Category Archives: People and Events

The theory faculty are happy to welcome three undergraduate students to Minnesota as participants in the 2018 Summer Undergraduate Theoretical Chemistry Research Fellowship sponsored by the Chemical Theory Center (CTC), Inorganometallic Catalyst Design Center (ICDC), and the Nanoporous Materials Genome Center (NMGC) within the Department of Chemistry.

They are here for 10 weeks (June-August) and will conduct research in theoretical chemistry. Elizabeth Smithwick (Duke University, Durham, NC) is working in the Goodpaster group, Jan Kadlec (Charles University, Prague) is working in the Gagliardi group, and Hung Vuong (Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA) is working in the Truhlar group. Welcome to all of you and we wish you the best with your summer research experience.

Thais Scott, first-year graduate student, is one of six students honored through the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program. This is quite an accomplishment!

Laura has been honored with a prestigious Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which will enable her to conduct research with scientists in Germany in 2019.

WooSeok Jeong, most recently of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, has joined the group as a postdoc.

The group welcomes Matthew Hermes, most recently a postdoc in the Scuseria Group at Rice University in Houston, TX, as a postdoc.

Former graduate student, Chad Hoyer has accepted a postdoctoral position in the research group of Xiaosong Li in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington.Great news!

Postdoc, Andrew Sand is the author of the November 7 Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle. It is not just Andrew’s cientific papers that get published! See the puzzle.

The group welcomes three first-year graduate students: Riddhish Umesh Pandharkar (co-advised by Chris Cramer), Thais Scott, and Jacob White. We are glad to have you with us. We are glad to have you with us.

Graduate student, Sam Stoneburner is one of four finalists in the 2017 Dow Chemical SISCA (Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award) competition. SISCA recognizes and rewards student innovation and research on sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing social, economic and environmental problems.

Undergraduate, Sunny Zheng is a recipient of a University of Minnesota Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant for spring 2018. Her project is titled “Effect of Electron Correlation in Modeling the Ground and Excited-State Geometries of Ozone and the Reaction Mechanism of the Cope Rearrangement.”