Al Hazari Chairs National Chemistry Week Theme Team

September 28, 2016 by chemweb

Al Hazari, a retired director of labs and lecturer in chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, chaired the theme team for the 2016 National Chemistry Week (NCW). Sponsored by the American Chemical Society, the 2016 NCW is scheduled to take place October 16-22 with the theme, “Solving Mysteries Through Chemistry,” focusing on the chemistry of forensics and more.

William (Bill) Bass, the world-renowned forensic anthropologist and the founder of the UT’s  “Body Farm,” is featured in this year’s NCW publication titled, “Celebrating Chemistry.” (En Español)

NCW holds a series of events all around the country to “encourage chemists and chemistry enthusiasts to build awareness of chemistry at the local level.” Find out more on this website.

Hazari will perform a free chemistry magic show on Tuesday, Oct. 18th in Buehler Hall 555 on UT campus from 7 to 8 pm. The event is open to the public. Free parking is available at the 11th street garage from 6 to 9pm. More information can be found on this flyer.

Chemistry BOV Member Wilbur Shults Named ACS Fellow

September 8, 2016 by chemweb

Wilbur (Dub) Shults, member of the Chemistry Board of Visitors at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was inducted into the 2016 Class of  Fellows of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The announcement was made in the July 18, 2016 issue of Chemical & Engineering News. The new fellows were honored at the August ACS meeting in Philadelphia.

Shults was named an ACS Fellow because of his contributions both to the scientific society and to the ACS community. Shults was “recognized for creating electrochemical techniques essential for precisely determining the composition of nuclear materials and for developing the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Analytical Chemistry Division into a world-leading organization.” Stated on the 2016 Fellow website, “as Chair of the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry, he implemented a new Division Management System and was instrumental in establishing the Division’s Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Analytical Chemistry, both of which continue today.”

Shults hails from Atlanta, Georgia, born to a railroad family in 1929. He moved to Greenville, South Carolina to complete his high school education and attended Emory University to pursue a bachelor’s degree. After he completed a master’s degree in chemistry, Shults moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1951 and got his first job as a technician at a radiochemistry lab in the Division of Analytical Chemistry at Oak Ridge National Lab.

In 1955, Shults was drafted by the Army and sent to Fort Jackson for basic training and later reported to Denver Colorado to work in a nerve gas plant operated by the Army. After spending two and half years in the Army, Shults finished his tour of duty and came back to ORNL in 1957 to work in a research development group. With the encouragement of his mentor Myron Kelley at ORNL, Shults went back to school in 1962 to pursue a Ph.D. degree in chemistry at Indiana University. He completed two years of study there and came back to ORNL to finish his research in 1964, and was awarded the Ph.D. degree in 1966. Since then, Shults has lived in the Oak Ridge and Knoxville areas with his wife, Sue, and their three children.

Shults was promoted to Division Director at ORNL in 1976. During his long and fruitful career, he also served as the Head of the Analytical Chemistry Division of ACS. Shults retired from ORNL at the end of 1994 and became heavily involved in community service. He served on the Board of Visitors of the Department of Chemistry UT and was the president of Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees from 2008 to 2013.

The ACS Fellows program was created in 2008 to recognize members of ACS for “outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and the Society.” Find out more on the website.

Note: Dub Shults’ bio was summarized based on an interview conducted in 2012 and archived in the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History. 

Chemistry Alumnus Reggie Hudson Elected Chair of ACS Astrochemistry Subdivision

September 8, 2016 by chemweb

Chemistry Alumnus Reggie Hudson was elected the Chair of the Astrochemistry Subdivision of the American Chemical Society, the largest scientific society in the world with more than 157,000 members globally. Hudson obtained his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1978 studying with Ffrancon Williams, now Professor Emeritus of Chemistry.

After leaving UT, Hudson took a job teaching at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, staying there for 30 years and simultaneously collaborating with NASA researchers. In 2009, Hudson became a full-time employee at NASA to lead a small research group studying chemistry at low temperatures.

Hudson is now the Associate Chief for the Astrochemistry Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center just outside of Washington, DC. “About half of my work is administrative in nature and the other half is scientific research related to NASA missions.” Hudson said.

Besides his NASA job, Hudson also teaches at the Department of Astronomy in University of Maryland and is an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Eckerd College.

Musfeldt Group Received $1.6 Million NSF-DMREF Award for Advanced Materials Research

September 8, 2016 by chemweb

Janice Musfeldt, Ziegler Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in collaboration with David Vanderbilt, Sang-Wook Cheong, Kristjan Haule, and Valery Kiryukhin from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, recently won a $1.6 million Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) Award from National Science Foundation for their project titled “Collaborative Research: Emergent functionalities in 3d/5d multinary chalcogenides and oxides.”

The winning project will consist of “a concerted theoretical and experimental exploration of materials in which 3d and 5d transition-metal sites coexist in multicomponent chalcogenide and oxide crystals and films.” As stated in their proposal.

“The research results from this award show promise for identifying new materials with improved properties such as stronger or more tunable magnets, materials whose electrical conduction can be switched in novel ways, and materials to serve in future generations of optical devices.” Vanderbilt said.

The program will also bring broader impacts to advance science education by organizing summer or winter schools for interested students and providing mentorship. Their first effort was the Quantum Materials Synthesis (QMS) Symposium that was held on August 30 and September 1 in 7 World Trade Center, New York. The development of new workshops on spin-orbit coupling in quantum materials as well as an international network for quantum materials research is part of the outreach of this collaborative project.

Graduate student Michael Yokosuk in Musfeldt’s group presented his recent research on magnetoelectric coupling at the QMS Symposium. His research paper was also accepted at Physical Review Letters. “Working with the DMREF team has really opened my eyes up to the world of materials science and physics.” Yokosuk said. “Working with this high-class team has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my science career. Their understanding of the subject matter really drives me to learn and become more independent as a researcher, while keeping close contact with collaborators.”

This is the second time that Musfeldt and her team have received this award. The first one titled “Collaborative Research: Enhanced functionalities in 5d transition-metal compounds from large spin-orbit coupling“ also in the amount of $1.6 million was awarded in 2012.

“It was very productive.” Musfeldt commented on their 2012 project, “one metric of science impact is publications. This collaboration produced a total of 24 papers in four years, with 11 in Physical Review Letters and two in Nature Communications.”

“Our collaborations with the Musfeldt group have been extraordinarily useful.” Vanderbilt added. “One aspect that has been especially rewarding is our series of working meetings, held three or four times per year, where we get together for two concentrated days of informaltalks to share our research visions and results.  As a result of this NSF-DMREF collaboration, I find that I, as a theorist, am working more closely with experimentalists than at any previous time in my career.”

“The new award supports work in a different but related direction – this time with greater focus on novel phases in multinary materials.” Musfeldt said. “Now that the program has been renewed by NSF, I hope to involve another student or two.”

As a participant in the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), the National Science Foundation awards a limited number of grants to researchers for Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF). Initial DMREF awards in 2012 total $12 million were earmarked for 22 grants in support of 14 DMREF efforts. In 2014, NSF has issued a solicitation for up to $22 million in awards under DMREF program. And in 2016, the total funding has grown to $36 million.

Picture above: DMREF team enjoys dinner at their favorite Greek restaurant. From left: David H Vanderbilt, Sang-Wook Cheong, Valery Kiryukhin, Jak Chakhalian, Janice Musfeldt, and Kristjan Haule.

Picture on the right: 2016 QMS Participants