UK Department of Chemistry Regional Undergraduate Poster Competition

Jacobs Science Building - Second and Third floors (check-in located in JSB 261M)

The Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky will hold its annual Regional Poster Session for Undergraduates on Friday, March 31, 2023. Come participate in this opportunity to share your research and network with other undergraduate researchers in the region. There is no registration fee!

Abstracts are due by Friday, March 17, 2023. To submit an abstract and register, click here.

To view a copy of this year's abstract booklet, click here.

Note to UK students: Students in CHE 395 planning to graduate or otherwise conclude their research are required to participate in the Poster Competition if they have not done so in the past.

Please contact the department if you have questions.

Awards

Past winners include students from:

We thank the Lexington Section of the American Chemical Society for graciously funding the awards for this poster competition.

Archives

The Department of Chemistry hosts an annual Graduation Celebration and Awards Ceremony to recognize the outstanding achievements of our students on an annual basis.

For a list of recipients and graduates, please refer to the 2023 Graduation Celebration Program.

This lecture series commemorates the life and legacy of Professor Susan Odom, an energetic, productive, and driven faculty member in the Department of Chemistry from 2011 to 2021. It features speakers noted for outstanding research in Professor Odom’s fields of synthetic and materials chemistry.

Visit this page for more information on the Susan A. Odom lecture series.

Jodie L. Lutkenhaus

Bio: Jodie L. Lutkenhaus is holder of the Axalta Chair and Professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University. Lutkenhaus received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and her Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Current research areas include polyelectrolytes, redox-active polymers, energy storage, and composites. She has received recognitions including World Economic Forum Young Scientist, Kavli Fellow, NSF CAREER, AFOSR Young Investigator, 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award. She is the past-Chair of the AICHE Materials Engineering & Sciences Division. Lutkenhaus is the Deputy Editor of ACS Applied Polymer Materials and a member of the U.S. National Academies Board of Chemical Sciences & Technology. 

"Redox-active Macromolecular Radicals for Metal-Free, Degradable Batteries"

Abstract: Because of the projected shortages of elements used in Li-ion batteries and limited battery recycling, alternative electrode chemistries are gaining interest. Ideally, this future battery would contain materials that are easily sourced with little environmental impact, would be degradable of recyclable, and would bear similar or better energy storage characteristics in comparison to Li-ion batteries. This talk will examine one such promising battery chemistry, that of macromolecular radicals. These polymers generally contain redox-active nitroxide radical groups that reversibly exchange electrons at rates much higher that of current metal oxide cathodes. This manifests as a higher power or a high charging rate. The current challenges for macromolecular radical batteries are to understand the redox mechanism, to increase the energy density in metal-free or aqueous conditions, and to consider a circular life cycle. Insight into the polymer’s redox mechanism is provided using electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring, in which mixed electron-ion-solvent transfer is quantified. This knowledge reveals why certain metal-free, aqueous electrolytes are well-suited to this polymer class. Last, an organic peptide battery that degrades on command into amino acids and byproducts provides a path forward toward recycling for a circular life cycle. Collaborative work on polypeptide redox flow batteries with the late Susan Odom is highlighted.

Speakers
	Dr. Erin Calipari Vanderbilt University Dr. Calipari received her PhD in Neuroscience in 2013 in the laboratory of Dr. Sara Jones at Wake Forest University School of Medicine where she studied how self-administered drugs altered dopaminergic function to drive addictive behaviors. She then went on to complete her postdoctoral training with Dr. Eric Nestler at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she used circuit probing techniques to understand the temporally specific neural signals that underlie motivation and reward learning. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Pharmacology. Her independent work seeks to characterize and modulate the precise circuits in the brain that underlie both adaptive and maladaptive processes in reward, motivation, and associative learning. Group Page
	Dr. Tim Harris Johns Hopkins University Timothy Harris is a research professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He leads the Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group at the HHMI Janelia Research Campus, and is the originator of the project that produced the Neuropixels Si probe for extracellular recording in animals, mostly mice, and rats. He shares his time between Janelia and Johns Hopkins and is working on projects to enable recording 10-20,000 neurons in rodents and 30-50,000 neurons in non-human primates, as well as stimulate with high resolution. He received a BS in Chemistry at California Polytechnical State University, San Luis Obispo, and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University. Group Page
	Dr. Elizabeth Hillman Columbia University Elizabeth Hillman is professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at Columbia University and a member of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia. Hillman received her undergraduate degree in physics and Ph.D. in medical physics and bioengineering at University College London and completed post-doctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. In 2006, Hillman moved to Columbia University, founding the Laboratory for Functional Optical Imaging. Hillman’s research program focuses on the development and application of optical imaging and microscopy technologies to capture functional dynamics in the living brain. Most recently, she developed swept confocally aligned planar excitation (SCAPE) microscopy, a technique capable of very high speed volumetric imaging of neural activity in behaving organisms such as adult and larval Drosophila, zebrafish, C. elegans and the rodent brain. Hillman’s research program also includes exploring the interrelation between neural activity and blood flow in the brain, as the basis for signals detected by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Hillman is a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), the society of photo-optical instrumentation (SPIE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). She has received the OSA Adolf Lomb Medal for contributions to optics, as well as early career awards from the Wallace Coulter Foundation, National Science Foundation and Human Frontier Science Program. Group Page
	Dr. Baljit Khakh University of California, Los Angeles Baljit Khakh completed his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in the laboratory of Patrick PA Humphrey. He completed postdoctoral fellowships in the laboratory of Graeme Henderson at the University of Bristol, and then in the laboratory of Henry A. Lester and Norman Davidson at California Institute of Technology. In 2001, Khakh became Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, and in 2006 he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles where he is Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology. Khakh’s work has been recognized, including with the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, the Paul G. Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, and the Outstanding Investigator Award (R35) from NINDS. Group Page

2022 Naff Symposium Committee

Dr. Chris Richards - Chair

Although the COVID-19 response has cancelled this event, we would like to recognize the following graduates as well as our awards and scholarships recipients.

This presentation will describe our group's recent advances in developing metal-mediated/catalyzed methods for introducing fluorine into organic molecules. Our efforts into this area are guided by detailed fundamental studies of stoichiometric organometallic bond-forming reactions. These fundamental studies will be described in detail, and their translation to practical applications (particularly in the context of the synthesis of PET imaging agents) will be discussed.

                                                       Dr. Melanie Sanford

Melanie S. Sanford is currently the Moses Gomberg Distingished University Professor of Chemistry and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees at Yale University in 1996 where she carried out undergraduate research in the laboratory of Professor Robert Crabtree. She pursued graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology working with Professor Robert Grubbs. Following postdoctoral work at Princeton University with Professor John Groves, she joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in the summer of 2003 as an Assistant Professor of chemistry. She was promoted to associate professor in 2007, to full professor in 2010, to Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry in 2011, and to Moses Gomberg Collegiate Professor of Chemistry in 2012. She has won a number of awards, including the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, the Sackler Prize, the Blavatnik Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the ACS. Research in the Sanford group aims to develop new chemical reactions that enable the production of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and fuels in a more efficient and environmentally friendly manner.