Achievements

Claire Till

Chemistry

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Claire Till was awarded an NSF Ocean Sciences grant in collaboration with a group at Texas A&M. The $116,500 grant to HSU will fund the analysis of samples taken along a transect from Alaska to Tahiti for a suite of trace elements.

Joshua Smith

Chemistry

Professor of Chemistry Joshua Smith was awarded a Fulbright scholar award to study triplet ground state aromatic compounds at Angstrom Laboratories, Uppsala University, Sweden during the 2018-19 academic year.

Gregory M. Pitch (student) and Robert W. Zoellner (faculty member)

Chemistry

Gregory M. Pitch (student) and Robert W. Zoellner (faculty member) have published an article detailing their computational chemistry research results. The article is "Bonding modes in bis(benzene)beryllium(0): A density functional and Moller-Plesset computational investigation", and will be published in 2018 in the journal "Inorganica Chimica Acta", volume 470, pages 68-73.

William F. Wood

Chemistry

On August 26th, William Wood, HSU Chemical Ecologist, gave a lecture to the Humboldt County Mensa Organization's lunch meeting: titled “Skunk Solutions.” This talk covered Wood’s research on 4 species of North American skunk species, how to clean animals sprayed by skunks, the history of skunk spray research, and his anecdotal experiences with skunks.

William F. Wood

Chemistry

Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, William Wood, was a co-author of an article on medicinal aspects of matsutake mushrooms (Tricholoma magnivelare). Wood identified and synthesized a new compound from mycelium of this mushroom, which was used in the current study – “Effects of matsutake mushroom scent compounds on tyrosinase and murine B16-F10 melanoma cells.” It was published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.

Annette A. Tabares (student) and Robert W. Zoellner (faculty member)

Chemistry

We have recently published an 11-page peer-reviewed article detailing the results of an undergraduate research project: Annette A. Tabares and Robert W. Zoellner; "Magnesepin, 1,4-dimagnesocin, 1,4,7-trimagnesonin, and their C6H6Mgn, n=1-3, isomers: A density functional computational investigation"; Heteroatom Chemistry 2017, 28, 21355. The journal, Heteroatom Chemistry, specializes in the chemistry of organic molecules containing some non-carbon atoms, which are often referred to as "heteroatoms".

Marcos A. Amezcua, Jr.; Kiefer G. Bell-Wilson; Dallas A Davenport; Kenneth D. Gossow-Smith; Jeremiah R. Hays; Thomas D. Henderson; Micah T. Ojeda; William D. Pfeifer; Shady A. Shafik; Mitchell H. Ward; Raymond Yu; Casey R. Lu; Joshua R. Smith; Robert W. Zoellner

Chemistry

Eleven students of Chemistry Professor Robert Zoellner are co-authors on an article (attached) recently published in "The Chemical Educator," along with two of of his colleagues, Casey Lu from the Department of Biological Sciences, and Josh Smith from the Department of Chemistry. The full citation for the article is as follows:

Marcos A. Amezcua, Jr.; Kiefer G. Bell-Wilson; Dallas A Davenport; Kenneth D. Gossow-Smith; Jeremiah R. Hays; Thomas D. Henderson; Micah T. Ojeda; William D. Pfeifer; Shady A. Shafik; Mitchell H. Ward; Raymond Yu; Casey R. Lu; Joshua R. Smith; Robert W. Zoellner; "Replication of a published materials science synthesis: An impromptu upper-division undergraduate Inorganic Chemistry laboratory experiment"; The Chemical Educator 2016, 21, 215-222.

This was a joint project in which the students from Zoellner's Inorganic Chemistry II Laboratory (CHEM 410L) carried out the replication of the published synthesis from the suggestion of Josh Smith, and Casey Lu helped the students with performing the scanning electron microscope characterization of the graphene nanoplatelet products. All of the students participated in writing and editing the manuscript for publication, as did Lu and Smith; Zoellner is the corresponding author for the article.

"You can download the article here (PDF).":http://www.humboldt.edu/gamma/NOW_images/amezcua-TCE-2016-21-215.pdf

William Wood

Chemistry

“Do skunks hate the smell of their own spray?” William Wood, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, was asked this question by Popular Science Magazine (July-August, 2016, p. 102). He said we can never really know the answer to this question. Like humans, skunks should experience olfactory fatigue on prolonged exposure to their defensive spray. The receptors in their nose get clogged up with odor molecules and the smell can no longer be detected. The article is online at www.popsci.com/do-skunks-hate-smell-their-own-spray.

Robert W. Zoellner, Annette A. Tabares, and Essene L. Waters

Chemistry

Chemistry Professor Robert Zollner and two of his undergraduate students, Annette A. Tabares and Essene L. Waters, and have recently published the results of our research in the peer-reviewed journal Heteroatom Chemistry. The complete citation for the article is as follows: Annette A. Tabares, Essene L. Waters, Robert W. Zoellner; "Beryllepin, C6H6Be, and 'beryllium-inserted benzenes,'C6H6Ben, n = 2-6: A density functional investigation"; Heteroatom Chemistry 27(1), 37-43 (2016).

William Wood

Chemistry

An article titled, _The Western Thatching Ant,_ his photographs, and artworks were published in the Spring 2015 issue [Volume 34(1): 6-7] of _Dunesberry_, a publication of Friends of the Dunes. The western thatching ant (_Formica obscuripes_) gets its name from the mound of plant material at the top of its nests. In Humboldt County coastal areas, these ants are keystone species and have a large effect on its coastal dune environment. Wood has previously published research on the formic acid defensive spray of this ant.