chemistry

Science Students Shine at Sigma Xi Conference

November 11, 2016

University of Portland science students swept the undergraduate awards in the “Earth & Environmental Sciences” category at the Thirteenth Annual Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium, held on Friday, November 4 at Portland State University, according to faculty advisor Ted Eckmann, environmental studies.

Summer Grandy won 1st place for her coauthored paper, “Developing New Soils to Improve Green Roof Performance in the US Pacific Northwest.” Logan Simpson won second place for her coauthored piece, “Combining Spatial Interpolation with Wind Data to Analyze Industrial Odor Patterns in Portland.” The are the first students from UP’s environmental studies department to win awards at Sigma Xi, and the first from that department to present there.

Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, is the international honor society of science and engineering. See more at this link.

Sr. Angela Hoffman, O.S.B., Outstanding Higher Education Teacher in Science and Mathematics

February 24, 2014

Sr. Angela Hoffman, O.S.B., chemistry, has been named the Oregon Academy of Science 2014 Outstanding Higher Education Teacher in Science and Mathematics. Hoffman has helped undergraduate students with more than 150 projects involving the ingredient Paclitaxel and the anti-cancer drug Taxol (marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb). University of Portland environmental science professor Bob Butler was the recipient of the same award in 2013.

Paclitaxel is found originally in the rare and rapidly vanishing Yew tree, native to the Pacific Northwest. Taxol is used to treat ovarian cancer, breast cancer, the AIDS-related cancer Kaposi’s sarcoma, and other conditions. Hoffman currently has four patents from 1997, 2003, 2006, and 2010, all pertaining to recovering taxanes (including Taxol) from soil around yew trees and other plants that are grown to produce Taxol.

This past November, several dozen yew trees were planted on the University’s River Campus. Known as “Sr. Angela’s Yew Garden,” the garden is home to more than 10 different varieties of the yew tree, which Hoffman and her students will use for their research.

Hoffman was recognized in 2012 as an American Chemical Society (ACS) Fellow for her “outstanding achievements in and contributions to Science, the Profession, and the Society.” In 2007, Hoffman was chosen as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in 2007.

The Oregon Academy of Science promotes scientific research and education in Oregon representing all areas of the natural sciences and social sciences. To see a video interview with Sr. Angela go to http://youtu.be/KbVC2xYcfVU. For more information, contact Steve Kolmes, environmental studies, at 7291 or kolmes@up.edu.

Faculty Update

January 8, 2013

Bonnie Parks, library, published“Books at JSTOR: An Interview with Bruce Heterick” in v. 38:4 (2012) of Serials Review: http://tinyurl.com/cbtapln.

Eugenijus Urnezius, chemistry, presented a seminar, “Binucleating ligands based on phosphineappended hydroquinones: A rewarding challenge“ at Vilnius University in Lithuania’s Neorganic Chemistry Auditorium on December 19, 2012.

Aziz Inan, Shiley School of Engineering, had his brain teaser, “A Number of Reasons to Celebrate Gert Boyle,” published in the Portland Tribune on December 4, 2019.

Barb Braband, Rebecca Gaudino, and Anissa Rogers received a Teaching Poster Award for the presentation of “Innovations in Interdisciplinary Education on Grief: An Interview Project” at the 2019 National Symposium for Academic Palliative Care Education and Research in San Diego, CA, on Oct. 12, 2019. The 2019 National Symposium was sponsored by the Shiley Institute for Palliative Care.

Jane Scott, Clark Library, presented a poster, “Empowering ethical practices: Activities for access services” (with Heidi Senior) at the Access Services Conference, Atlanta, GA, November 2019.

Christina Ivler, Shiley School of Engineering, wrote “Frequency-Response and Frequency-Domain Models” and “Classical Frequency-Domain Design Methods” (with J. David Powell) and “Control System Optimization Methods in the Frequency Domain” in Baillieul J., Samad T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Systems and Control. Springer, London, 2019.

Buck Taylor, chemistry, wrote “Cooperative CO2 Scission by Anomalous Insertion into a Rh–Si Bond” (with Matthew Whited, Daron Janzen, and student coauthors Michael Trenerry, Jia Zhang, Theodore Donnell, Paul Peterson, Vanessa Eng) in Organometallics , November 2019 , 38 , 4420–4432.

Ami Ahern-Rindell, biology, was invited to be a member of a 3-person review panel to participate in onsite campus visits during October 29 – November 1 to review several PUIs (Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions) in Oklahoma who are recipients of an NIH-INBRE Consortium Award. This multi-million dollar grant provides funding for 5 years to improve biomedical research across the state of Oklahoma collaboratively between research intensive universities, PUIs, and Community Colleges.

Lora Looney, international languages and cultures, gave a faculty workshop on “Unpacking the Project First to Identify a Course’s Driving Question(s) Towards Teaching for Understanding” at the 39^thOriginal Lilly Conference on College Teaching at Miami University in Oxford, OH, on November 22.

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