News Archives - Page 3 of 35

2024 Honors Day

May 14, 2024 by Jennifer Brown

On Thursday, May 2nd the Department of Chemistry held its annual Honors Day event. Honors Day is an opportunity to recognize student, faculty, and staff excellence via awards and fellowships. This year the Dr. Robert A. and Phyllis F.J. Yokley Endowed Fellowship was awarded for the first time. Dr. and Mrs. Yokley traveled from their home in North Carolina to join the celebration and meet the first winner of their fellowship. Distinguished alumnus Dr. Subu Natesan, CEO and President of AstraGlass Innovations, delivered the opening address.

Honors Day Awardees

Outstanding PhD Candidate Awards

Shahzad Akram (not pictured)
Bukola Ogunyemi

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Awards

Lydia Lang
Vernon Stafford

Charles W. Keenan Award

Zack Hulsey

Three people pose for a photo at an awards ceremony with a UT backdrop behind them

Four people pose for a photo at an awards ceremony with a UT backdrop behind them

Jerome Eastham Fellowship in Organic Chemistry

Dillon McBee

Graduate Fellowship for Achievement in Inorganic Chemistry

Adam Hand

Judson Hall Robertson Graduate Award in Analytical Chemistry

Kevin Siniard

Eugene John Barber Fellowship in Physical Chemistry

Jeffrey Laub

Dr. Robert A. & Phyllis F.J. Yokley Endowed Fellowship

Dakota Landrie

Gleb Mamantov Graduate Chemistry Scholar

Miranda Limbach

Five people pose for a photo at an awards ceremony with a UT backdrop behind them

ACGS Awards

ACGS Member of the Year

Brandon Sanders
Amarachi Sylvanus
Christy Witcher (not pictured)

James F. Green ACGS Service Award

Crystal Armstrong
Jennifer Brown

Carol Moulton ACGS Service Award

Linda Sherman (not pictured)

Staff Awards

Outstanding Service Awards

Eric Mercer
Matt Tomm

Two people pose for a photo at an awards ceremony with a UT backdrop behind them

Faculty Awards

Zeigler Professorship

Mark Dadmun (not pictured)

Slide on a screen showing Chemistry Honors Day

2024 Undergraduate Awards

May 7, 2024 by Jennifer Brown

On Saturday, April 27th the 3rd annual Undergraduate Research Symposium took place in Mossman Hall, with undergraduate students participating in poster and oral presentation competitions. Following the symposium, chemistry undergraduates, family and friends attended the accompanying awards dinner where symposium awards and undergraduate scholarships were distributed. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners!

Undergraduate Research Symposium Award Winners

Poster Award Winner

Maryam Ahmed

Poster Award Winner

Grayson Cobb

Oral Presentation Winner

Kendra Day

Oral Presentation Winner

Makayla Hedges

Scholarship Award Winners

C.W. Keenan Outstanding General Chemistry Student Award

Vu (Lynn) Nguyen

Phillip & Mary Reitano Award

Rahil Parikh

Dr. Lucy E. Scroggie Scholarship

Caleb Russell

Halbert and Anne Carmichael Scholarship

Bailey Dvorak

C.A. Buehler Chemistry Scholarship

Makayla Hedges

Additional Awards (not pictured)

ACS-Hach Land Grant Scholarship

Nathan Stimpson

CRC Press General Chemistry Award

Reed Heflin

Melaven-Rhenium Scholarships

Bailey Dvorak
Chloe Earls
Alexandria Wood

Chemistry Professor Emeritus Michael J. Sepaniak Passes Away

April 8, 2024 by Jennifer Brown

It is with great sadness that we commemorate the passing of Michael J. Sepaniak, professor emeritus of chemistry. Sepaniak joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1981, where he spent nearly 40 years conducting research, teaching, and mentoring graduate students.

During his time at UT, Sepaniak investigated microfluidics, optical spectroscopy, and chemical sensing. He was a Paul and Wilma Ziegler Professor of Chemistry and served as department head from 1995 through 2003. Sepaniak retired in 2018, but maintained a post-retirement position with the department until 2020.

He will be greatly missed. The Department of Chemistry is grateful for his service and time at the university.

Rising Scholars: Dylan Andrews

December 6, 2023 by Jennifer Brown

Some students begin their college careers knowing they want a good education but unsure about what comes next, while others move in to their dorms with the next steps toward their career firmly in mind.

Dylan Andrews, senior honors chemistry major, was one of the latter. A native Tennessean, Andrews came to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in pursuit of an education that would ultimately get him to medical school, starting with an undergraduate degree in chemistry.

“I was fortunate enough to have a really amazing chemistry instructor in high school, Mr. Mark Page. He was one of those teachers who truly makes an impact on you and he really helped me develop a love for chemistry,” said Andrews.

As he pursued his degree at UT, Andrews began to see participating in research as an opportunity to make the most of his time at the university and better prepare himself for the future. He broached the topic with Professor Janice Musfeldt, who was teaching one of his classes at the time.

“I think this is a really good example of how students can get involved in research in the department. Dr. Musfeldt and I built a good relationship over the course of the semester. I also met one of her graduate students and attended a seminar delivered by her colleague, Hans Bechtel. This let me get to know her group and her research, while showing her that I was engaged and interested,” said Andrews.

Hans Bechtel is the infrared program lead for the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His ongoing relationship with the Musfeldt Group has led to him co-authoring several publications with its members. Bechtel visited the university to deliver a seminar and, over the course of conversation afterwards, suggested Andrews apply for a Department of Energy (DOE) summer internship at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab later in the year.

The next semester Andrews embraced research in the chemistry department as the next step toward his goals. He registered for the undergraduate research course and joined the Musfeldt lab. Heeding Bechtel’s advice, Andrews also applied for and was awarded a place in the DOE summer program at Lawrence Berkeley.

Near the end of spring semester, Andrews participated in the Department of Chemistry’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, presenting a poster to a panel of judges including departmental alumni, retired faculty, and industry partners. This experience gave Andrews his first chance to speak publicly about his research; an opportunity that would pave the way for future poster presentations.

At the end of his internship at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Andrews entered and placed third in a poster competition designed to evaluate the presentation skills of the participants. The presentations were conducted via Zoom, allowing members of Andrews’ research team in the Musfeldt Group to join and support him.

Andrews plans to graduate in December 2024 and go on to medical school. He believes his experience in the Department of Chemistry and the relationships forged there have prepared him to meet the challenges of a future in medicine.

“Dr. Musfeldt, and really every faculty member I’ve worked with in the department, do everything they can to plug their students into new opportunities and point out things they could do to better themselves as students and researchers. I would probably never have known about that DOE internship if I hadn’t been introduced to Dr. Bechtel,” said Andrews. “The relationships I’ve developed and the support I’ve experienced in the chemistry department have really helped me excel as a student, which will help me through all the next stages of my education and career.”

Xue Group Publishes in Nature Communications

November 17, 2023 by Jennifer Brown

The Xue Research Group has published their recent work in the journal Nature Communications. The Xue Group is helmed by Professor Ziling (Ben) Xue, whose work includes materials chemistry and the study of magnetism.

Xue’s paper, “Haldane topological spin-1 chains in a planar metal-organic framework” describes his group’s work exploring the magnetic properties of NiBO. NiBO was previously reported as part of a family of two-dimensional metal coordination polymers, also known as MOFs (Metal-Organic Frameworks) but the possible topological magnetic properties of the material had not been investigated.

Xue’s team used a variety of techniques to examine the material, including variable-temperature powder neutron diffraction, inelastic neutron scattering, and Monte Carlo simulations of the spin-1 chains found in NiBO. They began testing not knowing what NiBO would reveal but the results of their work showed the material fell into a particular category of magnetic materials known as Haldane topological solids.

Haldane topological materials possess a specific magnetic characteristic that makes them potentially useful in spintronics (or spin electronics) and quantum computing. Xue’s findings could be relevant to the development of next-generation storage materials and the future of medical detectors.

Xue’s team included recent PhD graduate Pagnareach Tin and current PhD student Michael Jenkins, whose work he described as critical to the success of the project. The team also collaborated with Jie Xing and Rongyin Jin at the University of South Carolina, Nils Caci and Stefan Wessel at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, J. Krzystek at National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and Zheng Gai, Cheng Li, Luke Daemen, and Yongqiang Cheng at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Read the full article here.

Vogiatzis Group Publishes in Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

July 31, 2023 by Jennifer Brown

Grier Jones, fifth year chemistry PhD student, and Associate Professor Konstantinos Vogiatzis recently published a new data-driven quantum chemistry method, based on the reduced-density matrix (RDM) formulation of quantum mechanics, in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. This publication was developed in collaboration with University of Tennessee, Knoxville alumnus Professor A. Eugene DePrince (’05) and his research group at Florida State University. DePrince’s group specializes in the development of novel RDM methods for the treatment of strongly correlated electrons.

Strong electron correlation lies at the heart of molecular quantum mechanics and, in particular, at the heart of electronic structure theory. Configuration interaction (CI) theory provides an exact description of strong correlation, but it suffers from exponential scaling with respect to the number of correlated electrons and orbitals. As an alternative, variational two-electron RDM (v2RDM) methods have been introduced since the energy of a many-electron system can be formulated exactly using the two-electron RDMs (2RDMs). One interesting property is that the 2RDM can be formulated without explicit knowledge of the wave function. In practice, finding a wave function that maps explicitly to the 2RDM can be very tricky, and the resulting deviation between CI- and RDM-based methods can be very large.

To resolve this issue, a collaboration between the Vogiatzis and DePrince groups lead to the development of the data-driven v2RDM (DDv2RDM) method to learn CI-quality energies using data generated using the v2RDM-complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) method. Using proof-of-principle calculations, they found that the model learns the correction the v2RDM energy near-chemical accuracy (1 kcal/mol). They also introduced the use of SHapley Additive exPlanation (SHAP) values, a feature importance method based on cooperative game theory, to analyze the how their physics-based features affect model performance. The SHAP analysis confirmed that the features that impact the model performance the most (and least) correspond well to insights based on physical principles.

Read the full article here.

Vogiatzis named Bodossaki Distinguished Young Scientist

June 27, 2023 by Jennifer Brown

Konstantinos Vogiatzis, associate professor in the chemistry department, has been named a Bodossaki Distinguished Young Scientist Award winner. The award recognizes young Greek scientists for their work in a number of academic fields, including science, life sciences, applied science and technology, and the social sciences.

Vogiatzis’ work is centered on the development of computational methods based on electronic structure theory and artificial intelligence. He and his team apply this to chemical systems for clean, green technology.

“As an independent researcher, my work has focused on leveraging machine learning in computational chemistry, using modeling and simulation for the discovery of novel molecules and materials with enhanced properties,” said Vogiatzis. “The guiding objective of my research is to clarify the fundamental physical principles influencing the properties of molecules and materials through the interpretation of experimental data.”

Since 1993, the Bodossaki Foundation has distributed Distinguished Young Scientist Awards every two years. In that time, 57 Greek scientists have been recognized for outstanding research conducted across a global stage. Candidates for the Bodossaki Distinguished Young Scientist Award are nominated by peers, collaborators, and institutions in which they work. Vogiatzis was nominated by Vanda Glezakou, a colleague at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and fellow native of Greece.

Vogiatzis will attend a ceremony in Greece this summer where he will be presented with his award.As a Bodossaki honoree, Vogiatzis joins the ranks of Greek professors working at leading research institutions around the world, including Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Toronto.

“I would like to express my gratitude to the Bodossaki Foundation, both for recognizing my work and for the honor of being included among the outstanding scientists receiving these awards now and in years past,” said Vogiatzis. “This award is the result of a 17-year course of scientific study that began in the classrooms and research laboratories of Greek universities. This, however, is just the beginning and I look forward to many more years continuing the search for new discoveries in the field of chemistry.”

Vogiatzis joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2016. Since that time, he has authored more than 40 publications and mentored 15 graduate students. He is the recipient of the 2020 and 2022 Ffrancon Williams Endowed Faculty Award in Chemistry, the 2021 OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award presented by the American Chemical Society, and a 2021 NSF CAREER award.

Read more about the Bodossaki Foundation and the 2023 Distinguished Young Scientist awardees here.

Chemistry Undergraduates Named Volunteers of Distinction

May 1, 2023 by chemweb

Two undergraduate chemistry students were named 2023 Volunteers of Distinction. Drake Robins and Clay West were nominated by faculty members and joined the ranks of students from across the university being honored.

Drake Robins was a fourth-year senior studying analytical chemistry when he received the award. He is a member of the Air Force ROTC and has been working in Associate Professor Bhavya Sharma’s lab since his junior year. Robins expressed his gratitude for the award and his time at UT.

“Academics and research have always been a top priority for me throughout my time at UT, and I feel extremely blessed to be recognized for it this close to graduation,” said Robins.

Robins has since graduated and was commissioned into the United States Air Force as a 2^nd Lieutenant. After the summer, Robins plans to attend Undergraduate Pilot Training at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi.

Clay West, also a fourth-year senior when he received his award, was a student in the department’s American Chemical Society certified bachelor’s degree program. West stated he was grateful to receive the Volunteer of Distinction Award and considers it to be a reflection of the work he has put into earning his degree.

Prior to graduation, West participated in the department’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, where he presented research conducted under the supervision of Professor Shawn Campagna. West plans to spend the next year applying to graduate schools and preparing to pursue a PhD in organic chemistry.

The Volunteer of Distinction Awards were created in 2021 by the university to recognize students across campus who exhibit extraordinary academic achievement, professional promise, or excellence in research. Previous award winners from the chemistry department include Maggie Eslinger, Hannah Hagewood, Elijah Hix, Galvin McCarver, and Wilson Wang.

Kevin Smith Featured by Berkeley Lab

April 26, 2023 by Jennifer Brown

Graduate student Kevin Smith and Professor Janice Musfeldt were recently featured by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for their work with the Advanced Light Source (ALS). The highlight described the work in their paper entitled “Real-Space Infrared Spectroscopy of Ferroelectric Domain Walls in Multiferroic h-(Lu,Sc)FeO₃” published in ACS Applied Matter Interfaces.

Smith and Musfeldt used infrared light from the ALS to investigate the properties of the domain walls that separate electrically polarized regions in a rare-earth ferrite material. Their findings open the door to broadband imaging of physical and chemical heterogeneity in ferroics, and improved understandings of the properties of flexible defect states. The complete highlight is available here.

Jenkins Lab Published in Angewandte Chemie

March 1, 2023 by Jennifer Brown

The Jenkins Lab published their research “Giving Gold Wings: Ultrabright and Fragmentation Free Mass Spectrometry Reporters for Barcoding, Bioconjugation Monitoring, and Data Storage” in the international journal Angewandte Chemie. Graduate students Isabel Jensen and Gurkiran Kaur were co-authors on the piece.

The widespread application of laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS) highlights the need for a bright and multiplexable labeling platform. While ligand-capped Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) have emerged as a promising LDI-MS contrast agent, the predominant thiol ligands suffer from low ion yields and extensive fragmentation.

In this work, they developed a N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand platform that enhances AuNP LDI-MS performance. NHC scaffolds are tuned to generate barcoded AuNPs which, when benchmarked against thiol-AuNPs, are bright mass tags and form unfragmented ions in high yield. To illustrate the transformative potential of NHC ligands, the mass tags were employed in three orthogonal applications: monitoring a bioconjugation reaction, performing multiplexed imaging, and storing and reading encoded information.

These results demonstrate that NHC-nanoparticle systems are an ideal platform for LDI-MS and greatly broaden the scope of nanoparticle contrast agents.