what’s inside:pg. 2 Department Newspg. 3 Department Newspg. 4 Publication Spotlights

pg. 5 Faculty Newspg. 6 Faculty News, continued

In Memory

chem.utk.edu

FALL 2019 NEWSLETTER

Tom Connelly, current executive director and CEO of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and UT alum Diane Schmidt, former president of ACS, visited with faculty, staff, and students from the University of Tennessee’s Department of Chemistry July 17. During their visit, the pair also met with key UT personnel and toured research facilities. Connelly, on behalf of the ACS, was honored for continuing investments in the college. The American Chemical Society is a pillar of the scientific community and the premiere organization of chemistry advocates in the nation. The ACS maintains that role by bringing together the foremost minds in the field at its nationally recognized conferences, providing vast resources to academic and research-based institutions, and spearheading the industry’s outreach programs.

Though predominantly US based, the ACS has started to expand its international community building efforts with the formulation of both The Atlantic Basin and Pacific Chem conferences. These international specialty conferences, among other dedicated communication efforts, aim to provide networking opportunities and informational support to individuals from around the world. ACS’s stated mission is “To advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people.”

“The University of Tennessee is a strong participant in the chemistry enterprise and as such, the university has and continues to enjoy strong ACS support,” Connelly said. “UT regularly maintains representation at the national conferences, contributes and benefits from ACS informational exchange programs, and maintains a strong student chapter.”

UT Recognizes ACS for Research Support

Connelly and Schmidt recognized the compelling efforts of both chemistry faculty and their labs. Connelly will report his findings to the ACS board of directors. Future improvements to ACS/UT relations will include improved communications and increased involvement.

Schmidt received an MS from the University of Tennessee, and a BA in chemistry from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Immediately after finishing her PhD, she joined Procter & Gamble, where she served as Section Head with responsibility for safety and regulatory affairs before retiring in 2014. Schmidt is past Chair of the College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board is still involved with the Department of Chemistry’s Board of Visitors.

“When you receive your degree, they tell you to have all the rights, responsibilities, and privileges conferred by that degree, and I personally feel that one of those rights, responsibilities, and privileges is belonging to the American Chemistry Society,” Schmidt said.

UT Professor Donde Plowman presents Tom Connelly and Diane Schmidt with a plaque honoring ACS’s commitment to UT.

DEPARTMENT NEWS

Department of Chemistry hosted the 40th annual Honors Day Thursday, April 25, 2019, to recognize the achievements among students, faculty, and staff members of the department. Visit chem.utk.edu to see honorees and pictures from the event.

Buehler Hall Wins VOLUNTEERS FIRST IMPRESSION Contest

2019 Women in STEM Symposium Awards Graduate Students

As part of the Facilities Services Volunteer First Impressions contest, faculty, staff, and students were encouraged to submit an idea for renovating public spaces on campus. Facilities Services selected 10 entries to receive $10,000 in Facilities Services credit. Work on the projects will begin later in the spring.

Buehler Hall Courtyard was the fourth entry selected. Johnny Jones, technical director in the Department of Chemistry, recommended the space because the area is “barren.” The courtyard is located just outside of room 300 Buehler, which is a large lecture hall, and can be utilized as a waiting space for students.

The Department of Chemistry hosted this year’s Women in STEM Symposium in conjunction with Pipeline Vols for Women in STEM. Activities included a career and networking fair, the Fifth Annual Women in STEM Research Symposium, a plenary lecture and reception, Q&A discussion lunches, and a documentary screening.

A special thank you to the keynote speakers Karen Lloyd, UT Department of Microbiology, Heather Allen, Department of Chemistry, Ohio State University, Michelle Buchanan, Deputy for Science & Technology, ORNL, Rina Dukor, co-founder and president, Bio-Tools, Inc., and Polly Arnold, OBE FRS FRSE FRSC.

Chemistry graduate students Paula Pimento and Avery Wood had the opportunity to share and present their research. Pimento’s research

“Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) Detection of Neurotransmitters” explores how current neurodegenerative disease diagnosis is highly invasive.

“By the time the patient develops symptoms neurons and their respective axon terminals have been lost in alarming numbers,” Pimento said. “Neurotransmitter decline in the brain is closely related to neurodegenerative disease. Comprehending neurotransmitters quantities and functions in the brain is crucial to the scientific advancement in degeneration of nervous tissue. SERS can provide accurate detection in low concentrations paralleling those found in the brain. This innovative technique can potentially lay the foundation for the technologies that will lead to the progression of those suffering from these conditions to live a long and healthy life.”

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With more than 80 posters presented at the SETCA poster session, only six received awards and two are from UT:

• Modeling of Structural Features in Lignin Based Composite Materials by Hierarchical Decomposition of the Radial Distribution Function, Dayton G. Kizzire, the University of Tennessee

• Data-driven Acceleration of the Coupled-cluster Eigensolver, Jacob Townsend, the University of Tennessee

“Machine learning is revolutionizing our world in the areas of speech recognition, web searching, recommendation systems, and even self-driving cars,” said Jacob Townsend (pictured, right), graduate student in the Vogiatzis lab, who presented research about machine learning. “The framework for machine learning and artificial intelligence has rapidly developed. Our goal is to incorporate these advances in modern quantum chemical applications.”

Students Win SETCA Poster Session

The theoretical and computational division of the Department of Chemistry hosted the 2019 Southeastern Theoretical Chemistry Association (SETCA) meeting this spring at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. SETCA has a longstanding tradition of excellence in bringing together these communities to address the widespread challenges of computational chemists. This year’s meeting included a dinner banquet with keynote speaker Weitao Yang.

CHEMISTRY 3

DEPARTMENT NEWS

Duncan Moseley, a graduate student of the Xue lab, and Sina Sabury, a graduate student of the Kilbey lab, received the Extraordinary Professional Promise honors at the 2018 Chancellor’s Honors Banquet.

Students Honored at Chancellor’s Honors Banquet

I am extremely grateful to receive this award from the university, and even more grateful to Dr. Xue for all

of his hard work to make me a better researcher and chemist,” Moseley said.

Sabury

Musfeldt’s DMREF Team The Musfeldt lab provides a very unique opportunity for students with the Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) team.

“My time spent with the DMREF team has been a very rewarding one,” said recent alum Michael Yokosuk. “They have challenged me to think outside the box, pushing me out of my comfort zone of chemistry to learn new science in physics and materials science. They have given me the opportunity to engineer and form my own projects to incorporate new science, helping, encouraging, and guiding me along the way.”

Dipanjan Mazumdar, former postdoc in the Musfeldt lab, now has a tenure-track position at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He received a 2019 NSF CAREER Award for his work with thermal stability and scaling of nanoscale spin-electronic devices based on novel inverse-Heusler alloys. His goal of this project is to make faster, smaller, energy-efficient magnetic nanoswitches.

“When I started my research career, I learned that one can combine ultrathin layers (nanoscale) of magnetic materials to act as a switch utilizing a subtle quantum physics effect called quantum tunneling,” Mazumdar said. “Surviving in academia is very difficult. Jan Musfeldt helped my career to stay afloat during a very difficult time, so this award (and any award/grant I receive in the future) is always going to be directly or indirectly related to the support I received from her at the UT Department of Chemistry.”

Musfeldt Former Postdoc wins NSF CAREER Award

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PUBLICATION SPOTL IGHTS

The Xue group had their paper “Probing Magnetic Excitations in CoII Single-Molecule Magnets by Inelastic Neutron Scattering” published and was selected as the front cover art in the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry.

This section provides a sampling of recent publications from our faculty. Visit chem.utk.edu to learn more about each faculty member, research group, paper, or specific project.

Professor Tessa Calhoun was published in Nano Letters for research titled “Energetics at the Surface: Direct Optical

Mapping of Core and Surface Electronic Structure in CdSe Quantum Dots using Broadband Electronic Sum Frequency Generation Microspectroscopy.” In addition to Calhoun, other team members were Brianna Watson, the lead author, and Benjamin Doughty, a staff scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at ORNL.

The Dai group published a paper titled “Taming the stability of Pd active phases through a compartmentalizing strategy toward nanostructured catalyst supports” in Nature Communications.

The Dai lab published an article in ChemSusChem and was featured on the front cover of the journal.

The Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) published the Jenkins group’s work “Elucidating the Growth of Metal–Organic Nanotubes Combining Isoreticular Synthesis with Liquid-Cell Transmission Electron Microscopy.”

Professor David Jenkins and coworkers published a communication demonstrating the first five-coordinate imide complexes on iron in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

The Vogiatzis group’s recent work “Data-Driven Acceleration of the Coupled-Cluster Singles and Doubles Iterative Solver” was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

CHEMISTRY 5

FACULTY NEWS

Feigerle Gives Talk About Diamond Foils for ORNL’s SNS

Chuck Feigerle, head of the UT Department of Chemistry, spent a summer learning how to make diamond films with Jim Butler from the Naval Research

Laboratory in Washington, DC. Feigerle and his associates grew the first single edged supported diamond foils for use in the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS)

in Buehler Hall. Then, with Department of Energy funds, a microwave plasma reactor was purchased for Bob Shaw’s lab at ORNL, where diamond foils were

grown and tested for the SNS over the next few years. Shaw and Feigerle led the research group. He credits Leslie Wilson with carrying out much of the research.

Read more at chem.utk.edu.

Dai Elected to the Class of 2019 MRS Fellows and Winner of 2020 Max Bredig Award Sheng Dai has been elected to the class of 2019 MRS Fellows by the Materials Research Society (MRS). This honor is bestowed upon MRS members who are notable for their distinguished research accomplishments and outstanding contributions to the advancement of materials research worldwide. Dai specifically was recognized for his “significant and sustained contributions in pioneering and developing novel synthetic methods for functional carbon materials for energy applications.”

Dai was also selected as the winner of the 2020 Max Bredig Award in Molten Salt and Ionic Liquid Chemistry. This award was established through contributions from ARCO Metals Company and the Aluminum Company of America and recognizes scientists who have made significant scientific contributions to the area of molten salts and ionic liquids.

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and update your alumni information.

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FACULTY NEWS

In MemoryIn Memory

Donald C. Kleinfelter, passed away June 4, 2019, at the age of 84. Don taught general and organic chemistry at the University of Tennessee for 38 years. His excellence in teaching was recognized by the university community when he was presented with the UT Alumni Teaching Award in 1981.

Remembering John E. Bloor and Donald C. Kleinfelter

John Edward Bloor [KB4] passed away June 6, 2019, at the age of 89. John taught chemistry at the University of Tennessee from 1969 until 1995. His hard work was recognized by the UT annual graduate award, the John E. Bloor Award in Physical Chemistry.

Department Welcomes New Faculty Member Fred Heberle joined the Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor. Heberle comes from a small town in

eastern Montana and earned his PhD at Cornell University in the lab of Gerald Feigenson. Heberle spent five years in the Neutron Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for his postdoctoral research. He is a PI on an NSF grant for the study of asymmetric membranes.

“Our lab uses biophysical, biochemical, and computational methods to answer fundamental questions about biomembrane structure and organization,” Heberle said. “We use model systems spanning a vast range of complexity, from simple liposomes made from a single type of lipid, to multicomponent vesicles with engineered lipid asymmetry, to the plasma membrane of a living cell itself. We use techniques ranging from calorimetry, to fluorescence, to neutron and X-ray scattering.”

Alumni are encouraged to share professional updates, including

information about current jobs, recent promotions, publications, presentations,

awards as well as personal updates such as additional degrees earned,

engagements, weddings, new additions to your family and other milestones.

We love to hear from our alumni ...

CHEMISTRY 7

Your gift counts more than ever! We sincerely thank the many alumni and friends who so generously support the Department of Chemistry. Gifts can be designated to the fund you prefer and will be most gratefully received.

C H E M I S T R Y Giving OpportunitiesWe rely on the generous financial support of our alumni and friends. Your contributions, no matter what size, play a critical role in supporting academic achievement and research by students and faculty.

You can support the Department of Chemistry at UT. Ways you can give:Option 1: Make a secure gift online: chem.utk.edu/chemgift

Option 2: Send your check made out UT Foundation, with the fund name on the memo line to: 137 UT Alumni Memorial Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-1331

Option 3: For gifts of stock, Donor Advised Funds gifts in-kind, or to discuss how to make a greater impact on students, faculty, staff, or facilities in Chemistry, please contact Don Eisenberg at 865-974-2365 or don@utfi.org . You can make an impact wherever you choose: Immediate impact gift: The Chemistry Enrichment Fund supports the most important needs of the department, from seminar programs, to instrumentation acquisition and much more.

Specific gift: You can contribute to current funds and endowments, including the Chemistry Department General Scholarship Fund, the Hilton A. Smith Endowment, the Gleb Mamantov Endowment, or others listed at chem.utk.edu.

New giving opportunities: As a donor you can establish a new fund, scholarship and or endowment in your name or area of interest. Please call Don Eisenberg for more information.

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FALL 2019 NEWSLETTER

REUBolatito Babatunde working in the Best lab during the Department of Chemistry’s summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program funded by NSF.