Department News

The Clarkson University 2010 Awards from The Department of Chemistry & Biomolecular Science

Suzanne Van Arsdale
Academic Achievement Award
The Academic Achievement Award is presented in special recognition of exemplary academic performance and achievement in Biomolecular Science.

Taoufik Youbi
Northern New York Section of the American Chemical Society Award
The Northern New York Section of the American Chemical Society Award is awarded to an outstanding senior Chemistry major.

Megan Himmler
2010 Frank C. Goodrich Memorial Fund Undergraduate Award
The Frank C. Goodrich Memorial Fund Undergraduate Award is given annually to the graduating senior Chemistry major whose career at Clarkson has been exemplified by the traditions of scientific and humanistic thought and inquiry that made Professor Goodrich an outstanding chemist, scholar, and human being.

Brendan Farrell
2010 Chemistry & Biomolecular Science Department Service Award
The Chemistry Department Service Award is a special award established to recognize extraordinary service to the Department and is supported by the Division of Chemical & Physical Sciences.

Christopher Talbot
Edward D. Sayer Memorial Award
The Edward D. Sayer Memorial Award is awarded to a senior Chemistry or Biomolecular Science student who has demonstrated academic excellence, superior contributions as an undergraduate teaching assistant and will be entering a graduate/professional school following graduation from Clarkson.  This award is in honor of Edward Sayer, Chemistry 2004, who, in spite of his struggle with illness, exhibited all of the above qualities.

Megan Himmler
The Brunauer Award
The Brunauer Award was established by the Department of Chemistry in 1973 in honor of Professor Stephen Brunauer, former chairman of the Department and the first director of Clarkson's Institute of Colloid and Surface Science, and one of the world's most eminent and most respected chemists. It is awarded on Commencement day to a graduating senior who has written an outstanding senior thesis in chemistry, and it is the highest professional honor that the Department can bestow.

Rama Yakubu, a junior Biomolecular Science major and member of the Honors Program at Clarkson, has been named a UNCF-Merck Undergraduate Fellow for the 2010-2011 academic year.  This prestigious award includes an academic scholarship along with research internships in Merck labs for the 2010 and 2011 summers.  Rama has been involved in research his entire time at Clarkson and is currently working with Prof Costel Darie in the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science on a projects involving screening for serum biomarkers.  In one project Rama is screening for inflammation detection using novel biochemical and proteomics approaches.  In another Rama is monitoring two serum proteins as biomarkers for cell differentiation and cell proliferation in sera from patients with various forms of cancer.  Portions of his work will be presented at the North East Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Potsdam, New York, this summer, and at the up-coming meeting of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Rama will be finishing his B.S. degree at Clarkson in May 2011.

Guinevere M. Strack, a Chemistry Ph.D. student, has been selected to attend the 60^th Interdisciplinary Meeting of Nobel Laureates at Lindau, Germany, this summer, 2010.   She will be attending the meeting in a group of 77 of the best graduate students selected from universities across the United States.  She is working on her degree at Clarkson with Professor Evgeny Katz in the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science on projects related to biomolecular computing and bioelectronics.  It has included biochemical mimicking of computing operations/devices using enzyme-based systems and their coupling with "smart" signal-responsive materials.