis. Often we make molecules that no one else has ever made before!\u201d Learn more about Vosburg, including what superpower he\u2019d like to have and how he\u2019d use it, in this Q-and-A. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love being able to bring other fun parts of my life into my job, like caring about sustainability, loving J. R. R. Tolkien\u2019s Middle-earth and listening to students\u2019 questions about how science and religious belief can go together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is so cool when your students have made a new molecule that no one else has ever made before! Everything we learn about it is brand-new, and we possess the world\u2019s supply of it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d swap with someone from CIS with an awesome view from the fifth floor of Sprague. I love great window views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An amazing new building that would offer fantastic views of what\u2019s going on inside the building as well as views for those inside to see the world outside as a reminder of the impact of their work at Mudd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shrimp tacos or fried plantains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I feel most connected when colleagues share about things that don\u2019t typically come up in normal conversation. For example, when new faculty members are introduced by the dean of faculty, we often get a fun fact about each new hire in their first faculty meeting. We also had an Office of Institutional Diversity series in which colleagues shared about their life journeys and what was important to their development as a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love to follow collegiate sports, whether it\u2019s CMS, Williams College (my alma mater) or the University of Michigan (where my parents met as grad students). Lately, I\u2019ve been very into the CMS tennis teams, which have been featuring a lot of Mudders! CMS will be hosting the Division 3 NCAA Tennis Championships in Claremont next May, making it a must-see event!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Always keep in mind who I\u2019m really living and working for, advice I got from Colossians 3:23. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My top strategies for managing stress are: praying about it, getting exercise (like biking to and from work each day), and spending time with my family. All of those help and all of them together are definitely the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would like to talk with molecules (if they could think and talk) so I would know how they want to react in new ways. There\u2019s so much I\u2019d learn about chemistry and about the world!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m learning about New Zealand, as I\u2019m going there for a sabbatical during the 2027\u201328 academic year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m currently enjoying a poem by J. R. R. Tolkien called \u201cMythopoeia\u201d (myth making). Tolkien\u2019s reflections about creating new things are inspiring to me as a molecule maker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have several large Lord of the Rings<\/em> LEGO sets in my HMC office, and they bring me joy. Come see them if you like! A couple of Mudd students pranked one of the sets a few years ago, and I have left some of the prank intact to remind me about them and their fun antics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dave Vosburg, Donald A. Strauss Professor of Chemistry, has been at the College since 2005. Inside the lab, Vosburg leads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":15521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14,217],"class_list":["post-15809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chemistry","category-faculty","category-unlisted"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15809"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15816,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15809\/revisions\/15816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}