The CMA encourages our friends and colleagues will join us for our outstanding lineup of speakers at the How to Foster Diversity in the Chemical Sciences Symposium at 8-11am in the Grand Salon B Sec 7, Hilton New Orleans Riverside.
Professor Pannell
Since arriving at U. T. El Paso Professor Pannell has personally mentored ~120 UG students in his organometallic research laboratory, resulting in >120 articles published with UG coauthors in the International refereed literature. Of these students, ~50% continued their studies to the graduate level at a range of Universities in the USA. Alumni from his group hold, or have held, faculty positions at a range of US Universities and Colleges, including Harvard; Princeton; Oklahoma State, U. Tennessee; U. T. El Paso, Calpoly, etc. His research program has been continuously funded by external sources such as PRF, NSF, NIH, Welch Foundation, NATO, etc.
In addition to this personal research mentoring, in his role as Director of the NIH Minority Access to Research Careers Program (MARC) (now titled the more politically correct “Maximizing Access to Research Careers) he has mentored a further 200 UG students of whom ~60% have continued on to Ph.D. studies and degrees.
Pannell has been served on several ACS committees, currently on CPRC, and has been the general chair, or related responsibilities, for four SW Regional Meetings of the ACS in El Paso TX. He is the recipient of the Stanley C. Israel SW Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences, the ACS Award for Research in an Undergraduate Institution and is a Fellow of the ACS.
He is currently the President Elect of the Texas Academy of Science, http://www.texasacademyofscience.org/ and for 30 years has hosted a weekly Public Radio program Science Studio, https://ktep.drupal.publicbroadcasting.net/podcasts/23/rss.xml for which he received the 1992 Texas Public Health Association Media Award.
Prof. Susan Olesik
Susan Olesik received her A.S. from Vincennes University B.A. from DePauw University in 1977 and her Ph.D. in 1982 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the auspices of James W. Taylor in field of analytical mass spectrometry. She was a postdoctoral fellow for Milos Novotny at Indiana University from 1982-1984 and for Tomas Baer at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill from 1984-1986. She has been a faculty member at The Ohio State University since 1986, being promoted to Associate Professor in 1992 and Professor in 1997. She is currently the Dow Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. She continues as the Director of the Ohio House of Science and Engineering (OHSE), a K-16 science outreach center.
Her awards include: 2017 The Analytical Scientist top mentor award, 2016 one of the Top 50 women in Analytical Sciences, 2015 The Analytical Scientist -100 Most Influential Analytical Scientists, ACS 2014 Helen M Free Award for Public Outreach, 2014 ACS Award in Chromatography, 2012 AAAS Fellow, 2010 OSU Building Bridges Excellence Award, 2009 ACS Fellow, 2008 ACS National Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences; 2008 Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences; OSU Alumni Association Heinlen Award-2006; 2005 Columbus Technical Council (CTC) Technical Person of the Year; 2004 ACS, Columbus Section Award for Outstanding Achievement & Promotion of Chemical Sciences; 2000 AWISCO Woman in Science Award; and a commendation from NASA for Contributing GC Column to Cassini- Huygen’s probe.
She is most known for research in three areas of separation science – Enhanced-fluidity Liquid Chromatography and nanoscale materials for chromatographic as well as mass spectrometric applications. Recent areas of study include studies of biologically relevant compounds and improving in efficiency in separation science and ionization efficiency in surface assisted laser desorption ionization (SALDI) using nanoparticle and nanofiber arrays and devices.
Prof. Javier Vela
Dr. Javier Vela is an associate professor of chemistry at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. He was born in Xalapa, Mexico, and grew up in Cuernavaca and Xalapa. He received his B.S. with Honors from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2001. He obtained M.S. and Ph.D. degrees working with Prof. Patrick L. Holland at the University of Rochester in 2003 and 2005, respectively. Before joining Iowa State in 2009, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2006, and a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies from 2007 to 2009. Trained as a synthetic inorganic and materials chemist, Dr. Vela’s current research focuses on the development of new nanostructured and optical materials for applications in chemical catalysis, energy conversion, and biological imaging. For his research and service work, he has received the LAS Institutional Service Award in 2017, the IUPAC Young Observer award in 2017, the Big XII Faculty Fellowship in 2017, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Advancing One Community Faculty Award in 2017, the Midwest Stanley C. Israel Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences in 2014, the LAS Early Achievement in Research Faculty Award in 2014, thre LAS Diversity Award in 2013, the NSF CAREER Award in 2013, the Top 40 Under 40 by Hispanic Engineering recognition in 2011, the LANL Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2007, and the ACS Inorganic Young Investigator Award in 2006. He also serves as Equity Advisor for the ISU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) for the period 2015-2018.
Prof. Daniel Rabinovich
Dr. Rabinovich obtained his undergraduate (B.S.) degree from the Catholic University in Lima (Peru) and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Columbia University in 1994. After postdoctoral work at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, he joined the Department of Chemistry at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he is now a Professor of Chemistry. His research interests are in synthetic and structural inorganic, bioinorganic, and organometallic chemistry, documented in some 60 peer-reviewed publications. He is a regular contributor to Chemistry International, the IUPAC bimonthly newsmagazine and he was the recipient of the 2013 Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences (Southeastern Region).
Prof. Zaida C. Morales-Martinez
A Florida International University Chemistry Emeritus Professor, was born and raised in Naranjito, Puerto Rico, obtained a BS in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras Campus and later an MS in Analytical Chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University. Zaida’s teaching career expands for 47 years: starting at her own alma mater in Puerto Rico, moving to Florida State University, University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and her last 30 years at Florida International University in Miami from where she retired in 2003 receiving the Distinguished Service Medallion at graduation ceremonies. Zaida joined the ACS in 1963, has been a Councilor for the Florida and South Florida Section since 1987, participating in various appointed and elected national committees. She was an instrumental member of the ACS President’s Task Force that established the ACS Minority Programs Office, the Committee on Minority Affairs (founding committee member) and the ACS Scholars Program in 1992. Zaida has been the ACS Scholars Program Mentoring Consultant since 1999. Over the year’s she has received numerous teaching and mentoring awards. In 2004, the ACS Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences; the ACS Board of Directors Volunteer Service Award to the American Chemical Society in 2004 ; and the Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences in the Southeast Region in 2017 .
Prof. J. V. Ortiz
J. V. Ortiz was born in Bethpage, New York in 1956 and attended public schools in Plainview, New York until 1973. After obtaining a B.S. in Chemistry with High Honors at the University of Florida in 1976, he began graduate work in the Quantum Theory Project of the same university and completed his dissertation in 1981 under the supervision of Yngve Öhrn, earning a Ph.D. in Chemistry with a certificate in Chemical Physics. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with William Lipscomb and at Cornell University with Roald Hoffman, he spent thirteen years at the University of New Mexico. In December, 1996, he joined the Chemistry Department of Kansas State University and was named a University Distinguished Professor in April, 2004. He became the first Ruth W. Molette Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Auburn University in August, 2006 and simultaneously began serving as Chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Dr. Ortiz has taught a variety of topics, from basic chemistry for nontechnical majors to advanced methods of quantum mechanics. He supervises a research group of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows that specializes in his area of research, quantum chemistry. This field is concerned with the prediction and explanation of the properties of atoms, molecules and solids using computers, principles of physics and mathematical methods. His group is engaged in the derivation and programming of new quantum mechanical methods for calculating molecular spectra. A special emphasis has been the development of ab initiopropagator theories which combine the rigor of many-body formalisms with chemically perspicuous orbital concepts.
Prof. Steven A. Lopez
Steven graduated from New York University in 2006 with a B.S. in Chemistry. During that time, he worked with Prof. James W. Canary to synthesize chirpotical switches as mercury detectors. His Ph.D. work focused on using computational chemistry (DFT, MD, QM/MM) to model chemical reactions in solution and charge transport in organic solids. After his Ph.D., he worked alongside Prof. Alan Aspuru-Guzik as a Department of Energy EERE postdoctoral fellow, and joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Northeastern University in August 2017. His research group uses QM, MD, and machine learning techniques to identify underlying structure-property relationships between the ground and excited states of organic molecules and rationally designing molecular targets in photomedicine and organic electronics. Steven is also the faculty advisor for the Northeastern University chapter of the Alliance for Diversity in Science and Engineering.