Chemistry News

Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate scientist Dr. Benjamin Prince was recognized as an AFRL Science and Engineering Early Career Award winner. Each ECA award winner receives a three-year grant of $100,000 per year in support of their research. (Courtesy photo)

Prince became an AFRL government research chemist in the Space Vehicles Directorate in 2011 after a two-year stint as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the directorate. He greatly expanded the scope of the Space Chemistry Laboratory at Kirtland to enable work on space situational awareness, fundamental high-energy physics, next-generation spacecraft propulsion, atmospheric sensing technologies, and hypersonics, all areas of exceptionally high interest to the Air Force. Prince has made outstanding technical contributions to defining fundamental physics associated with fielding future space propulsion systems. He has a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry form Iowa State University and was the Air Force nominee to the prestigious 2018 Arthur S. Flemming Award for Basic Science.

Congratulations Dr. Benjamin Prince!

Shannon Lee and Bryan Owens-Baird, two graduate students in Kirill Kovnir's Group have been awarded fellowships from the Iowa Space Grant Consortium.

This is the second time Lee has been awarded the fellowship, her first award was for enerygy applications. Tlhis is the first award for Owens-Baird. A big congratulations to both of them for their work.

The Iowa Space Grant Consortium (ISGC) will award fellowships to support outstanding graduate students pursuing research opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines that support the mission of NASA.

Congratulations to Javier Vela, who was recently invited to join the editorial board of ACS Energy Letters!

Congratulations to Pat Thiel, who was elected to the board of the American Vacuum Society (AVS).

As a professional Society, AVS supports networking among academic, industrial, government, and consulting professionals involved in a variety of disciplines related to materials, interfaces, and processing. 

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory is launching a four-year, $3.2 million project to develop software that will bring the power of exascale computers to the computational study and design of catalytic materials.

Ames Laboratory scientist Mark Gordon, also the Francis M. Craig Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Iowa State University, will lead the laboratory’s project.

Faculty members in the Department of Chemistry were issued 20 patents in the 2018 fiscal year, making up half of the total patents issued within Iowa State University in that timeframe.

Chemistry offers a course called Cutting Edge Chemistry: Research and Career Opportunities. Building upon the foundations of the learning community, this course is designed to get students to start to think about their post-graduation plans.

The course is team taught by Levi Stanley, associate professor in chemistry; Aaron Sadow, professor of chemistry; Joe Burnett, senior lecturer in chemistry; and Terry Kruse, academic adviser in chemistry.

“We want students to be able to connect with the stories,” Burnett said. “We really want the faculty to come in and talk about their career paths, the decisions that they made and to talk about their current research interests.”

The course also brings in scientists from industry settings, career consultants from the American Chemical Society and students who have had research or internship experiences and includes fields trips to nearby businesses that employ chemists such as Ames’ water treatment plant, Hach Chemical, or a student favorite – the state crime lab in Ankeny.

“Chem 110 was very useful for career planning because we heard a variety of speakers who all took different career paths,” said Matthew Ryan (‘20 chemistry). “This made me realize that for a field such as chemistry, there are endless career options to explore and consider.”