| Number 31 | John L. Burmeister, Editor | August 2004 |
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The graduate program in Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of Delaware continues to gain strength. The current enrollment is 153 graduate students, and the Department awarded 1 M.A., 8 M.S., and 17 Ph.D. degrees in the past academic year.
Thanks to the efforts of the Teaching Assistantships and Fellowships (TAF) Committee (Profs. John Koh, Sharon Neal, Clifford Robinson, Andrew Teplyakov, Klaus Theopold, and Neal Zondlo)and the faculty as a whole, the 2004 recruiting season slightly surpassed its target of 25 students—29 students will enroll this fall. In large part, our success rests on a generally greater recognition of research in the Department and the continued success of our annual recruiting weekend, which attracted 26 potential graduate students to Newark for two days to see our state-of-the-art research facilities, attend a Department-wide poster session, and meet with students, faculty, and staff. Based on what they saw and heard, 12 of our visitors decided to join us this fall. Others of the incoming class visited the Department individually, and the efforts of the faculty, students, and staff to make the visits informative, interesting, and fun led to the success in graduate recruiting.
We are striving to enhance our continual recruiting efforts—and you can help. Word of mouth and personal advice remain the most powerful way for us to attract applicants. We are preparing the annual update to our brochure and plan to launch a website featuring streaming video of professors describing their research. The continued popularity of the periodic table/genetic code cards (in the size and form of a yellow credit card) is helping spread the word about Delaware Chem & Biochem. If you know potential graduate students, please do not hesitate to contact Ms. Jen Stringer (gradrecruiting@chem.udel.edu) to obtain a brochure and the useful little yellow card for your potential recruit.
The Glenn S. Skinner Award recognizes outstanding achievement by a graduate student in the Department who most fully exemplifies outstanding performance in scholarship, research, and service to the department. It is the premier award for Ph.D. students in Chemistry & Biochemistry, and it includes a $2,200 award. Juliana Kretsinger (Prof. Joel Schneider) was the recipient of this year's Skinner Award, based on the creativity and versatility she showed in a range of projects that examined the structural propensity and applications of peptides. We are all confident that Julie will continue to make us proud as she assumes a job at Eli Lilly.
The Elizabeth Dyer Excellence-in-Teaching Award acknowledges graduate students who have excelled as teaching assistants. This year's recipients were Sonia D'Souza (CHEM 214/216), Shawn Sullivan (CHEM 220/221), and Federico Cruz (CHEM 321/334), each of whom received $250 as part of the Dyer Award.
The annual Joel L. Silver Award Symposium encourages the development of graduate students' ability to communicate the results of scientific research in an oral presentation. Each participant presents the results of research conducted in the Department for 15 min, followed by a 5 min question and answer period. Daniel J. Cline (Profs. Joel Schneider and Colin Thorpe) won the Silver Award for his presentation "Masked Fluorescent Arsenical Probes for Protein Dithiols", including a cash award of $250. The other presenters were: Semyon Bocharov (Prof. Teplyakov); Gerald Buffone (Prof. Theopold); Pramod Joshi (Prof. Taber); and Juliana Kretsinger (Prof. Schneider).
I wish to extend the warmest appreciation of the Department to the distinguished members of the Silver Symposium jury: Dr. Clare Gutteridge (U.S. Naval Academy), Dr. Thomas Hanson (University of Delaware, Marine Studies), Dr. Andrea Martin (PhD81) (Widener University), Dr. Branislav Nikolic (University of Delaware, Physics & Astronomy), and Dr. Lois Weyer (MS77, PhD96) (Alliant Techsystems).
The University of Delaware provides graduate student fellowships in University-wide competition. The Department continues to be well-represented. Quamrul Hassan (Prof. John Koh) was supported by a University Competitive Fellowship. Fan Zhang (Prof. Joseph Fox) was named a University Graduate Fellow, and Pumtiwitt Raney (Prof. Colin Thorpe) was named a University Graduate Scholar for the coming academic year; both will be supported financially by these awards. Bravo to all of these students on these prestigious University-wide awards.
I would like to close by thanking Ms. Susan Cheadle and Ms. Jen Stringer for their tireless, cheerful, and efficient help to me as the Director of Graduate Studies. Prof. Charles Riordan's support and advice made this year's accomplishments possible. Finally, I wish to thank all of the faculty and students who have demonstrated the great effort and dedication to make the program continually better. I have been pleased and privileged to work with all of them and look forward to new successes for the graduate program in the coming year.