Successful Women in Chemistry Series
Profiles of Two Female Journal Editors
By Christine Chow
As part of the WCC's mission to promote the professional ac-complishments of successful women in the chemical sciences, we are extremely pleased to offer our congratulations to Dr. Jillian M. Buriak for being named as the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) for Chemistry of Materials and to Dr. Cynthia J. Burrows for being named as the EIC for Accounts of Chemical Re-search. Publishing is a major part of the chemical profession, and journal editors play key roles in this process. Drs. Buriak and Burrows both believe strongly in “supporting what they are involved in” and staying closely connected with their research communities. Not only are they leaders of two major ACS jour-nals – they are also highly accomplished scientists, outstand-ing mentors, and dedicated administrators!
Prof. Buriak received an A.B. (1990) from Harvard University and Ph.D. (1995) from the Université Louis Pas-teur in Strasbourg, France. In 1997, she completed an NSERC postdoc-toral fellowship at the Scripps Re-search Institute. She began her inde-pendent academic career as an assis-tant professor at Purdue University in 1997, and was promoted with early tenure to associate professor in 2001. In 2003, she moved to the University of Alberta, where she is the Canada Research Chair in Inorganic and Na-noscale Materials, and Senior Research Officer of the National Institute for Nanotechnology. Prof. Buriak has received numer-ous honors and awards, including the Fresenius Award (2001), the ACS Pure Chemistry Award (2003), the Rutherford Medal (2005), and the Clara Benson Award (2013). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), and AAAS.
Prof. Buriak assumed the role as EIC for Chemistry of Materi-als in January 2014 after serving as an Associate Editor for ACS Nano from 2009–2013. She first gained experience in the publishing arena when she served on the Board of Reviewing Editors (BoRE) at Science from 2004–2008. She noted the significance of serving a society journal – she works hard to reach out and develop relationships with authors across the globe, and operates through a highly personalized style. In addition to being an EIC, she is also a leading researcher in the areas of nanoscience and materials, so she can relate easily to scientists in the field. These relationships are im-portant to her both as a role model and a peer.
Prof. Buriak credits her former mentors with helping her to de-velop strong writing skills and independence. She emphasizes the importance of having multiple skills to carry out the duties as an EIC – good time management, and understanding the big picture as well as fine details. She also knows about com-promise with respect to work-life balance. Because she lives and breathes science (she admits that she does work at home), her family is also exposed to science. Prof. Buriak reads every paper that is submitted to the journal, ranging from 10 to 40 per day – so if you are considering a career in publishing, remember that this is certainly one way to keep up with the current literature!
Prof. Burrows received her early training in physical organic chemistry at the University of Colorado (B.A. 1975) and Cor-nell University (Ph.D., 1982), followed by an NSF-CNRS post-doctoral fellowship at the Univer-sité Louis Pasteur. From 1983– 1995, she rose through the ranks from assistant to full professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and in 1995 moved to the University of Utah, where she is currently a Distin-guished Professor and Chair of the chemistry department. She is a recipient of the Robert Parry Teaching Award and 2011 Uni-versity Distinguished Teaching Award; her outstanding research has been recognized with the ACS Utah Award, ACS Cope Scholar Award (2008), and the University of Utah's Distinguished Creative and Scholarly Re-search Award. She is a Fellow of the ACS and AAAS. In 2009, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sci-ences, and in 2013 she was appointed the inaugural holder of the Thatcher Presidential Endowed Chair of Biological Chem-istry. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.
Prof. Burrows assumed the role as EIC for Accounts of Chemi-cal Research in January 2014 after serving as Senior Editor for the ACS Journal of Organic Chemistry and prior to that Associate Editor for Organic Letters. She was a member of numerous editorial boards between 2001 and 2013. When she joined the editorial team for Organic Letters, they were at the forefront of electronic publishing. As a highly interdisciplinary researcher herself, she was ready to take on the challenge as EIC for a journal that covers all disciplines of chemistry. She also enjoys the ability to stay connected with the research community, both as an editor and leader in the field of organic and biological chemistry.
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Prof. Burrows credits two women with having a profound im-pact early in her career. The first is the late Karen Wetterhahn who inspired her to always be encouraging of others and to convey excitement for science. The second is the late
Marga-ret (Peggy) Etter who always thought of the students first.
Prof. Burrows learned from her that advisors should not try to clone themselves – they should identify unique strengths in students and foster those qualities. Prof. Burrows is no stranger to the challenges of work-life balance, having raised triplets while establishing and running a highly successful re-search group, doing a significant amount of service for her department and scientific community, and mentoring many junior scientists. She does, however, believe in prioritization of commitments and has even learned to say "no" once in a while!
Once again, WCC sends warm congratulations to both Jillian and Cindy, and look forward to their contributions to the ACS journals in the coming years! We are extremely pleased to see two highly accomplished women in these important roles.
Professor Jennifer Schomaker
By Amy Balija
Professor Jennifer Schomaker, a win-ner of the 2014 Rising Stars Award, always loved chemistry. As the sibling of seven younger brothers and sisters, Jennifer never received a chemistry set for Christmas due to the possibility of what parts would be ingested by fellow family members. Instead, she became a lab assistant her junior year in high school which allowed her ac-cess to the lab stockroom and the chance to experiment with chemicals. As she stated, “If I hadn't had that op-portunity to discover and 'play' on my own, I probably would have ended up a physician- the process of scientific exploration was key to stimulating my interest in chemistry.” To fuel this drive for chemistry, Jennifer’s high school chemistry teacher encour-aged her to experiment, provided her with his old college text-books, and helped arrange for her to attend college courses during her senior year.
Following high school, Jennifer went to Saginaw Valley State University and started working during her freshman year at Dow Chemical to help pay for college. At Dow, she began in the Organic Chemicals and Polymer Laboratory Group, exam-ining biocatalytic methods for the synthesis of enantiomerically pure monomers, before transferring to the Agricultural
Chemi-cal Process Research Group to work on route selection and scale-up of two new herbicides. With the support of her hus-band and two young daughters and the advice from senior colleagues at Dow, Jennifer left industry to enroll in graduate school. She completed her M.S. degree with Prof. Thomas J.
Delia at Central Michigan University developing selective
cross-coupling reactions of pyrimidines and synthesizing mole-cules active against Pneumocystic carinni pneumonia. After-wards, she attended Michigan State University for her Ph.D. and worked with Professor Babak Borham on the development of ylide-mediated ring expansions of epoxides and aziridines. Upon obtaining her Ph.D. in 2006, Jennifer was a NIH post-doctoral fellow for Professor Robert G. Bergman at University of California, Berkeley examining the reactivity of cobalt di-nitrosoalkane complexes to functionalize alkene C-H bonds. In 2009, she joined the faculty at University of Wisconsin-Madison where she performs research in methodology devel-opment such as new metal complexes exhibiting ligand-based reactivity and new catalysts for oxidative cyclization reactions. She loves working with talented people and watching her stu-dents become scientists. Throughout her career path, Jen-nifer has had the loving support of her family. She described how her family often traveled to the lab to bring dinner and help take care of the household chores. Furthermore, she credits her research advisors for patiently understanding her unique situation.
To the future women chemists, Jennifer gave this advice: “It's important to find mentors that believe in you and your abili-ties. Have the courage to speak up for what you need and to do your job well. If you fail, do not tell yourself you can't do it- pick yourself up and try again.” Jennifer’s life experiences have demonstrated that through hard-work and determination, anyone can be successful. Congratulations!
Dr. Katherine Ayers
By Samina Aza
Dr. Katherine Ayers is the Director of
Research at Proton OnSite where devel-ops R&D strategy in membrane-based electrochemical devices, and maintains multi-year technology roadmap. She joined Proton in 2007 and before that worked at Energizer Battery Company for 10 years, serving as Staff Technolo-gy Engineer. She is internationally rec-ognized as a leader in research and ad-vancement of electrochemistry.
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Kathy started college at UC San Diego as a math major with the intent to become a teacher but she loved her honors chemistry class. She changed major twice, first to physics and then to chemistry. She got a summer fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Lab where she was really interested in the chemistry projects. She spent two summers synthesizing dark purple crystals of vanadium organometallic compounds. The provost of her college, Dr. Tom Bond, advised her to seriously consider graduate school.
Kathy got a small fellowship at UCSD to do additional under-graduate research for a quarter but wasn’t really interested in the projects. Tom suggested that she considers working with Prof. Mike Sailor. At Mike’s lab she learned electrochemistry and materials science. Mike was a postdoc for Prof. Nate Lewis and this is how she ended up in Nate’s group in Cal Tech for graduate school. Kathy has been working on electro-chemical devices ever since. Coincidentally, Kathy came in contact with Proton, her current employer. She loved the com-pany when she interviewed with them and took the leap of faith to move 1000 miles with her family and have had amaz-ing opportunities ever since.
Kathy has been fortunate to have very helpful mentors starting from college. Two of her most influential mentors were Tom Bond and her boss at Proton (until about a month ago) CEO Dr. Rob Friedland. In undergraduate school, Dr. Bond took her under his wing and got her into high level classes. He also helped Kathy realize that there are more than one career op-tions available after college. Rob has been the most support-ive boss she has ever had by putting confidence in her to be able to handle new projects and roles.
Kathy admits that she often struggles with work life balance. Although she is home for dinner every night, she does a lot of work at home later in the evening. She also travels a lot for work. She tries to talk to her daughters every day after school and spends a lot of time with family during vacations. Kathy’s family recently went to Europe as a follow on to a business trip and walked all over Germany and Paris.
Kathy’s advice for women in chemistry is to always be open to new opportunities and not let fear get in the way of doing what you want. She was often nervous about new things but she did them anyway and usually it more than payed off. Always be friendly and open with people because you never know what might lead to a new opportunity. This is how she got the job at Proton. Take time for yourself and recharge with your friends and family.
Ms. Katherine Kemmann
By Samina Azad
Katie Kemmann is an Analytical Chemist with Sherwin
-Williams (SW). She joined SW twelve years ago, starting as an intern and then taking a full-time role. Katie received M.Sc. in Chemistry from Cleveland State University. Her current re-sponsibilities include instrumental maintenance, method devel-opment, supporting key R&D projects and manufacturing, with a heavy focus in failure analysis.
Katie was introduced to the coatings industry through internships while she was in college. After a couple of in-ternships, she knew she would like working in this industry and sought a full time position with the Analytical Sciences group at Sherwin-Williams. She has been in the same group for twelve years now.
Katie’s position is not specific to one type or class of coatings, so she had to learn the chemistries of many resin, pigment, and additive systems along the way. Because new technologies are always being developed, the learning pro-cess never ceases. Developing and maintaining a solid foun-dation of coatings chemistry is a challenge. The learning hab-its she developed at college allow her to pick new things up quickly. The techniques she uses in her role were not taught in school. She learned most of these on the job, and some-times under stressful circumstances.
Katie is knowledgeable in a variety of instrumental tech-niques. Her favorite technique is spectroscopy and she also enjoys thermal analysis and elemental analysis. She gathered experience and skills in these techniques in a unique combina-tion that allows her to support research and development in coatings. It is very rewarding to be able to learn new things constantly and tackle increasingly difficult technical scenari-os. Katie’s management team looks to her as a key problem solver.
Katie had mentors at each of her internship posi-tions. Mentors played an important role specifically by helping her understand the job opportunities for chemists. Mentors shared their career experiences with Katie and guided her in the job search process. Because of this, she was able to find a role that she enjoys. Once she was hired full time, many col-leagues volunteered their time and energy to teach Katie the role. Although they were not official mentors, she still looks to them for advice and guidance. Katie’s colleagues wanted her to learn from their best practices. Through all the training and coaching, Katie has become a dependable and trustworthy Continued Page 9
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team member with exceptional problem solving skills and ca-pability to produce high quality results.
Katie takes each day at a time so that she can balance work and life. Priorities constantly change and being prepared helps to ease stress. She says, “You simply have no control over some matters and must trust yourself to handle them the best way possible. With two young children, a husband, a dog, and a career to balance takes some logistics - but Katie wouldn't change it. She tries to keep home life relaxed and does not over plan weekends and evenings. Katie says, you really need the down time, especially with family. Her hus-band Matt constantly reminds her to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life. She gives most of the credit for balancing her life to her family. Simple things make her happy, like go-ing for ice cream together, a quiet dinner, or takgo-ing her dog for a walk.
Katie’s advice for women in chemistry is that you will have to navigate through personalities, prejudices, etc., regardless of which job you choose. However, if you love what you do and you give it your best, obstacles somehow seem less formida-ble and a lot of times they simply work themselves out. Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and learn something new, get an additional degree, or train to run a half-marathon! You will be surprised what you can do when you challenge yourself, and what you learn about yourself in the meantime.
Dr. Nicole Crane
By Lisa Houston
Dr. Nicole Crane, 2014 Rising Star
Award Winner, received her B.S. in Chemistry from Kutztown University (Pennsylvania) in 2000. She then headed to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan where she re-ceived a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 2004. After graduation, she com-pleted two Post docs, one as a Visit-ing Scientist in the Counterterrorism and Forensic Science Research Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Vir-ginia and one for the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Each of these provided Nicole with the opportunity to develop her skills in applied spectroscopy and imaging.
Nicole began her independent career at the Naval Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland applying her analytical and spectroscopic expertise in 2007. After one year, she decided
to see if the “grass was greener” somewhere else and took a position at Wyeth Pharmaceutical as the Analytical Develop-ment Manager. There she applied FTIR spectroscopy, near-infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy to character-ize raw materials, drug substances, and drug products and developed spectroscopic models for at-line and in-process monitoring. After less than a year on the job, Wyeth was pur-chased by Pfizer and Nicole decided to return to the Naval Research Center.
Nicole’s research centers on development and utilization of spectroscopic techniques including Raman and FTIR spec-troscopies and visible reflectance imaging to improve the un-derstanding of wound healing, particularly traumatic acute wounds, as well as identifying and quantifying transplant asso-ciated ischemia and reperfusion injury. She initiated the Ad-vanced Surgical Imaging Program within the Regenerative Medicine Department for the U.S. Navy and developed new technology to further evolve research projects. In addition, she has been an Associate Professor at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences since 2011. She is a big believer in trying to make the world a better place and her drive comes from knowing that her work may one day change a patient’s life for the better.
Nicole feels that hard work, ambition and support from her mentors have gotten her where she is today. She feels very fortunate to have had some stellar mentors – people that have believed in her and pushed her to succeed – including her mother and grandmother and a number of undergraduate and graduate advisors. In fact, her advice to other women in chem-istry in something her mother always told her – the sky is the limit! Nicole also advises to not be afraid to go after what you want. No one is going to hand it to you – when the opportunity arises, grab it and hold on tight.
Dr. Michelle Claffey
By Lisa Houston
Great chemistry teachers in high school and college and her chemistry aptitude inspired 2014 Rising Star Award Winner Dr.
Michelle Claffey to pursue chemistry further. Michelle
grew up in Connecticut and attended Bates College in Lewis-ton, Maine where she graduated magna cum laude with a B. S. in Chemistry in 1994. As an undergraduate, she worked three summer internships at Pfizer as a medicinal chemist which exposed her to hands-on organic synthesis in a re-search environment. The practical application of organic chemistry sparked her desire to focus on organic chemistry at the graduate level. She attended the University of California at Berkeley where she did her graduate research in natural prod-uct synthesis.
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After graduating with a PhD in Organic Synthesis in December 1998, Michelle felt fortunate to return to Pfizer as a medicinal chemist in Neuroscience Chemistry where she enjoys the chal-lenges of interdisciplinary problem solving along with collaborations with great scientists. She has led numer-ous multi-disciplinary teams for the last 15 years in various programs to develop novel therapeutics for central nervous system diseas-es including deprdiseas-ession, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and schizo-phrenia.
Michelle is passionate about leadership development opportu-nities for women to maximize their future success and, in col-laboration with another colleague, founded the Women Lead-ers in Medicinal Chemistry. She has organized activities in-cluding yearly workshops with executive coaches on a variety of development topics, Pfizer Leader Lunches, and group net-working events to assist and encourage women to reach their
full potentials. This effort was started at Pfizer but, sparked by its success, has expanded to include women within all east coast medicinal chemistry groups.
Michelle balances work and her personal life by compromising on both ends. Since having her children, she has been able to work 4 days/week which has given her great flexibility to meet both the needs of her job and family. She believes there is no such thing as a perfect work-life balance, so she tries to make the best of both and let go of less important things. Through-out the years of her career and motherhood, she has man-aged to maintain at least one night a week of tennis with her friends. Tennis is what she does for herself but she also en-joys watching her children, niece, and nephews participate in their activities.
Michelle’s advice to women chemists is to seek out positions where you are motivated by the science and people and also where you will have support for your continued development. Continue learning and developing from both a scientific per-spective as well as a leadership perper-spective and overcome any self-limiting fears or beliefs.
Successful Women in Chemistry Series—Continued
WCC Celebrates Madeline Jacobs
Successful Women in Chemistry Series—Continued
Madeleine
Jacobs:
mentor,
maven,
maestro,
mensch, and role model par excellence.
By John Palmer
Recently I had the great pleasure and fortune to speak to
Madeleine Jacobs about memorable moments of her
long and admirable professional career as well as her contin-uing plans as she enters yet another phase of an absolutely remarkable and clearly self-directed life. She has already shared with many an illustrative but brief biographical presen-tation in the offering “Ten Lessons from a Lifetime of Science” but I’ll attempt to give an even shorter vignette to help those readers looking for career tips or wondering about how she seems to succeed so easily at all she does.
I’ve known Madeleine for over ten years, ever since she took on the mantle of Executive Director and CEO of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and every time we speak I’m re-minded of just how special she is, of her boundless energy, her commitment to diversity and to her profession, and most of all of her passion for offering support and guidance to young scientists and our future chemistry leaders. During our discussion, she expressed just how fortunate she feels she’s been in having had jobs in organizations that allowed her to grow and explore both her personal and professional goals. Despite the reality that neither of her parents had much inter-est in science she became enamored with it when she was a
very young lady of less than 10 years old. She watched “Mr. Wizard” on TV as a kid and became particularly enamored with chemistry. It’s apparent that Madeleine, a “baby-boomer”, growing up at the height of the space-race, really never recognized or bowed to the boundaries that often lim-ited others of her gender in pursuing an interest in the physi-cal sciences.
She grew up in the Washington D.C. area and attended George Washington University on a full-tuition scholarship. Her early plans included an eagerness about attending a first-rate graduate school and gaining a Ph.D. in chemistry but by the age of 22 while biding time and studying towards a mas-ter’s degree at the University of Maryland she abruptly found herself reassessing her goals and began pursuing a job in science writing. That first “ACS” job came as the result of having enough self-confidence to just show up at the office of the then publisher of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), Dr. Richard Kenyon, and expressing her desire to work there despite her lack of any real experience. She shares that her enthusiasm and poise must have impressed him and he intro-duced her to the editor, Pat McCurdy, whence she immedi-ately took the opportunity to share her opinion of both the strengths and weaknesses of the ACS’s flagship publication -- and how she was equipped to help fix its problems.
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Needless to say she got the job. The only woman on staff, she spent her next three years with C&EN gaining experience and enjoying what she now recognized in herself, a love of writing about the frontiers of chemistry. Now realizing that science writing was indeed her calling she did a broader as-sessment of her situation and decided she was not about to allow her career to become a victim of her gender. Her posi-tion at C&EN was salaried at 30% below industry averages despite her high level of productivity so she sought out other science writing jobs. First it was the NIH, for 15 months, fol-lowed by several years at the National Bureau of Standards where, while still in her early thirties, she also began assum-ing supervisory duties. Feelassum-ing a bit constrained by a mi-cromanaging supervisor at the NBS she moved on to posi-tions at the Smithsonian Institution spending a remarkable but personally taxing 14 years expanding her horizons as well as advancing her career goals which
in-cluded the opportunity to build a truly crea-tive environment and staff while honing her managerial skills. During a period of self-review and a rekindled interest in chemistry Madeleine, in July of 1991, happened to run into Michael Heylin, the then C&EN editor, at a black-tie dinner. That meeting led to a lunch which afforded her the op-portunity to ask him why there wasn’t a current Managing Editor and would there be the possibility of his reinstating the job. It took a couple years but eventually the ACS ‘saw the light’ and she was offered that position in 1993 and by 1995 had moved into the role of Editor-in-Chief. In the ten years she managed at C&EN Mad-eleine brought her vision of that publication to life, created an environment at work that brought those “family” elements together that she so treasured, mentored Rudy Baum as her replacement, and was able to revitalize that publication in a way that helped it reach a peak of $25 million in
ad-vertising revenue and vastly improved both public and profes-sional perception of chemistry.
Finally, obviously not being the type to rest on her laurels in 2003, upon John Crum’s retirement, she decided to apply for the job of Executive Director and CEO of the ACS, along with ACS Board of Directors chose her for the position, despite the fact that it had only been held by males with PhDs up until that time, and she has since not only persevered but indeed has excelled in that role. The position, where she supervises a staff numbering over 2000, opened both new opportunities for her and, of course, new challenges including having to re-spond to an entire group of fellow “Board Members”, and
up-wards of 160,000 Society members, many of them acting at times as if they thought they were her one and only boss. As she tells it the best thing about taking the front-seat-driver role in developing your career is that provides opportunities to explore and nurture your true passions. She’s found that her love of learning, science writing, mentoring, and being empow-ered to act as a champion for fairness and inclusiveness are rewards even more important than money. Now some of her most her heartfelt advice includes the admonition to “take” control of your life and career, chart and monitor its course, follow your passions (experiment), seek out both diversity and balance, seize opportunities, and take solace in the knowledge that being a scientist is truly a noble calling.
Madeleine is an eternal optimist (she says she inherited it from her father) and has been a champion for diversity throughout her career. The one thing that’s very clear, and the main
rea-son for writing this article, is that she’s been a standard-bearer for elevating the status of women in their careers in science. Madeleine received the ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences (2003), and numerous other awards and honors for her hard work and advocacy. One that stands out for me is the honorary Doctor of Science awarded her from her undergraduate ALMA MA-TER, GWU, with a citation that reads “For her tireless efforts in elevating the status of women in the chemical professions, achieved by raising their visibility in Chemi-cal & Engineering News; by her editorials, articles, and lectures on gender equality; and by being a role model, coach, and mentor to women at all stages of their ca-reers.”
Madeleine is not ending her contributions to chemistry and the ACS in her retirement but instead wants to have the freedom, which she’s clearly earned, to focus on those endeavors, both personal and professional, she finds most rewarding. She will spend more time with Joe, her artist -husband of 42 years, and her many friends. She’s also an active member of the Board of Trustees for GWU, and re-mains active on numerous other committees and boards both locally and nationally, but she already built what we all hope is an enduring legacy at the ACS. The list is too extensive to include but be assured she’ll continue monitoring the ACS Scholars program, Project Seed, the Eli Lily Travel Awards, Diversity Programs, STEM education, and – well you know “everything else.”
Madeleine, we wish you the very best and we also dearly hope to find you as a fellow members of the Women Chemists Com-mittee in the very near future!
Designation ceremony and Rachel Lloyd Memorial
Conference on Women in Science to be held
Octo-ber 1-2, 2014, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
cam-pus
Media contact: Desiree Wineland, ACS Nebraska Section, winelandcd@gmail.com
Event contact: Mark Griep, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 402-472-3429, mark.griep@unl.edu
The work of Rachel Abbie Holloway Lloyd, a pioneering chemist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has received the distinction of being named a 2014 National Historic Chemical Landmark from the American Chemical Society. Lloyd (1839–1900) was the first American woman to receive a doctoral degree in chemistry, which she earned at the Uni-versity of Zurich in 1887. She taught at the UniUni-versity of Ne-braska from 1887 until 1894 and held an appointment as as-sistant chemist with the newly established Nebraska Agricul-tural Experiment Station. Lloyd’s intensive, large-scale analy-sis of sugar content in sugar beets helped to prove the viabil-ity of sugar production in Nebraska. Today, Nebraska ranks as the sixth largest sugar beet producer in the U.S.
“Rachel Holloway Lloyd’s research provided an important boost for sugar beet cultivation in Nebraska and surrounding states, and her career marked a major advance for women chemists in America,” said William Oliver, Ph.D., chair of the ACS National Historic Chemical Landmarks committee. “Recognition of Dr. Lloyd’s contributions to chemistry as a National Historic Chemical Landmark is well deserved.” A public ceremony celebrating the landmark designation will be held on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln city campus on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014. The Rachel Lloyd Memorial Con-ference on Women in Science will be held on Thursday, Oct. 2 in the Auditorium of the Union Building on the UNL city campus. The events are sponsored by the ACS Nebraska Section and University of Nebraska Department of Chemistry. About Rachel Lloyd, Ph.D., and Nebraska Sugar Produc-tion
Agriculture in Nebraska flourished due, in great part, to the teaching and research contributions of agricultural scientists like Dr. Rachel Lloyd. Since Nebraska was not rich in pre-cious minerals, there was not initially a great demand for chemists. One crop that required trained chemists and that could be grown in Nebraska was the sugar beet.
In June of 1887, Dr. Rachel Lloyd, accepted the offer to be-come an associate professor of analytic chemistry at the
Uni-versity of Nebraska and became the first assistant chemist of the newly formed Agricultural Experimental Station, where she conducted sugar beet studies that continued for the next decade at the University showing great promise for a lucra-tive crop.
A series of events brought sugar beet refining to Nebras-ka in 1890. The farmers and developers of Grand Island were exploring for the most profitable types of agriculture. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was trying to reduce the nation’s dependence on sugar exports from France and Germany. The Union Pacific railroad was looking for ways to increase rail traffic. University of Nebraska chem-istry professors were interested in creating more chemical occupations for their students, and a group of sugar beet capitalists were in search of the highest economic gain at the lowest possible risk. Nebraska offered what each wanted.
Grand Island was the location for Nebraska’s first sugar beet processing facility in 1890 and it created a demand for analytic chemists to ensure quality control and profita-bility. Lloyd trained the best of her graduate students and undergraduates in sugar beet analysis. Training so many inexperienced workers would require time, patience, and great organizational skills. All attributes Lloyd is said to have had. She combined her students’ data with the farmers’ information about seed variety, acreage, climatic conditions, soil, agricultural procedures, costs, and yields per acre to provide a remarkably complete analysis of Nebraska-grown sugar beets.
The American Chemical Society established the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program in 1992 to recog-nize important achievements in the history of the chemi-cal sciences. Achievements recognized through this pro-gram have included Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic; the discovery and development of penicillin; and the work of historical figures such as Joseph Priestley, George Washington Carver and Rachel Carson. More information is available at www.acs.org/landmarks. The ACS Nebraska Section, established in 1895, is the oldest ACS chapter west of the Mississippi. During the 1890ʼs and 1900ʼs, the ACS Nebraska Section had more women participants than any other section in the country and is proudly active today. More information is available at http://nebraska.sites.acs.org/.
Nebraska’s Pioneer Woman Chemist, Dr. Rachel Lloyd, selected for
National Historic Chemical Landmark Award
Women in the Chemical Enterprise Breakfast
By Samina Azad
The theme of the Women in the Chemical Enterprise Break-fast in San Francisco is "Mentoring for Recognition". There is always a shortage of women nominees for awards and it is apparent that women chemists hesitate to nominate them-selves. The goal of this breakfast will be to share information with women chemists on how to nominate themselves for awards. Janet Bryant and Amber Hinkle will present on how to put together a nomination package. At the breakfast, we will also have round table discussions focused on various awards available through WCC and ACS. Join us for this great oppor-tunity to network with women chemist peers and learn how to highlight your strengths and successes for recognition.
Women Leaders of the Global Chemistry Enterprise
By Dr. Marinda Li Wu, 2013 ACS President
Please save the date for Tuesday, August 12, 2014 at the 248th national ACS meeting in San Francisco for an extraordinary and inspiring sym-posium on “Women Leaders of the Global Chemistry Enterprise.” In my worldwide travels last year as ACS President, I was invited to visit many chemistry communities and met some outstanding women leaders. It occurred to me that I should invite some of these pioneering women role models to share their personal and professional journeys. I invited women speakers for this exciting symposium in San Francisco from Asia, Africa, South America, Europe and USA. Their re-markable stories of achieving both career and personal satis-faction through overcoming barriers with determination and hard work will encourage younger professional women with their careers.
Invited speakers include CEO and Executive Director of the world’s largest scientific society ACS, one of only two female Priestley Medalists, Past ACS Presidents, the first female Di-rector of a prestigious Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, the first woman from Saudi Arabia to earn a chemistry Ph.D., President of a non-profit foundation, a corporate Vice Presi-dent, as well as a Dean, professors, scientists, and more. This exciting all day symposium is an ACS Presidential Rec-ommended event with WCC (Women Chemists Committee) as the lead sponsor. Co-sponsors include PROF (Division of Pro-fessional Relations), IAC (International Activities Committee), HIST (Division of History of Chemistry) and other supporters. Please join us for this inspiring symposium on Tuesday and meet these international women leaders who will be attending the WCC Luncheon as our invited guests!
Mom and Professor Symposium
By Renee Cole, Cecilia Marzabadi, Gail Webster and
Kimberly Woznack
The WCC looks forward to the 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition in San Francisco, CA in August, and the symposium that will highlight the book, Mom the Chemistry Professor, pub-lished by Springer. The book offers advice to women undergraduate and graduate students as they consider balancing a career in academia along with motherhood. Each chapter shares the story of a woman at different ca-reer stages, different caca-reer paths (tenure track and non-tenure track) and a variety of institutions (large re-search institutions, regional institu-tions, small liberal arts colleges and community colleges). WCC is proud of all the women who contributed to and helped support this project. We hope that Mom the Chemistry Professor and the symposium will serve to encourage young women to pursue academic careers.
2014 ACS Fellows
Fall 2014 National Meeting—San Francisco
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2014 ACS FELLOWS!
While we wish to congratulate the entire class of 2014 ACS Fellows, the WCC would especially like to feature the women among this group.Georjean L. Adams Rebecca M. Chamberlin Loretta Jones Natalie L. McClure Laura E. Slocum Jacqueline K. Barton Debbie M. Decker Karan Hiroko Ito Laura L. McConnell Janet M. Smith
Kathryn L. Beers Anne DeMasi Kristi L. Kiick Marilyn M. Olmstead Judith Ann Summers-Gates Christina Bodurow Carol A. Fierke Jody A. Kocsis Carolyn Ribes Kathryn Uhrich
Stephanie L. Brock Natalie Foster Jane V. Leland Agnes M. Rimando Linette M. Watkins Dawn A. Brooks Arlene A. Garrison Nancy E. Levinger Arlene A. Russell Mary V. Zeller Mitchell R. M. Bruce Karen E. Grant Doris Ingram Lewis Darlene K. Slattery
Graduate Student Symposium
By Kimberly Hartstein
Graduate students from the University of Washington (UW) Department of Chemistry will host a symposium Tuesday, Au-gust 12 at the 248th ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, CA. The Graduate Student Symposium Planning Committee (GSSPC) Program is sponsored by the ACS Division of Chem-ical Education (CHED), and the UW GSSPC is partnering with the Women in Chemical Sciences at the UW (WCS-UW, http://
students.washington.edu/wcsuw/), a student group founded by
several members of the committee in 2012. In keeping with this partnership, the symposium organizers are dedicated to equal representation among invited speakers. Entitled Interna-tional Collaborations with InternaInterna-tional Impact: Chemistry for Global Change, the symposium will highlight international re-search collaborations that benefit the world at large in areas including energy, environment, and global health. The GSSPC Program affords graduate students the unique opportunity to organize a symposium at a national conference, and provides a sustainable source of programming for CHED. The success of this symposium depends on generous contributions from the UW Department of Chemistry, the Clean Energy Institute, United Technologies Research Center, several ACS technical divisions, and other supporters. Please visit the UW GSSPC online at http://depts.washington.edu/gsspc/ for a complete list of speakers, current sponsors, and additional information.
WCC Luncheon
By Michelle Rogers
On Tuesday August 12th, at the WCC luncheon we will cele-brate the career of Madeline Jacobs, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the American Chemical Society. At the end of the year Madeline will be stepping down from her position leading the worlds largest scientific society. We at the WCC look forward to sharing with all an opportunity to review all the Madeline has done for the ACS and Women in STEM.
Busy Mentoring? Want to do more? Want to get
started? Want to pay forward?
StemConnector, the “one stop shop for STEM infor-mation” (www.stemconnector.com) has a new initiative - MILLION WOMEN MENTORS
(https://www.millionwomenmentors.org/#home).
Their aim - support the engagement of one million women (and men) in STEM to serve as mentors by 2018.
Learn more about it, and see if it’s a way for you to help the reported 18 million children in the US who want a mentor in STEM!
Fall 2014 ACS Meeting— San Francisco Continued
d
WCC Travel Award
The ACS Women Chemists Committee (WCC) sponsor a pro-gram to provide funding for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral female chemists to travel to meetings to present the results of their research. Through this program, WCC con-tinue to increase the participation of women in the chemical sciences. Awards are made on the basis of scientific merit and financial need. In additional to financial support, the award provides networking opportunities for recipients who attend an ACS national meeting. Upcoming application deadlines are February 15, 2014, for meetings between July 1 and Decem-ber 31, 2014. and June 30, 2015 for meetings between Janu-ary 1 2016 and June 30, 2016. For more information and to access the online applications please visit www.acs.org/ diversity.
WCC Overcoming Challenges Award
This award recognizes a female undergraduate from a two-year or four-two-year institution for her efforts in overcoming hard-ship to achieve success in chemistry. The application deadline is April 1, 2015. For more information and to access the online application, please visit www.acs.org/diversity.
Priscilla Carney Jones Scholarship
The award provides scholarships for female undergraduate majors in chemistry or related disciplines who are beginning their junior or senior years of study. The application deadline is May 1, 2014. For more information and to access the online application, please visit www.acs.org/diversity.
2015 WCC ChemLuminary Award
The 2015 WCC ChemLuminary Award (for activities in 2014) is for “Best Overall WCC Section.
Your section can be considered for a WCC ChemLuminary Award by self-nominating when submitting your local section ACS annual report, or the WCC accepts nominations directly from the local WCC sections. Visit http://
www.womenchemists.sites.acs.org/ for more information on
how to submit nominations, in addition to examples of past award winning events.
Chair: Amber Charlebois
Awards and Recognition: Laura Sremaniak and Amy Nicely Communications & Technology: Bevin Parks
Professional Development: Kelly George Programs & Events: Amy DeBaillie Program Chair: Kim Woznack Newsletter Editor: Michelle Rogers Webmaster: Lisa Houston
Awards Task Force: Judith Iriarte-Gross
Non-Ten Year Track Facility Task Force: Laura Sremaniak Thank you for reading the WCC semiannual newsletter. I hope that you find the articles inspirational and informative! If you have an article or an announcement that may be use-ful to our readership, please feel free to send it to me at wcc@acs.org. We welcome all suggestions.
WCC Leadership
WCC FacebookWCC LinkedIn WCC ACS Network Just Cocktails ACS Network
WCC Open Meeting “Just Cocktails” Reception
March 17, 4-5 pm at Sheraton Dallas, Majestic Room 5 The event is targeted at mid-career chemists and presents ad fun, collaborative time for networking, connections and career advice, ect.
Women Chemists of Color Forum and Social
March 17, 10 am –12 pm at Sheraton Dallas, Majestic Room 8
Join us Monday morning to network, learn about this ACS initia-tive, and provide your input. Light refreshments will be served.
Networking
WCC Group Photo—Dallas
Marion Milligan Mason Award for Women in the
Chemical Sciences.
By Shirley M Malcom
As a chemist and AAAS member since 1965, the late Marion Tuttle Milligan Mason wanted to support the advancement of women in the chemical sciences. Dr. Milligan also wanted to honor her family's commitment to higher education for women, as demonstrated by her parents and grandfather, who encour-aged and sent several daughters to college.
The objective of the Mason Award is to kick-start the research career of promising future senior investigators in the chemical sciences. The Marion Milligan Mason Fund will provide three grants of $50,000 every other year to women researchers
en-gaged in basic research in the chemical sciences. Awards are for women who are starting their academic research careers. In addition to research funding, the program will provide lead-ership development and mentoring opportunities.
Applicants must have a "full-time" career-track appointment. More than one applicant from the same institution can apply for this award, provided that each application is scientifically distinct.
For more information about the request for proposals for the Marion Milligan Mason Award for Women in the Chemical Sci-ences, please visit the website: https://masonaward.aaas.org.