Professor Guiochon Passed Away

October 23, 2014 by newframe

Dear Chemistry Community:

On October 21, 2014, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Distinguished Scientist Georges Andre Guiochon passed away in the arms of his wife with his daughters holding his hands.  After a successful bout against pneumonia, Professor Guiochon succumbed to neuromuscular failure due to Post-Polio Syndrome. His work as Professor in the Department of Chemistry since 1987 focused on the theory of non-linear chromatography and its applications in gas, liquid and supercritical fluid separation science.  His UT efforts garnered awards too numerous to list but included 2 from ACS and the LCGC Lifetime Achievement Award,  while he received honorary PhD degrees from the Universities of Pardubice, 1999; Ramon Llull, Barcelona 2002; Ferrara 2003; and Science and Technology, Liaoning 2010, and was inducted into the Spanish Academy of Science in 2011.  He published 5 books and about 1100 peer-reviewed papers while performing research with over a hundred graduate students and post-docs.

written by Dr. Lois Beaver, wife of Georges

Events Planned to celebrate the life of Georges Guiochon

1)    Lois’ family—funeral mass and lunch in Buffalo, NY   Friday, Nov. 28.

2)    Private interment in France at the Guiochon Family Crypt

Gathering in honor of Georges Guiochon

2:30 pm, Saturday, December 6, 2014

La Maison des Polytechniciens

12, rue de Poitiers

75007   PARIS, FRANCE

If you wish to participate, please respond by November 30 to: souvenirgeorgesguiochon@gmail.com

Celebration of a Scientist

Saturday, March 14, 2015

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

If you wish to participate, please respond to jrui@utk.edu to reach Rachel Rui, PhD, who will provide more information when it is available.

Chemistry Graduate Students Raced for the Cure

October 21, 2014 by newframe

Chemistry graduate students participated in the Knoxville Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on October 18th in the World’s Fair Park. The team of 7 finished the 5k run and raised over a thousand dollars.

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® Series is the largest series of 5k run/fitness walks in the world. Komen Knoxville has raised millions of dolllars. 75% of revenue from this race stays in east Tennessee for breast cancer treatment and support, the other 25% funds research nationally. *

Students participated in this year’s race include Laura Casto, Maggie Lookadoo, Amanda Clune, Alex Fisch, Adam Carr, Michael Merrill and Sam Mattern-Schain. The team was formed “in honor of family and friends afflicted by breast cancer,” Mattern-Schain said. “I love Race For The Cure and believe it does a tremendous amount of good for our community. It’s a wonderful awareness event and brings a lot of joy to the community of breast cancer survivors/victims and their families. ”

*Information from KomenKnoxville website and e-newsletter.

Professor Musfeldt Chaired Gordon Research Conference

October 1, 2014 by newframe

Janice Musfeldt, professor of chemistry, chaired the first Gordon Research Conference in multiferroics and magnetoelectrics held from August 10 to 15  in University of New England in Biddeford, Maine.

The conference featured a wide range of scientifically and technologically important topics such as the origins of various microscopic coupling mechanisms, the behavior of domain structures, the role of spin-orbit coupling, and the consequences of nanoscale confinement. Due to the highly interdisciplinary nature of the conference, invited speakers represented various scientific disciplines including chemistry, physics, materials science, and engineering. One of the attendees commented that this conference was simply “top end.”

“The scientific level and the open nature of the exchange at the talks and beyond was remarkable,” Dr. Ashot Melikyan, an editor of Physical Review B, commented. “I will certainly be applying to 2016 Gordon Conference on multiferroics. The editors of APS usually attend 2 – 4 conferences every year, and this one was one of the most informative and useful conferences i attended.”

This conference attracted more than one hundred attendees from 18 different countries. Besides scientific diversity, many attendees were also pleasantly surprised by the gender and geographic diversity. “I was very impressed with the diversity of the speakers and the participants at this meeting,” one of the attendees wrote in her feedback form. “It was wonderful to meet so many other women in the field, and also I was impressed by the number of countries represented.”

Ken O’Neal and Michael Yokosuk, graduate students in the Musfeldt’s group attended the conference. O’Neal presented a poster titled “Size- and Shape-Dependent Magnetoelectric Coupling in alpha-Fe₂O₃ Nanoparticles.” Yokosuk’s poster talk was on magnetoelectric properties of a material Ni₃TeO₆ titled “Magnetoelectric Coupling in Ni₃TeO₆​.” They both enjoyed presentations from “leading scientists in the field”, and described their experiences as “awesome.”

“I love bringing people together to discuss new science,” Musfeldt said. “In fact, I am already at work on the 2015 Tellunide workshop on spin-orbit coupling in 4- and 5d-containng materials!”