| Volume 63, Number 1 | January, 2012 |
| Volume 63, Number 1 | January, 2012 |
Outgoing chair message
Incoming chair message
Officers and committees, 2012
Judge at a science fair
Reort from Continuity Dinner
Meetings and Seminars
About the Chemical Bond
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Swansong of Jeff Cornelius
Jeff Cornelius, 2011 Chair
Wow, the year has gone fast. I can’t believe that my year as Chair of the St Louis Section is over and Eric Bruton is taking over for 2012. I am indebted to a number of people. I really want to thank Leah O’Brien and all of her helpers for putting together a very successful Midwest Regional Meeting, jointly with the Great Lakes Region, held in St Louis on October 19-22, 2011. I am so grateful for all the volunteers who keep our St Louis Section going. As Chair, I was able to participate in more activities than I have seen in the past. I learned a lot about those who organize section events and saw activities that I didn’t really know much about from prior years. It was fun to bring Principia students and join Sheryl Loux in judging science fairs during the Spring. I heard Michelle Jones address safety in large-scale reactions at a joint meeting of St Louis ACS and AIChE. It was great to meet and congratulate 50- and 60-year members and hear Shelley MInteer talk about her earth-moving project at the 2011 Recognition Night Dinner.
I recall a particularly busy week early in April driving back and forth across the Mississippi to hear Steven V Ley give the Robert W Murray Lecture at University of Missouri–St Louis, then Jerald Schnoor give the William J Probst Lecture at Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville, and later in the week see the Leopold Marcus Award competition at Saint Louis University. It was fun watching the Battle of Burets, and helping to present high school and college students after the Awards night inspiring demonstrations by Bob Becker. We had some ACS tour speakers: Robert Blackledge speaking on forensic chemistry and Wayne Jones on nanotechnology. It has been great to have my year as chair coincide with a reinvigoration of the Principia ACS Student Chapter and be able invite my students to help with the June picnic at Tower Grove Park. My students went to a lot of the career workshops sponsored by the YCC group. In the fall, enjoyed being part of the chemistry merit badge clinics at Jost Chemical and SIUE. I joined in on National Chemistry Week, sharing chemistry at the Science Center with Greg Wall and Sheryl Loux. Two highlights of the fall were being able to present the St Louis Award to Lucinda Buhse and the Midwest Award to Xiao Cheng Zeng.
As you can see in 2011, as every year, we had a lot happening in the St Louis Section. I haven’t even mentioned the monthly Board Meetings and the discussion groups. There are many different activities for which we rely heavily on volunteers. I am grateful to the board members and particularly the steering committee for all their help. There are lots of ways that new people can get involved. I hope to see more people get involved to support Eric Bruton in 2012 with his year as chair.
Jeff Cornelius
2011 Section Chair
Eric Bruton’s opening number
Eric Bruton, 2012 Chair
I am looking forward to my year as Chair of the St Louis Section–ACS. Last year, I was impressed with the many great activities conducted by our section, including the Joint Midwest/Great Lakes ACS Regional Meeting, outreach activities at the Science Center and in local schools, as well as the career events and talks. I would like to thank the many members who organized and carried out these and other events with excellence! And a special thank you to Jeff Cornelius, who has done a great job leading and supporting our section in 2011.
Thanks to the responses of many of you to the St Louis Section’s 2011 survey, we have great feedback on how to increase members’ knowledge about our events, and help you participate. The survey showed that many of you who did not participate in the section’s activities were not aware of them, that the majority of you would like to hear about activities by email, and that you would like to have more technical talks offered. We also discovered that many members who did learn of the section’s events ahead of time, found out about them through fellow members. So we know that increased outreach via email and communication between members can go a long way toward improving awareness and attendance.
In addition to connecting with members who are already involved, we need to reach out to the folks in the section who are asking themselves, “What do I get out of being a member of the ACS?” We have to make it clear that the ACS is more than just that organization you send a dues payment to and get a discount from to attend national meetings. Thehe national ACS offers many membership benefits, and the St Louis Local Section has many to offer as well.
We have a great community of over 1700 chemists in the St Louis region, and we all benefit from our members sharing their knowledge with each other. Two of the activities/events put on by our section that come to mind are the Resources for Career Management for Chemists in a Challenging Market seminar series put on by our Younger Chemist Committee (YCC) and the St Louis Award symposium and banquet. These events bring out our community in different ways. The career seminars look to provide a venue for chemists in a variety of fields to share career management and advice. The St Louis Award gives peer recognition to someone from our community who has done outstanding work.
The section already has several activities posted for 2012, including some science fairs for which we still need judges. Other events this year to look out for include Awards Night in April, National Chemistry Week at the Science Center in October, and our discussion group meetings, such as the very active NMR and Mass Spec group meetings, which take place throughout the year. While the section has many activities scheduled, there is room for more.
For up-to-date information on local sectioin activities, please see the website, which is updated regularly; look out for emails from the section; and please contact me if you have questions about the various activities or would like to get involved or volunteer. Also, please contact me if you have ideas for other activities.
Eric Bruton
2012 Chair, St Louis Section–ACS
eric.bruton@gmail.com
Who You Gonna Call? Officers, 2012A close reading of the two Chairs’ messages above will convince you of the critical importance of volunteers to the continued success of Section activities. In fact, everything we do is a 100% volunteer effort. Our Bylaws prohibit payment for work, except reimbursement of actual expenses.
The members listed below are responsible for organizing, promoting, and staffing Section activities in 2012. Do you have a question about a specific activity? Want to get involved, and you know where your niche is? Have an issue or suggestion about section governance, policies, activities? Get in touch.
| Elected officers | |
| Chair | Eric Bruton |
| Chair-Elect | Ziad Ramadan |
| Immediate past chair | Jeff Cornelius |
| Secretary | Sean Dingman |
| Treasurer | Vic Lewchenko |
| Directors | 2011-2012: Bill Doub, Bruce Ritts, Steve Kinsley 2012-2013: Samir El-Antably, Eric Ressner, Keith Stine |
| Councilors | 2010-2012: Lisa Balbes, Alexa Serfis 2011-2013: Lawrence Barton 2012-2014: Donna Friedman |
| Alternate Councilors | 2010-2012: Ben Outlaw 2011-2013: Ted Gast, Chris Spilling 2012-2014: Hal Harris |
| Committee chairs | |
| Awards | John Gleason |
| Education | Pegah Jalili |
| Investment | Hal Harris |
| Professional Activities | Brent Znosko |
| Program | Dana Baum |
| Publicity and Public Relations | Ben Outlaw |
| Special Events | |
| National Chemistry Week | Greg Wall |
You can be a Science Fair judge!
Volunteer for any or all of these opportunities by contacting Sheryl J Loux at 636.237.5149 or email sjloux@gmail.com.
Your participation as a judge would be greatly appreciated!
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Report from Continuity Dinner 2011Neither snow nor sleet nor lack of good cheer marred the 2011 Continuity Dinner on December 8. Back once again at CJ Muggs in Webster Groves, a modest crowd of 25 celebrated the passing of the reins from the Cornelius administration to the Bruton administration.
In addition to the usual agenda for Board meetings, the Continuity Dinner features some special items:
Greg Wall shows off his plaque and his smile as Jeff Cornelius presents the Salute to Excellence.
For the first time in three years, we had no Bylaw amendments to consider, and having already met for a General Meeting in the spring, we did not convene a General Meeting this night.
Alexa Serfis—former chair, many-termed Councilor, and winner this year of the Midwest Region’s Diversity Award—was honored as the Distinguished Service awardee. The award will be conferred officially at Recognition Night in March. But remember, you heard it here first.
Greg Wall made a guest appearance to accept his Salute to Excellence. The citation for the award alluded to his service to the Section and the community as liaison to the St Louis Science Center, where he has organized National Chemistry Week and other outreach events for lo! these many years. And also Earth Day. Don’t forget Earth Day.
The traditional passing of the book and the gavel from outgoing to incoming chair. This year, Jeff Cornelius passes long to Eric Bruton. And ... it’s ... complete! (Please forgive the motion blur.)
With sly glances all around the room, and thoroughly befitting I’ve Got a Secret, Ted Gast finally rose to deliver the Henry Godt Memorial Lecture. Neither in prose nor poesy, Ted’s distinctly modern take on the most successful and significant Section events of 2011 was delivered in tweets, with much gnashing of hashtags and at-signs. You can read the transcript, but you will just have to imagine #mrted57’s impression of a browser displaying Twitter.com.
And finally, Jeff Cornelius, grinning ear to ear, tagged Eric Bruton with the gavel, the Section book, A Century of Chemistry, and most significantly, the duties of Chair for 2012. The book has been signed by every Chair and many distinguished guests since 1973. Eric looks forward to signing and passing the book (buck?) a short year hence.
Meeting adjourned, and a happy year-end to all.
St Louis Section–ACS Board of Directors meets the second Thursday of each month, usually at the Glen Echo Country Club (
map). Meetings are open to all members, and all are encouraged to attend. Elected officers and chairs of major committees vote on questions put to the Board; others in attendance have voice but no vote.
If you want to attend for dinner, please contact the section Chair at least a week in advance. Usual cost of the dinner is $24 ($12 for post-docs and unemployed members). Members wishing to become active in section activities are welcomed for their first dinner as guests of the section.
Date: Jan 12
Social hour: 5:30 pm
Dinner: 6:30 pm
Business meeting: 7:15 pm
Future meetings: Feb 9, Mar 8
Seminars are on Fridays at 12 noon in Carlo Auditorium, Tegeler Hall, unless noted otherwise. Refreshments follow. For more information, contact Ryan McCulla, dbaum1@slu.edu.
At publication time, there were no January seminars listed at Saint Louis University. The following were added on Jan 11:
Jan 20
Yingfu Li
McMaster University
Fluorogenic Catalytic DNA Probes as Bacterial Indicators
Jan 27
Mike Ashby
University of Oklahoma
There’s Bleach in Your Blood!
Feb 3
Zachary Schultz
Notre Dame University
Nanostructures for Label-Free Detection and Imaging
Mondays at 4 pm in 451 Benton Hall, unless otherwise specified. Refreshments 15 minutes prior to seminar time. For more information, contact the Chemistry Department, 314.516.5311.
At publication time, there were no January seminars listed at University of Missouri–St Louis. The following were added on Jan 11:
January 23
Amit Basu
Brown University
Probing carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions with multivalent glycoconjugates
January 30
Courtney Aldrich
University of Minnesota
Design of Antibacterial Agents that Inhibit Siderophore Biosynthesis
Seminars are in McMillen 311 at 4 pm unless otherwise noted. For information, contact: Liviu Mirica, mirica@wustl.edu.
Jan 5
Megan Thielges
Stanford University
Nonlinear spectroscopy, protein dynamics, and biological molecular recognition
Jan 10
Kevin Shuford
Drexel University
Modeling and simulation on the nanoscale: Opportunities in optics, sensing, and energy
Jan 12
David Strasfeld
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
TBA
Jan 17
Andrew McNally
Cambridge University
New organocatalytic sigmatropic rearrangements and the discovery of a new amine C-H arylation reaction based on the strategy of accelerated serendipity
Jan 19
James Gumbart
Argonne National Laboratory
TBA
Jan 26
Leonard Mueller
University of California–Riverside
TBA
Feb 2, 4pm; Feb 3, 11 am
Marcus Lecture
Paul Wender
Stanford University
At publication time, the titles of Dr Wender’s Marcus Lecture presentations were not available. But his research is in the areas of organic synthesis and mechanistic studies; his research group is affiliated with Stanford’s Molecular and Genetic Medicine program
About the Chemical BondThe Chemical Bond is published at www.stlacs.org January through May and September through December by the St Louis Section–American Chemical Society. If you would like to receive email notification when each issue is posted, you can subscribe to the bond.remind listserv. You can also follow the link to “Manage bond.remind options” from the home page at www.stlacs.org.
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| Assistant Editor & Advertising Manager | Sue Saum | 314.513.4808 advmgr@stlacs.org |
| Business Manager | Donna Friedman | 314.513.4388 bizmgr@stlacs.org |
Correspondence, letters to the editor, etc., should be emailed to editor@stlacs.org
or mailed ℅ St Louis Section–ACS, PO Box 410192, Saint Louis, MO 63141-0192
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