Category Archives: People and Events

Fourth-year grad student, Soumen Ghosh is one of seven graduate students selected by the Department of Chemistry for a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for the 2017-18 academic year. Soumen is co-advised by Chris Cramer. Congratulations, Soumen!

The theory faculty are happy to welcome four undergraduate students to Minnesota as participants in the first Chemical Theory Center/Inorganometallic Catalyst Design Center summer program within the Department of Chemistry. They are here for 10 weeks (June-August) and will conduct research in theoretical chemistry. Katherine Kidder (Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA) is working in the Gagliardi group, under postdoc Andrew Sand, on multiconfiguration pair-density function theory; Hirbod Heidari (Sharif University, Tehran) is working in Don Truhlar’s group; Jason Goodpaster is advising Hunter Wilson (James Madison University, Harrisonburg, PA), and Qining Wang (Rutgers University) is part of Chris Cramer’s group. Welcome to all of you and we wish you the best with your summer research experience.

Undergraduate researcher, Molly Andersen, has received two fellowships: from the Department of Chemistry, the David A. and Merece H. Johnson Scholarship “for outstanding achievement in undergraduate research as well as overall scholastic excellence,” and from the School of Physics and Astronomy, the Hagstrum Award in Physics, which “is awarded to a senior in physics showing excellence and promise in their chosen field.”Congratulations to Molly.

Postdoc, Varinia Bernales has been honored with one of two Wiley/ACS Computers in Chemistry Outstanding PostDoc Awards. From the award notification: “This award is a testimony of the high impact and quality of your research, and, as future leaders in the field, you are going to contribute in shaping the computational chemistry of the future.” Read more on the Department of Chemistry web site. This is quite an accomplishment!

The group welcomes new postdoc, Jenny Vitillo, from Università di Torino (University of Turin), Italy. She is co-advised by Laura and UMN Chemistry faculty member, Connie Lu. We are happy to have you here, Jenny.

The group welcomes visiting postdoctoral scholar, Walter A. Rabanal León of the Department of Chemistry at Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile, where he is a member of the Millennium Nucleus Molecular Engineering for Catalysis and Biosensors group.

The group welcomes three new members: postdoc Davide Presti, who comes to Minnesota from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy, University of Minnesota undergraduate researcher Michelle Anderson, and postdoc Carlo Gaggioli from Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia, Italy.

Second-year graduate students Prachi Sharma and Hung Pham passed their preliminary examinations. Congratulations to both!

On December 5, second-year graduate student Debmalya Ray passed his preliminary exam. Good job, Debmalya!

Laura received the 2016 Isaiah Shavitt Lecture Award from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in Tel Aviv. In mid-December, she travelled to Technion to give lectures and lead a symposium. Read more on the Department of Chemistry’s web site.