Mae Joanne B. Aguila - University of the Philippines - Los Banos

Joanne is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of the Philippines Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level inorganic chemistry as well as organic chemistry and physical chemistry for the undergraduate students. She received her PhD in Chemistry degree from Georgetown University, Washington DC, under Tim Warren. She did her postdoctoral research work at DSM Innovative Synthesis BV, the Netherlands, as a Marie Curie experienced researcher fellow. Her research group is currently focused on developing sustainable solutions for environmental remediation and biomass valorization.

Mitch Anstey - Davison College

Between working with Dean Harman at the University of Virginia and Bob Bergman at UC Berkeley, Mitch has had his fair share of organometallic chemistry. So after receiving his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2009, he began his independent career at Sandia National Laboratories in the San Francisco Bay Area studying brand new areas of science: battery materials and radiation scintillation phenomena. After many fun years, he pivoted to a career as an assistant professor at Davison College where he now shares his love of interdisciplinary science and contemporary applications of chemistry while focusing his efforts on the craft of teaching. Current research projects center around the design of single molecule species for use in metal-air batteries and redox flow batteries. His teaching now incorporates elements of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) as well as Atoms-First approaches to the general chemistry and inorganic chemistry curriculum.

Daniela Arias-Rotondo - Kalamazoo College

Dani is an assistant professor at Kalamazoo College, in MI. She was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she finished her undergrad degree. She then received a PhD from Michigan State University working in Jim McCusker's group, where she studied photo-induced electron and energy transfer and the effect of spin polarization on the reactivity of transition metal complexes. She moved east to do a postdoc in Dave MacMillan's group at Princeton, studying the use of first-row transition metal complexes as photoredox catalysts. In the summer of 2020, Dani moved back to the Mitten to start her tenure-track adventure at K College. There, she teaches general and inorganic chemistry; her research focuses on synthesizing photoactive first-row transition metal complexes.

Amy Chu - Mills College

Amy is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Mills College (Oakland CA). She received a BS from the National Taiwan University (2011) and a PhD from the Univ. of Illinois in Urbana Champaign (2016). Her graduate work with Thomas B. Rauchfuss focused on designing new catalysts for silicone production. She conducted post-doctoral research with Karen I. Goldberg at the Univ. of Washington and later at the Univ. of Pennsylvania on the catalytic transformation of carbon dioxide. Currently, she is leading a team of undergraduate researchers to design organometallic complexes for small molecule activation and selective anion binding. Amy teaches undergraduate level Inorganic, General, and Analytical Chemistry at Mills College. She is especially interested in implementing classroom strategies that enhance the retention of students from historically underrepresented groups in STEM fields.

Katheryn Cruz - University of Texas - Arlington

Katheryn is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington. She recently began thesis work for her Master of Chemistry degree, focusing primarily on solid-state synthesis. In her time at UTA, Katheryn has had the opportunity to act as a teaching assistant for several general chemistry laboratory courses. She has enjoyed her time with students thus far and plans to start teaching at a community college after the completion of her master’s degree.

Jonathan Dannatt - University of Dallas

Jonathan earned a B.S. in chemistry and mathematics from Lyon college in 2014 and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2019. At MSU, he joined Professor Robert Maleczka's highly collaborative team where he studied selective iridium based C–H activation borylation catalysts and the targeted synthesis of silsesquioxanes, a hybrid organic-inorganic class of compounds shown to provide significant polymer property enhancements. Upon completion of his graduate studies, Jonathan joined the University of Dallas as an assistant professor, where he teaches the organic sequence. Jonathan’s current research interests broadly focus on chemical education, experimental and computational measurement of physical values of common boryl moieties, and methodology to activate the boron-oxygen bond and install a boron-carbon bond.

Kayla Green - Texas Christian University

Dr. Kayla N. Green is a native Texan, born and intellectually raised in the Lone Star State. Dr. Green obtained a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry under the direction of Marcetta Darensbourg at Texas A&M University in 2007 studying resin bound synthetic models of Acetyl CoA Synthase and Hydrogenase enzymes. Her interests in applied inorganic chemistry led her to the Advanced Imaging Center where she completed post-doctoral studies under the direction of Dr. Dean Sherry at the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. In 2010, Dr. Green started her independent career at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, and was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2016. Her research team focuses on the development of small molecules as therapeutics for diseases caused by oxidative stress, novel catalysts for challenging hydrocarbon transformations, and electrochemical biosensors. She has also served as one of the sponsors of the nationally recognized TCU Chemistry Club, which has established a range of program in the DFW area supporting STEM education. Dr. Green is the DFW-ACS National Chemistry Week Chair and works with the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History to organize the Chemistry Connections program, which has reached over 25,000 visitors to date. She enjoys the opportunities to mentor and support TCU students in defining their path to future careers and finds great joy in seeing them succeed. Her research work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, Inc., and the Moncrief Foundation. She has been recognized as an Emerging Investigator by the American Chemical Society (2015) and by the Journal of Coordination Chemistry (2016). In addition, she is a recipient of the 2019 TCU Deans’ Research and Creativity Award and 2020 ACS Women’s Chemist Committee Rising Star Award. In honor of her service to DFW and the ACS communities, she is the 2018 DFW ACS Chemistry Ambassador Awardee and received the 2018 American Chemical Society E. Ann Nalley Southwest Regional Award for Service.  

Olivia Gunther - Texas A&M University

Olivia Gunther received her B.S. in Chemistry from Brandeis University in 2016. During her tenure, she studied the synthesis of metal organic frameworks and their applications in heterogeneous catalysis under Dr. Casey Wade. Olivia is currently a 5th year PhD student at Texas A&M University studying the fundamental reactivity of highly Lewis acidic main group cations towards C(sp³)-F bond activation in the lab of Dr. Oleg V. Ozerov. In addition to research, Olivia has had opportunities to develop materials for general chemistry service courses that empower students with transferable skills in scientific literacy. She believes that by offering accessibility to course resources and creating a sense of community in the classroom, performance gaps linked to socioeconomic and educational disparities can be narrowed.

Abdul K. Mohammed - North Carolina Central University

Abdul K. Mohammed is currently serving as Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC. Previously, he served as the Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Winston Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC and prior to that appointment he was an Associate Professor at North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC. He received his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Louisiana State University and did postdoctoral research at Florida State University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman from 2003 to 2004; and he served as a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria in the summers of 2017 and 2019. His research interests include photophysics and photochemistry of transition metal complexes and chemical education. He teaches general, inorganic and environmental chemistry courses.

Melissa Orr - University of Texas - Arlington

Melissa is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on solid-state synthetic methods and characterization of rare-earth oxychalcogenides for the discovery of new classes of materials with photocatalytic and energy applications. As a teaching assistant, she has taught undergraduate general chemistry labs. As a local PTA officer and volunteer, I have coordinated science fairs at the elementary level and enjoy educating young children about the scientific method.

Joyce Pham - California State University - San Bernardino

Joyce Pham attended University of California–Davis and later Iowa State University in Ames, where she attained her respective B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry. Curious about scientific practices abroad, Joyce crossed the Atlantic to the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany, for training as a Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow. In Fall 2020, she joined California State University–San Bernardino as Assistant Professor of Chemistry, where she teaches classes in General, Inorganic, Materials and Solid-State Chemistry. Research with Joyce focuses on discovering new inorganic extended solids via synthesis, structural characterization, and computational electronic structure & chemical bonding analysis. She enjoys the delicate balance of simplifying chemistry concepts while retaining sufficient intricacy, in hopes that her students gain a greater appreciation for the interplay of science and society. Joyce uses solid-state chemistry research as a teaching tool to cultivate healthy curiosity and motivate in-depth, critical thinking.

Jan Phillip Scheifers - University of Texas - Dallas

Jan Phillip is a Research Associate at the University of Texas at Dallas working in the group of Dr. Julia Chan on the flux growth of quantum materials and their structural chemistry. He got his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in material sciences from RWTH Aachen University in Germany. During his master thesis he came in contact with solid-state chemistry and crystallography, which became the focus of his research. He moved with Dr. Boniface Fokwa from Germany to the University of California Riverside, where he did is PhD on complex intermetallic borides.

Paul Smith - Valparaiso University

Paul Smith received a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from Gettysburg College, followed by a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Rutgers University. His doctoral thesis under G. Charles Dismukes was written on artificial photosynthesis: the chemical process that mimics nature in storing solar energy as renewable fuels. He worked at the Department of Energy Frontier Research Center for Mesoscale Transport Properties based at Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Lab, under the direction of Esther Takeuchi, Kenneth Takeuchi and Amy Marschilok, before arriving at Valparaiso University in Fall 2018 as an Assistant Professor in Chemistry. His electrochemistry research studies energy storage in batteries, catalysts for water splitting, and solar-decoupled electrolysis; the latter in partnership with the Engineering team at the James Markiewicz Solar Research Facility.

Ellen Steinmiller - University of Dallas

Ellen Steinmiller is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Dallas. At UD, she teaches Analytical, Inorganic and Instrumental Analysis in addition to the general chemistry sequence. She received her BS in chemistry from the University of Arkansas and completed her graduate work at Purdue University with Kyoung-Shin Choi. After graduate school, Ellen was a postdoctoral researcher with Sara Skrabalak at Indiana University. Her research focus is on designing architecturally interesting metal oxide materials for photocatalysis.

Theepan Thanabalasingam - University of Dallas

Theepan is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), working with Dr. Julia Chan in solid state intermetallic quantum materials. He received his B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in 2014 and worked as a research scientist in Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology until he moved to the US in 2017 for his masters degree. He received his MS in chemistry from the University of South Dakota in 2019 and joined UTD for his Ph.D. research. Theepan is a teaching enthusiast and desires to build up a community with a better fundamental understanding of their field of interests.