Department of Chemistry | Number 40 CHEMBOND · “chemical revolution” of the French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, and his various collaborators in the years 1770-1790. The earliest

Department of Chemistry | Number 40

SPRING 2014 IN THIS ISSUE

New FacultyChemists’ ClubDepartment news

CHEMBOND

Up close and personalDedicated team helps researchers get a closer look

On The Cover 10 What is it?

UC chemistry researchers rely on precise instruments -- and the expertise of a dedicated team – to help answer research questions.

Features 6 Chemistry Club

Looking back at the history of this organization. By William Jensen

8 Science Girls Chemistry students reach out to help develop science skills in local high school students.

14 In Memoriam Milton Orchin and Fred Kaplan remembered

In Every Issue 4 Department News

19 Bearcatalysts

From

the

Edito

r Hello again.

As the editor of ChemBond, I am excited to bring you our 2014 issue, filled with the accomplishments

of the UC Department of Chemistry from the past academic year. The 2013-2014 school year was a great one for the department. Inside this issue, you will read about many of our accomplishments, including:

• Our faculty’s numerous accolades including funding for research from government agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

• New departmental administration and our new colleagues. Unfortunately, you will also read about our colleagues who recently passed away. (On a personal note, I will always remember that it was Milt and Fred who met me at the airport when I interviewed at UC in December of 1981.)

On the cover, you’ll see managers of the various structure facilities within the department. Read more about them on page 10. Without these individuals and the facilities they manage, many of us could not do our research. We are all indebted to them.

Drop us an email to share any news updates, as well as any suggestions you may have about ways your department can improve, grow and excel – we can be reached at [email protected]. Thank you for your continued interest in the UC Department of Chemistry.

Sincerely, Allan Pinhas Professor [email protected] (513) 556-9255

Allan Pinhas

Department of Chemistry | 404 Crosley Tower | PO Box 210172 Cincinnati, OH 45221-0172 | Phone: 513-556-9200 | Fax: 513-556-9239 [email protected] | www.artsci.uc.edu/chemistry

© Copyright 2014. University of Cincinnati. All rights reserved.

2 Spring 2014 CHEMBOND 3

Chemistry BY THE NUMBERS

$3.3 million in yearly

grants and contracts

25 staff

members and visiting scholars

28 Full-time

faculty members

$1.9 in graduate

student tuition scholarship

funding

Orchin Kaplan

Vladislav Litosh

Vladislav Litosh, Ph. D., began at the University of Cincinnati in 2013 as an assistant professor research. He received his Bachelor of Science from The Higher Chemical College at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia. He then obtained his Ph. D. in organic chemistry from Rice University in 2002.

Litosh’s role in the department of chemistry is to create an externally funded program for medicinal chemistry. He currently is working on two projects, one of which includes the development of novel anti-cancer agents. The other project, Litosh says, is more theoretical. It involves the development of novel inhibitors for cysteine proteases.

“We’re just doing it ourselves for the first time with the enzymatic studies, but eventually this can also lead to the development of ant-cancer, anti-

parisital, and, in particular, antimalarial and anti-viral agents,” says Litosh.

Both graduate and undergraduate students assist Litosh with his research projects and he says he hopes this experience will benefit them after college.

“Obviously the undergraduate students can’t know everything so they are getting trained either by me personally…or by the graduate students in my lab,” says Litosh. “They are acquiring the necessary skills which I hope will help them in their future career...or with their pursuit of a graduate degree.”

Litosh moved to Cincinnati with his wife, Laura Sagle, who also works in the University of Cincinnati Chemistry Department.

“I like UC very much,” says Litosh. “It’s a great school and I like the rest of the faculty in the department. They’re very friendly and very helpful.”

Anne Vonderheide

Anne Vonderheide Ph. D. is a new assistant professor educator in the chemistry department but UC is not new to her. Vonderheide received her masters of science in organic chemistry and her Ph. D. in analytical chemistry from UC, learning from some of the professors that she is now working alongside.

And, she says, that transition was an interesting one. “It was hard to get used to calling [the other professors] by their first names,” she says.

Although it has been an adjustment, she is enjoying her position as an educator. “I really love teaching,” says Vonderheide. “It’s why I wanted to get my PhD.”

Her life as an educator is keeping her busy. Right now she is teaching introduction to biochemistry and a biochemistry lab and she hasn’t had much time to work on research. She says she hopes to get back to her research soon but not in the field of chemistry. Instead she wants to work on research in the field of education and she has been inspired so far by her students.

New Faculty

4 Spring 2014 CHEMBOND 5

Laura Sagle

Laura Sagle, Ph. D. came to University of Cincinnati in August 2012 to join the chemistry department as an assistant professor. Along with doing research in her lab, she also teaches a survey of physical chemistry class and a physical chemistry lab. And although Sagle says it all has kept her very busy, it has also been very exciting.

After finishing her undergrad, going to graduate school, and then doing two post doctoral research projects, she is relieved to focus on her own aspirations for a change.

“You get so used to doing somebody else’s research and it’s so nice to kind of be able to finally do your own stuff,” says Sagle. “Something that seems exciting, you can do it and you can make it happen.”

Right now Sagle’s two focuses are improving bio-sensing in complex biological fluids and making plasmonic substrates for enhanced spectroscopy. So far her group has collaborated with the college of engineering, but she also hopes to develop a collaboration with the UC medical school in the future.

Her husband, Vladislav Litosh, also joined the faculty and Sagle says they have really enjoyed both the university and the city.

“There’s a lot of things about Cincinnati that so far we really love,” she says. “It’s pretty, people are friendly and helpful, and we don’t have any complaints.”

The Department of Chemistry recently announced Professor Anna Gudmundsdottir is the new head of the department. Gudmundsdottir is a physical organic chemist with research interest in reactive intermediates, triplet nitrenes, radicals, reaction mechanisms, organic photochemistry, photoremovable protecting groups, solid state photoreactions and materials science.

After earning a BS degree from the University of Iceland, she obtained a M.Sc. and PhD from the University of British Columbia. She did her PhD dissertation with Professor J. R. Scheffer, studying asymmetric induction in the solid state. In 1994-95, she was a visiting scientist with Professor P. J. Wagner at the Michigan State University and investigated photoinduced radical cleavage reactions. She was a NATO postdoctoral fellow with Professor M. S. Platz at The Ohio State University, studying reactive intermediates. She was awarded an NSF CAREER Award (2001-2006) for her research on triplet alkyl nitrenes in solution and the solid state. Currently, she is conducting Fulbright-supported research in Japan. Gudmundsdottir and her colleagues are exploring how radicals (a type molecule) combine with oxygen to produce the reactions that cause the food in the fridge to spoil.

New Chemistry Department Head

Oesper Collections

6 Spring 2014 CHEMBOND 7

Notes from the

The Art of the Chemists’ ClubWilliam B. Jensen, Department of Chemistry, University of Cincinnati

Student organizations devoted to the study of chemistry have a long history extending back to the late 18th century and the very beginnings of modern chemistry as initiated by the so-called “chemical revolution” of the French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, and his various collaborators

in the years 1770-1790. The earliest documented examples of such organizations involved groups of medical students with chemical interests at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland (1) and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (2, 3). By the second half of the 19th century such student organizations

were not uncommon at larger colleges and universities, though only a few of them have been documented in any detail by historians (4, 5). As might be expected, most of these organizations were short-lived, seldom surviving either the graduation of their initial student organizers or the tenure of their faculty advisors. In most cases their activities were confined to social dinners and the sponsorship of chemically relevant talks by guest speakers. In some cases, they actually sponsored the presentation of original research papers and reports by their members and, in even fewer cases, actually published proceedings and transactions, though, like the parent organizations themselves, these were usually short-lived and seldom had any impact beyond the confines of the school or university which sponsored them. An important exception to this rule, however,

was the series of historical reprint pamphlets issued during the early decades of the 20th century by Leonard Dobbin and the Alembic Club of the University of Edinburgh, which are still referenced by current historians of chemistry (6). For most of the 18th and 19th centuries these student organizations referred to themselves as “Chemical Societies.” However, with the rise of true professional chemical societies in the second half of the 19th-century, this pretense faded, and by the early 20th century the more modest designation of “Chemical Club” had become increasingly common, as reflected in the history of the student “Chemists’ Club” at the University of Cincinnati (7). First organized in 1903 by the Department Head, Thomas Evans, as a journal club for the department’s chemistry majors, the initial club consisted of seven students and four faculty. It originally met once a month at 6 p.m. in the University Dining Room in old McMicken Hall, where the University “lunch lady” – one Mrs. Kelsch – would serve the members supper, after which they would adjourn to the Chemistry Library in the same building for the club’s stated purpose – “to keep

in touch with present-day advances in chemistry through the reading and discussion of papers on popular subjects.” However, by 1919 the club (9): ... had outgrown all of its old haunts and with the erection of the new chemistry building [in 1916], there has come a rapid growth in the Chemistry Department and

a consequent increase in the membership of the club. Now enthusiastic monthly meetings are held in the Commons and the Club is addressed by prominent chemists. Chemists’ Club boat rides, dances, and musicals are affairs in university life anticipated with enthusiasm by all chemistry students. Since all chemistry faculty and all chemistry majors beyond the freshman year were automatically members of the club, the membership lists and group photos found in the various student yearbooks provide us – at least for the early years – with a fairly accurate account of who was in the chemistry department, as well as with an indication of important demographic changes. Thus, for example, we can fairly accurately determine at what point the department began to attract a significant number of women students, since, prior to 1910, all of the group photos of the club show only men. However, beginning in 1912, an increasing number of young women are included (figure 5) and indeed the entry for 1915 (figure 6) lists Leonora Neuffer – the first woman to receive a doctoral degree from the department and eventually its first female faculty member – as the club’s president. Unhappily as both the club’s membership and the enrollment of the University as a whole continued to increase, the amount of useful information in the yearbooks began, for practical reasons, to correspondingly decrease. Starting around 1919 fewer and fewer students and faculty began to show up for the group photo and by 1928 only the club’s officers, rather than the complete membership, were being listed. Starting in 1931 the club itself is no longer mentioned in the yearbooks, thus apparently signaling its final demise after nearly three decades of existence. With two exceptions, the only surviving records of the UC Chemists’ Club are its annual entries in the student yearbooks. Hence, aside from the group photos and

membership lists, there is no record of what papers were read at its meetings, what current topics were discussed, or who the various invited speakers were. However, the yearbooks do provide one additional historical legacy in the form of

the art work used to decorate the club’s annual listing. This was almost certainly not provided by the club itself but rather by whichever art student decided to work on the yearbook for the year in question. This is apparent from the fact that the art work almost invariably deals in distorted or imaginary forms of chemical apparatus (figures 1-4) and cultural clichés concerning chemistry, ranging from the

lure and mysticism of the alchemist (figures 1 and 3) and evil magician (figure 4) to the predictable cartoon explosion (figure 6), and the chemist as heroic worker

(figure 7). Equally intriguing are the changing art styles, which allow anyone who knows about various trends and fads in commercial art to easily date most of the drawings within a decade or so. This is particularly the case with figure 8, which imitates the well-known style of the

1965, 10, 185-198.

6. Known as the Alembic Club Reprints, they eventually numbered 22, including two hardcover books. These pamphlets were being reprinted as late as the 1960s and are well known among professional historians of chemistry.

7. It is interesting to note that the name is identical to that of the more famous Chemists’ Club of New York. This, however, was a professional club for chemists in the New York area founded in 1898. It occupied an entire building on 41st Street in New York City and included a reading lounge, auditorium and lecture room, reference library, dining room, bar, and conservatory, as well as rentable laboratory and office space on the upper floors. See the booklet The Chemists’ Club: One Hundred Years in the Chemical Community, Chemical Heritage Foundation: Philadelphia, PA, 1998.

8. Typical of the lack of documentation and continuity which plagued most of these student organizations, later accounts in the student yearbook would claim that the

club was founded in 1906 and still others give a date of 1911, though the yearbooks clearly show the club was first listed in 1903. No listing is found in the yearbooks for 1905, 1906 and 1911, suggesting breaks in its continuity and a series of necessary “refoundings.”

9. The Cincinnatian, 1919, 26, 106.

10. C. J. Weinhardt, The Most of John Held Jr., Greene Press: Brattleboro, VT, 1972.

11. The written records of the short-lived Chi Sigma Pi fraternity were accidently discovered in the attic of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house in 1987 and transferred to the Oesper Collections.

12. H. A. Curtis, A History of the Alpha Chi Sigma Fraternity, 1902-1927, ΑΧΣ: Madison, WI, 1927, pp. 131-134.

WILLIAM B. JENSEN

quintessential Jazz-Age cartoonist, John Held Jr. (10). The two exceptions are in the form of surviving menus and programs for several of the club’s annual initiation dinners. The first, dating from May 25, 1914, was held jointly with the Blue Hydra Society, which was the name of the University’s biology club. As usual it was held at 6 p.m. sharp in the University Dining room and featured brief

remarks by H. M. Benedict of the Biology Department and Lauder Jones of the Chemistry Department, followed by songs performed by Harry Shipley Fry’s sister, Lilias Fry, and a poetry reading by Leonora Neuffer. For the meal itself, Mrs. Kelsch offered roast lamb with mint sauce and escalloped potatoes, accompanied by

bread and butter, peas, asparagus-hollandaise and lemonade, followed by coffee and a choice of nut bread, strawberry sherbet, or cake for dessert. The second is for a similar dinner held on February 14, 1916. It began with a series of toasts led by local pharmacist and toastmaster, John Uri Lloyd, and brief remarks by faculty members, Harry Shipley Fry and Henry Goettsch. This was followed by musical performances by the University Orchestra and poetry readings by “Miss Zelma Jacobs.” For dinner the budding chemists were served roast veal with dressing and mashed potatoes, accompanied by buttered rolls and lima beans in cream sauce, followed by coffee and a choice of either cupid’s delight or sweetbreads for dessert. Of course, the Chemists’ Club wasn’t the only UC student organization devoted to chemistry. In 1914 a chemical fraternity known as Chi Sigma Pi was founded at UC (11). Based on a defunct organization known as the Chemical

Engineers’ Society, in 1917 it petitioned to become the Alpha Delta chapter of the nationally-based Alpha Chi Sigma Chemical

Fraternity (12). Exclusively male by definition, it was largely concerned with maintaining a fraternity house, along with the usual attendant social activities, and became defunct in the 1970s. A chapter of the Phi Lambda Upsilon Honorary Chemical Society was formed at UC in 1939 but is also now defunct, as is the original ACS Student Affiliates Chapter, which was formed in 1952. This was revived a second time in 1969, with twelve students and Marshall Wilson as the faculty advisor, but once again became inactive in the 1980s. Its current successor, known as the ChemCats, along with the Graduate Students’ Association, are now the only two student-based organizations presently active in the Department

References and Notes

1. J. Kendall, “Some Eighteenth-Century Chemical Societies,” Endeavour, 1942, 1, 106-109.

2. W. D. Miles, “Early American Chemical Societies,” Chymia, 1950, 3, 95-113.

3. W. D. Miles, “The Columbian Chemical Society,” Chymia, 1959, 5,

145-154.

4. P. W. Boutwell, “The Chemical Society of Beloit College, 1863-1866,” Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci. Arts, Lett., 1952, 41, 83-94.

5. E. K. Bacon, “A Precursor of the American Chemical Society – Chandler and the Chemical Society of Union College,” Chymia,

Figure 5. The Chemists’ Club for 1915 showing the increasing number of women students in the Chemistry Department. The Department Head, Lauder Jones, is in the far back, framed in the left door panel. Associate Professor Harry Shipley Fry is on the extreme far left and Instructor Earl Farnau is on the extreme far right. Taken in front of old Hanna Hall.

8 Spring 2014 CHEMBOND 9

10 Fall 2012

When a UC Chemistry Department researcher looks at an intricate, shimmering crystal and wants to find out what it is, it’s up to a dedicated team of chemistry core facilities staff members to use their expertise and instruments to uncover what various substances are.

“You can think of us as a forensics team,” says Jeanette Krause, who runs the X-ray crystallography facility. “We take a variety of samples used in chemistry, biology, chemical engineering and materials science and identify their structures. These materials ultimately find their way into the materials we use every day.”

The core facilities for the department include: The R. Marshall Wilson Mass Spectrometry Facility, The Center for Chemical Sensors and Biosensors, The NMR Spectroscopy Facility and The Richard C. Elder X-Ray Crystallography Facility.

Each of these facilities, and the experts who staff them, provide vital services for students and faculty to figure out the structure, identity and function of a substance.

“We’re synthesizing the compound and they are telling us what we made,” says Allan Pinhas, professor of chemistry.

This verification is essential. Researchers, including faculty and students, can’t publish anything without identification from the staff members in the core facilities, explains Krause.

“Not every sample requires all of our expertise, but journals require at least two methods of identification, so everything comes though one of the facilities,” Krause says.

Working with researchers - including faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral students – is the most rewarding aspect of the core team’s work.

“When I see the students’ faces when I give them their molecule…it doesn’t even matter what the molecule is, it could be the simplest thing but just seeing the way their faces light up is so rewarding,” Krause says.

The team also enjoys making a contribution to the various research and educational projects that are happening in the department. They also help expand research avenues by suggesting additional experiments, interpreting results, working on new analyses, giving researchers access to cutting-edge technology and solving problems for other institutions that do not have the extensive resources UC has.

The following is an overview of UC’s facilities and the dedicated staff who manage them.

R. Marshall Wilson Mass Spectrometry FacilityStephen Macha, Ph.D. and Larry Sallans, Ph.D. Mass spectrometry addresses the issue of chemical sample composition in terms of molecular mass and structure; in addition, the technique can directly quantitate these components in complex mixtures.

Stephen Macha first became interested in Mass Spectrometry when he was a graduate student at Hampton University in Virginia. Then, when he moved to Louisiana State University, he was able to get more hands-on experience with mass spectrometry instruments as he worked toward his doctoral degree.

Larry Sallans has worked in the field of mass spectrometry for more than 30 years, including 19 years in industry. His interest in mass spectrometry took root when he attended Purdue University and it has continued ever since.

“Mass spectrometry is an extremely powerful technique that I used to solve industrial problems,” Sallans says. “I became an adjunct associate professor at UC in 2002 and joined UC’s Mass Spectrometry Facility in 2004.”

UC undergraduate and graduate students can learn about the mass spectrometry instrument in the facility in Rieveschl. “We have one GC-MS instrument we train students to use by themselves at any time when they need to,” says Macha. “They can consult the facility personnel for any issues with the instrument or their analysis.”

The Center for Chemical Sensors and BiosensorsNecati Kaval, Ph.D. The sensors facility is responsible for carrying out experiments related to microscopy, spectroscopy and materials characterization. Therefore, Necati Kaval is able to answer the question, “What is it?” using equipment like a scanning probe microscope, a FTIR spectrometer, UV-Vis fluorescence spectrometers, just to name a few. Kaval uses these tools to answer the questions, not only of students and faculty, but also of science professionals in Cincinnati.

“Besides serving to UC researchers every day, instrumentation facilities are also a great resource for the small and medium sized companies in the greater Cincinnati area,” says Kaval. “We often help solve their technical problems as well.”

CHEMBOND 11

The NMR Spectroscopy Facility, Keyang Ding Ph.D. The NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) Spectroscopy facility provides information about how atoms are placed in space with respect to each other, allowing researchers to trace direct and through-space connectivities.

Since certain atoms behave like magnets, NMR shows the person using the equipment how the magnets interact with each other. “We can count the number of magnetic interactions and how strong those magnets are. This provides information about how the atoms are placed in space with respect to each other, allowing us to trace direct and through-space connectivities, building up a picture of the compound,” says Keyang Ding, the director of the NMR facility.

This facility is one of the most student-friendly. “Students, after user training, will access the NMR facility 24/7,” says Ding. “They will operate the NMR by themselves for routine NMR observation on their samples.”

If the structure of the compound changes with time due to a chemical reaction, NMR spectroscopy is one of the few techniques that allows the researcher to monitor that change as it is occurring.

The Richard C. Elder X-Ray Crystallography Facility, Jeanette Krause, Ph.D. Let’s focus on the ‘x-ray’ part of this title because although the equipment in this facility can’t tell if someone has a broken bone, it does distinguish atom types and show bonding patterns in molecules.

“In technical terms, single x-ray crystallography is the ultimate structural method that allows one to obtain very accurate and precise interatomic distance and angle information as well as three-dimensional spatial details of molecules,” says facility staff member Jeanette Krause. The researcher needs to grow a crystal of the compound in order for it to be analyzed.

Krause uses her experience with this advanced technology to educate students on the vital role this equipment will play in their future research. “The X-ray facility is a key player in the successful integration of experience-based scholarship and research-oriented training that creates a value-driven education for all students.”

What is it? UC chemistry researchers rely on precise instruments -- and the ex-pertise of a dedicated team – to help answer research questions

(From Left to Right)Jeanette Krause, Ph.D., Necati Kaval, Ph.D., Larry Sallans, Ph.D., Keyang Ding Ph.D., Stephen Macha, Ph.D.

12 Spring 2014 CHEMBOND 13

Sloan Research FellowshipHairong Guan, a University of Cincin-nati associate professor of chemistry, is among 126 outstanding U.S. and Cana-dian researchers to be honored with the 2013 Sloan Research Fellowships. The fellowships are awarded to young scien-tists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as the next generation of scientific leaders. Fellows receive $50,000 to be used to further their research.

AAAS Fellows Professor Pat Limbach was named a Fel-low for the American Association for the Advancement of Sci-ence (AAAS). He was recognized for his “distinguished contri-

butions in the area of nucleic acid mass spectrometry and for contributions to improving minority diversity in the chemical sciences.” Professor of Chemis-try Bruce Ault was also elected as a Fel-low for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his contributions to the field of matrix isola-tion spectroscopy. The overall goal of his research is to develop ways to direct or control the course of a chemical reaction through a detailed understanding of the reaction mechanism.

Faculty Awards The Division of the History of Chemis-try of the American Chemical Society awarded. William B. Jensen its “HIST” Outstanding Paper Award” for his article “Physical Chemistry Before Ostwald: The Textbooks of Josiah Parsons Cooke,” which appeared in volume 36 of the Division’s journal “The Bulletin for the History of Chemistry”.

Professor of Chemistry Joseph Caruso was awarded the Theophilus Redwood Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Theophilus Redwood Award is given to a leading analytical scientist who is also an outstanding communicator.

University of Cincinnati adjunct professor of chemistry Joel Shulman was named a fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the largest

scientific society in the world. Shulman was among 96 scientists who received distinction during the society’s 244th National Meeting & Exposition. The award recognizes ACS members for outstanding achievements and contribu-tions to science, the profession and the society.

ZimmerThe 2014 Zimmer International Scholar is Prof. Dr. Mark Helm. Mark was born in Bremen, Germany and is currently a Professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. After studying chemistry in Würzburg, he did his Ph.D. as a Marie-Curie Fellow at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France.

Alumni NewsUniversity of Cincin-nati chemistry alum Diane Schmidt was elected President of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Schmidt received her Ph. D. from the Department

of Chemistry in 1981 and currently works at the Procter & Gamble Co. in Cincinnati. Diane was also named a 2014 McMicken Distinguished Alumni.

Dorothy Phillips, who earned her Ph. D. in biochemistry from the Department of Chemistry in 1974, was elected to serve as one of the Directors-At-Large on the Board of Directors for ACS.

Bruce Ault, PhD, is earning his fourth all-university faculty award in his 38-year career here.

Today, Ault, who is a Fellow of the Ameri-can Association for the Advancement of Sci-ence (AAAS), adds the prestigious Rieveschl Award to his previ-ously earned George

Barbour Award for Good Faculty-Stu-dent Relations (1995), Faculty Award for Exemplary Contributions in Service to the University (2006) and Distinguished Teaching Professor (2009).

These previous awards speak of Ault’s high-caliber teaching and service on campus, while this year’s Rieveschl award speaks to his national and inter-

national standing within the area known as matrix isolation spectroscopy, a field where he is ranked third in the world in terms of number of publications. His 227 refereed publications, often highly cited, are found within flagship journals and a global database devoted to matrix isola-tion spectroscopy.

Matrix isolation spectroscopy refers to a way of “freeze framing” chemical reactions. Any step in a reaction may exist for only a fraction of a second. So, in order to isolate and understand what’s really happening within a reaction’s timeline, it’s necessary to literally freeze any part of that reaction – at 0 degrees Kelvin (equal to minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit).

The research is vital to understand-ing many natural processes (like those associated with ground-level ozone) as well as directing or controlling reactions in order to improve products (like solar panels).

Because of Ault’s recognized contribu-tions to the field (including identifica-tion of elusive elements formed as part of photochemical reactions involving ozone), his work has been continuously funded by the National Science Founda-tion for the past 35 years.

Oesper WinnerUC Chemistry and the Cincinnati Sec-tion of the American Chemical Society are pleased to annouce the 2014 Oesper Award Winner Isiah M. Warner, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Professor Warner is an analytical chemist with more than 300 refereed publications in a variety of journals relevant to his general area of research. He has particu-lar expertise in the area of fluorescence spectroscopy, where his research has fo-cused for more than 35 years. He is con-sidered one of the world’s experts in this analytical spectroscopy. For example, he is the corresponding author in the highly cited biannual reviews on “Molecular Fluorescence, Phosphorescence, and Chemiluminescence Spectrometry“, for the journal, Analytical Chemistry. Over the past 20 years, he has also maintained a strong research effort in the areas of organized media and separation science.

Department Honors Science GirlsStudents from Hughes High School spent some time in a UC science lab this fall, get-ting hands-on experience with scientific forensics including DNA, ink chromatogra-phy, fingerprints and blood.

The lab day is part of the Future Science Girls program, a collaboration between Hughes and the Department of Chemistry in the McMicken College of Arts and Sci-ences at UC.

The program began in 2011 to share what students learned in class and build interest in science education among high school girls at Hughes High School. Nationally, women and minorities are underrepre-sented in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) disciplines. In addi-tion to a sneak peak into science, the group gives the Hughes students a sense of what college life is like for these potential first generation college students.

Student Malvika Sharma, pictured above (left) helped lead the group.

14 Spring 2014

Milton Orchin 1914-2013The University of Cincinnati Depart-ment of Chemistry must sadly report the death of its most senior faculty member, Milton Orchin, on February 14, 2013 at age 98. Orchin was born in the small town of Barnesboro, Pennsylvania, on June 4, 1914, roughly two months before the outbreak of World War I in Europe. Following the early death of their moth-er, Orchin and his siblings spent their childhood and adolescence in the Jewish Orphan Home in Cleveland, Ohio. After leaving the home at age sixteen, Orchin was able to obtain a scholarship spon-sored by the Lazarus Department Store which allowed him to attend the Ohio State University where he earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D degrees .

Following graduation on the eve of World War II, Orchin was unable to obtain a job in academia and so became a government chemist instead – first with the Food and Drug Administration in both Cincinnati and Chicago, then with the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland, and finally with the Bureau of Mines in Bruceton, Pennsyl-vania.

In 1953, at age 39, he obtained a position with the University of Cincinnati Ap-plied Science Laboratory and, soonafter, as a professor in the department of chemistry.

Despite his late start, Orchin’s academic career was highly successful. By the time of his retirement in 1981 at age 67, he had published seven books, 15 reviews, and 198 research papers, as well as supervising the thesis work of nine M.S. candidates and 43 Ph.D. candidates. In addition, he served as Department Chair from 1956-1962 and, as a result of his industrial consultancy work, largely in the field of organometalliccatalysis, he was also the holder of more than 20 patents. Retirement, however, hardly affected Orchin’s productivity.Orchin received many awards during his career, including the Distinguished Scientist Award of the Technical Societies of Cincinnati and the Rieveschl Award for Distinguished Research in Science from UC.

During the next 25 years, as professor emeritus and director of the Hoke S. Greene Laboratory of Catalysis, Orchin would publish, in collaboration with several postdoctoral fellows, another 47research papers. In 2006, he embarked, at age 92, on the writing of his eighth book – a biography of the Israeli chemist Ernst David Bergmann, in collabora-tion with William B. Jensen of the UC Department of Chemistry and Henry Fenichel of the UC Department of Physics. The book was finally published in December of 2011, six months after Orchin’s 97th birthday.

Readers interested in a more detailed account of Orchin’s life and work may request a copy of the book-let, “What a Privilege!,” which was published by the department in 1999 in celebration of his 85th birthday.

Request a copy from Dr. William B. Jen-sen, Department of Chemistry, Univer-sity of Cincinnati, 45221-0172 or e-mail [email protected]

The unabridged version of this article may be found under Museum Notes on the website for the Oesper Collections.

Fred Kaplan 1934-2013The Department of Chemistry of the University of Cincinnati regretfully reports the death of ProfessorEmeritus Fred Kaplan on May 2, 2013. Kaplan was born on September 2, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, the second of three children of Isabelle Chernofsky and Harry Kaplan. His mother was a first-generation immigrant from the Ukraine and his father a native New Yorker, who in later years owned and op-erated a shoe store in Queens. Educated in Brooklyn, Kaplan was inspired by his high-school chemistry teacher, Mr. Sut-tenberg, to pursue a career in chemistry. After receiving his BA from New York University in 1955, he began graduate work in chemistry at Brandeis Uni-versity, but transferred to Yale in 1958 when his thesis director, Harold Conroy, accepted a position there. On returning from a year-long (1959-1960) fellow-ship with Oskar Jeger at the Eidgenos-

siche Technische Hochschule in Zurich, Kaplan officially received his doctorate from Yale for his earlier work with Con-roy on “Electronic Effects on the Stereo-chemistry of the Diels-Alder Reaction.” In September of 1960 he accepted a post-doctoral position with John D. Roberts at the California Institute of Technology, and in 1961 was appointed to the faculty of the University of Cincinnati, where he remained until his retirement in the spring of 2002.

Kaplan was part of the first generation of chemists to be trained in the new technique of nuclear magnetic reso-nance spectroscopy and he pioneered its applications at Cincinnati. In later years he also made use of the technique of ion cyclotron resonance spectroscopy to investigate gas-phase ion-molecule reaction mechanisms and to measure gas-phase proton affinities.

Among his more important contribu-tions were the proposal that NMR cou-pling constants could have eitherpositive or negative signs, a determina-tion of the structure and stability of the “nonclassical” norbornyl carbocation, the discovery of a rotational barrier in the α-diazoketones and a study of the role of the resulting stereochemistry in determining the nature of their decom-position products, and a method of determining the fragmentation pathways for ions in mass spectroscopy based on collision-induced dissociation.

In 1979 Kaplan closed down his research group and devoted the remainder of his career at Cincinnati to teaching and to mediation work at both the departmen-tal and university levels. His introduc-tory organic courses soon became some of the most popular in the department. In 1957 he married Phyllis Rowe, bywhom he had two children – a son, Deen, and a daughter, Madeleine. In 1973 he married Mary Charles Wessel,- the couple has two sons – Michael and Adam.

CHEMBOND 15

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The following includes gifts to Chemistry from 3/18/2013 - 3/18/2014Bruce S. Ault, Ph.D.Michael Baldwin, Ph.D.Ms. Hailing BaoBruce A. Barner, Ph.D.Thomas L. Beck, Ph.D.Mr. Robert A. BehrmannMrs. Michelle D. BensonRev. David D. BeranMr. William BergerAlbert M. Bobst, Ph.D.William L. Budde, Ph.D.Mr. John O. BurckleMr. John C. BurpeeLanthan D. Camblin, Jr., Ph.D.Mr. Peter F. CollarosWilliam B. Connick, Ph.D.Sister Joan A. DeitersMrs. Karen DonathMr. Charles DorseyMatthew J. Doyle, Ph.D.Mrs. Susan J. EfflerMr. David J. EyrichMr. Alan M. FaulhaberThomas W. Federle, Ph.D.Ms. Suzanne FischerFour Financial ManagementMr. Jerome A. FreitagMr. Olin GentryMr. Harold P. GoldfieldHairong Guan, Ph.D.Anna D. Gudmundsdottir, Ph.D.Carla Hay, Ph.D.Ms. Barbara J. HaydenWilliam R. Heineman, Ph.D.Mr. Michael A. HeisterMr. Ronald L. HemingwayAlvan C. Hengge, Ph.D.Hogan Lovells US LLPStephen W. Horgan, Ph.D.Mrs. Carol H. HuetherMrs. Helen W. JantzSilvia S. Jurisson, Ph.D.Ms. Mary KaneMr. Adam KaplanMarvin N. Kaplan, D.M.D.Mrs. Mary C. KaplanMr. Michael T. KaplanAveen KarimMs. Tara KoslovAdam S. Kurasiewicz, Ph.D.

Donald W. Kuty, Jr., Ph.D.Mr. Jerry LaffertyMr. James F. LangMrs. Mary Lou LangPaul W. Langemeier, Ph.D.Anne Leugers, Ph.D.Jane Y. Lewis, Ph.D.Deborah L. Lieberman, Ph.D.Patrick A. Limbach, Ph.D.Elmer D. Lipp, Ph.D.Ms. Angela MadoleMr. Warren MaruyamaMr. Paul J. MaurerDarl H. McDaniel, Ph.D.Mr. Robert B. MeachamGilbert K. Meloy, Ph.D.Beverly F. Michels, Ph.D.Ronald W. Millard, Ph.D.Mark L. Mitchell III, Ph.D.Michael M. O’Mara, Ph.D.Diane B. Parry, Ph.D.Ms. Mary E. PetersAllan R. Pinhas, Ph.D.Mr. & Mrs. Ronald A. PorterThe Procter & Gamble CompanyMr. Steven F. RehlingThomas H. Ridgway, Ph.D.Mr. John A. RushMr. Gordon SalchowMrs. Mildred J. SelonickJoel I. Shulman, Ph.D.UC Small GiftsGeorge Stan, Ph.D.Dustin E. Starkey, Ph.D.Surgical Department / Good

SamaritanJay A. Switzer, Ph.D.Kenneth J. Takeuchi, Ph.D.Amit Tandon, M.D.Medha Tomlinson, Ph.D.Pearl Tsang, Ph.D.Mr. James TurbokMr. Gilbert H. ViceMr. Jack VincentMr. Richard D. VincentMrs. Geraldine B. WarnerMr. Roy WesselR. Marshall Wilson, Ph.D.Mr. Clayton YeutterHong Zhang, Ph.D.

In Memoriam by William Jensen

Department of ChemistryUniversity of CincinnatiPO Box 210172Cincinnati, OH 45221-0172

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