Welcome to the latest NC State Department of Chemistry Newsletter. As usual, the last 12 months in our department have been very exciting and we have many updates to share with you. On the people front, Gavin Williams was appointed associate head, and Jeremy Feducia was appointed director of undergraduate programs, both on January 1. Robin Tanner was appointed undergraduate program coordinator effective July 1.

We are thrilled about two outstanding new faculty members who are joining us this summer. Dr. Erin Baker, an analytical chemist working in the field of mass spectrometry (ion mobility, metabolomics, environmental analysis) joins us as an associate professor. Erin earned her Ph.D. with Mike Bowers at UC-Santa Barbara followed by a postdoctoral appointment with Richard Smith at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. While there, Erin published nearly 100 papers and played an instrumental role in the development of Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry. Dr. Thomas Theis, whose interests lie with NMR, MRI and hyperpolarization processes, will be joining us as an assistant professor of physical chemistry. Thomas earned his Ph.D. with Alex Pines at UC-Berkeley followed by a postdoctoral appointment with Warren Warren at Duke University. Thomas has held an appointment as research assistant professor at Duke for the past three years, and he has already compiled an impressive publication record of more than 35 papers.

In related news, Joshua Pierce was promoted to associate professor with tenure and we look forward to his continued contributions to our department in the area of synthetic organic chemistry, teaching and service. Four of our non-tenure track teaching faculty — Ana Ison, Lori Petrovich, Jeremy Feducia and Ghada Rabah — were promoted to teaching associate professor, and we look forward to their continuing impact on our teaching and outreach mission.

A new dean of the College of Sciences, Dr. Christine McGahan, was appointed this past November. Dean McGahan is an experienced administrator, having served for the past 14 years as head of the Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences at NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. We are optimistic about the direction of the college under her leadership.

Our faculty, students, and staff were extremely successful over the past year in research, teaching, service and patent activities. Please see By the Numbers for details of many of their extraordinary accomplishments.

For many years, our instrumentation service facilities in the department have been aging and declining. This scenario is a growing problem at many universities given the high cost of major instrumentation. I am happy to inform you that this will no longer be a problem at NC State. A new university-level core facility named METRIC (Molecular Education, Technology, and Research Innovation Center) has been established from the merger of existing facilities from the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry. NC State has committed to an investment of $12 million over the next five years that will result in one of the best molecular characterization capabilities in the Southeast. Jacob and Betty Belin Distinguished Professor David Muddiman played a key role in the development of METRIC, and he has been named the inaugural director by the university’s research office.

Lastly, a new department website will launch this summer and will serve as a resource to learn more about our department. We hope you visit the new site and find it useful and fun to explore our department in more detail.

Until the next newsletter,

Ed

(Professor Edmond Bowden, Department Head)