Department of Chemistry

Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award (OTICA.) Jason A. Kautz, Ph.D., Professor of Practice, Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Kautz is a chemistry professor by title, but he teaches with the goal of instilling problem-solving skills in his students that translate to all aspects of life. He joined the UNL faculty in 2004, and since then he has played a central role in both course and teacher development. Kautz is the lead coordinator of the university’s Freshman Chemistry Program, which serves more than 2,500 students each academic year. He consistently receives instructor evaluation scores above the departmental average. His teaching effectiveness has manifested itself in three Association of Students of the University of Nebraska Outstanding Educator Awards and the Hazel R. McClymont Distinguished Teaching Fellow Award (2016), among other recognition throughout his career. Kautz also developed a graduate course in teaching methods of chemistry, which is designed to improve the development of graduate students as teaching assistants and as teachers upon graduation. He is also currently designing and authoring a digital chemistry course-learning solution that is in development with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Princeton University Professor of Chemistry, David MacMillan, chats about his research while on a visit to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in October of 2015. Dr. MacMillan received the 2015 Hamilton Award.

Meet Anita, a doctoral student in chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She's a graduate teaching assistant and research assistant in Rebecca Lai's lab. Learn more: http://chem.unl.edu v2

Meet Rachel, a doctoral student in chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work focuses on advancing the fields of organic synthesis and organic oxidation chemistry. She recently graduated from UNL and is now working at a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley.

Xiang Fei, a doctoral student in chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Originally from China, Xiang came to UNL to study the development of phosphonate surrogates of sugar phosphates and the use of enzymes for screening new, chiral organometallic catalysts. v2

Meet Ryan Matsuda, graduate student in Chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. http://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/

Meet Kyle Luttgeharm, a gradue student in biochemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. http://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/

Titration of Acids & Bases

Undergraduate Research in the Chemistry Department

Berkowitz Researches To Fight Cancer

Research by six UNL Chemistry Department scientists, Drs. Gerry Harbison, Jody Redepenning, Patrick Dussault, David Hage, Stephen DiMagno and Ronald Cerny explore how to detect easy-to-make and highly explosive bombs derived from peroxide compounds. These research scientists are helping law-enforcement and security agencies stop terroism attacks before they strike.

Dr. Gerry Harbison talks about TATP with WBTV's Jamie Boll. The article on the bomb arrest can be found here.

Dr. Jody Redepenning has discovered a one-step process that creates synthetic bone. The new discovery involves a monomer, L-lactide, which is made in Nebraska from the ethanol refining process and when heated, becomes as hard as bone. That finding can lead to a biocomposite that could be used as a bone replacement, a screw, or other orthopedic appliances or hard-tissue replacements. The process has been patented.

Professor Christopher T. Walsh describes the history of the development of antibiotic drugs. The odyssey begins with 'the golden age' (1930-50), through a long period of exploiting these successes, that has led to the emergence of resistant bacterial strains (e.g. MRSA = Methicillin-Resistant Staph. Aureus) that pose serious new threats to human health. This leads into Prof. Walsh's vision for new targets that present opportunities for the introduction of fundamentally different drugs, to complement available therapeutics.

The 2010 Cliff S. Hamilton Award in Organic Chemistry went to Professor Stephen L. Buchwald, Camille Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Buchwald is best known for his development of synthetic methods that have found extraordinary use in the pharmaceutical industry. His Hamilton Award Lecture, “Palladium-Catalyzed Carbon-Nitrogen Bond-Forming Reactions in Organic Synthesis,” is featured in the video above.

2010 Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award

Using Hollywood Movies to Teach Chemistry Formally and Informally - Mark A. Griep - Sunday, March 27, 2011 • Nancy Jackson, Sandia National Lab, ACS President • Mark A. Griep, Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska

Sugar-coated Cells, the Good News and the Bad NewsProfessor Carolyn R. Bertozzi University of California, Berkeley  © University of Nebraska - Lincoln 2012