Department of Chemistry, UIUC
Fellowships and Awards
Fellowships
A large number of fellowships are awarded to graduate students in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois. These range from Departmental fellowships sponsored by chemical companies and private donations to national fellowships from various federal and private foundations. For a listing of recent awardees see Student Awards and Fellowships.
Fuson Travel Award
Up to six Fuson travel awards are given annually to organic students to present their research at the ACS National Meetings or at other professional meetings such as Gordon Research Conferences. The awards are made to honor and celebrate the accomplishments of R.C. Fuson who was a distinguished faculty member at the University of Illinois for 35 years. The Fuson endowment also funds the annual R.C. Fuson lectureship series. Recent recipients of the Fuson travel awards and the lectures they gave or will give at ACS meetings are listed below.
Fall 2007 – Boston, MA | |
| Won-jin Chung(Denmark) Lewis Base Activation of Lewis Acids. Catalytic, Enantioselective Addition of Glycolate Derived Silyl Ketene Acetals to Aldehydes Erin Elliot* (Moore) Covalent Assembly of Molecular Ladders *Attended the 12th International Symposium on Novel Aromatic Compounds on Awaji Island, Japan in July 2007 Christina Thompson** (Hergenrother) The Total Synthesis of Dykellic Acid **Attended the 56th Natural Products Gordon Research Conference in Tilton, NH in July 2007 | |
Spring 2007 – Chicago, IL | |
| Jared Delcamp* (White) Tandem One-Pot Allylic, Vinylic C-H Activation *Attended the Organometallics GRC, Newport, RI in July 2007 Jack H. Liu (Denmark) Sequential Silylcarbocyclization/Silicon-Based Cross Coupling Reactions Yunyi Lu (Moore) Nanofiltration Membranes Modified with Rigid Star Amphiphiles Chris Regens (Denmark) Total Synthesis of Papulacandin D: Application of a Fluride-Free, Silicon-Based Cross-Coupling Reaction | |
Fall 2006 – San Francisco, CA | |
| John Baird (Denmark) Palladium-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling of Heterocyclic Silanolates with Aryl Halide Chuck Hickenboth (Moore) Mechanochemical Triggers for Self-Healing Polymers Kevin Peese (D. Gin) Synthetic Access to the Hetisine Alkaloids: Total Synthesis of (±)-Nominine Emily Schmidt (M. Gin) Efforts Toward a Redox-Gated Synthetic Ion Channel | |
Spring 2006 - Atlanta, Georgia | |
| Ramil Baiazitov (Denmark) Intramolecular [4+2] Cycloaddition of Nitroalkenes for Construction of Vicinal Quarternary Stereocenters Nathan Ide (D. Gin) Efforts Toward the Total Synthesis of (-)-Crambidine Greg Patton* (van der Donk) Investigation of Substrate Specificity of Lacticin 481 Synthetase *Attended the GRC in July 2006 in Biddeford, ME | |
Fall 2005 - Washington D.C. | |
| John Heemstra, Jr. (Denmark) Lewis Base Activatin of Lewis Acids: Vinylogous Aldol Additions of Silyl Dienol Ethers to Aldehydes Yinghua Jin (Coates) Asymmetric Synthesis of Azadihydrocembrene as an Aza-Analog of Cembrenyl Cation Nandita Madhavan (M. Gin) - presented at the Physical Organic Chemistry Gordon Research Conference in New Hampshire An Anion Selective Biomimetic Ion Channel | |
Spring 2005 - San Diego, CA | |
| Rebecca Coppins (Silverman) Synthesis of Native 3’-5’ RNA Linkages by Deoxyribozymes Joseph Eckelbarger (D. Gin) Studies Directed toward the Total Synthesis of the Cephalotaxus Esters Justin Montgomery (Denmark) Synthesis and Crystallographic Analysis of 1-Asafenestranes | |
Fall 2004 - Philadelphia, PA | |
| James Beil (Zimmerman) Synthesis and Study of a Monomolecularly Imprinted Dendrimer (MID) Capable of Selective Binding through Multiple Functional Group Interactions Shinji Fujimori (Denmark) Double Diastereo-differentiation in Lewis Base Catalyzed Aldol Additions Wei Zhang (Moore) Synthesis, Development and Application of Highly Active Trialkoxymolybdenum (VI) Alkylidyne Catalysts | |
Spring 2004 - Anaheim CA | |
| Timothy Boebel (D. Gin) Sulfoxide Catalyzed Dehydrative Glycosylation Yuxin Zhao (Coates) Synthesis of Capsidiol Biosynthetic Intermediates and Their Fluoro and Aza Analogs | |
Seemon Pines Award
The Seemon Pines Award is sponsored by Dr. Seemon Pines, alumnus of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois who went on to establish an illustrious career at Merck after receiving his Ph.D. with Prof. Nelson Leonard. At Merck he helped develop a large number of life-enhancing therapeutic drugs, such as cortisone, easing the suffering of millions. He served as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Process R&D and was awarded Merck's highest scientific honor, the Director's Scientific Award. Dr. Pines used this cash prize to establish the Seemon Pines Award and the Pines Travel Award to foster student development at UIUC. The Seemon Pines award is granted each year for the most outstanding research presentation at the Annual Allerton Research Conference. Recipients in recent years:
| 2006 | Kenneth Fraunhoffer (White) |
| 2005 | Benjamin Leslie (Hergenrother) |
| 2004 | Rebecca Coppins (Silverman) |
| 2003 | Joseph Rule (Moore) |
| 2002 | Gregory Beutner (Denmark) |
| 2001 | Anobel Tamrazi (Katzenellenbogen) |
| 2000 | Matthew Epperson (D. Gin) |
Pines Travel Award
Each year a number of students receive a travel grant to present their Ph.D. research in the form of a seminar at the institution from which they received their undergraduate degree in chemistry. This award is made possible by the generous donation of Dr. Seemon Pines, former Vice President of Pharmaceutical Process R&D at Merck. Recent awardees and their undergraduate institutions are:
2007 | |
| Erin Elliott (Moore) | University of Alberta |
| Eric Gillis (Burke) | Grinnell College |
| Jackie Murphy (Hartwig) | University of Massachusetts |
| Matthew Levengood (van der Donk) | Elizabethtown College |
| Amanda Nottbohm (Hergenrother) | Albion College |
| Stephanie Potisek (Moore) | Cornell University |
| Chris Regens (Denmark) | Lake Forest College |
2006 | |
| Bill Collins (Denmark) | New Mexico Institute of Technology |
| Charles Hickenboth (Moore) | University of Richmond |
| Benjamin Leslie (Hergenrother) | Colgate University |
| Greg Patton (van der Donk) | Miami University at Ohio |
2005 | |
| John Baird (Denmark) | Allegheny University |
| Brandon Miles (Coates) | University of Texas, Dallas |
| Dinty Musk (Hergenrother) | Taylor University |
| Ephraim Parent (Katzenellenbogen) | Brigham Young University |
2004 | |
| Ramil Baiazitov (Denmark) | University of Minnesota, Duluth |
| David Goode (Hergenrother) | Mercer University |
| Jennifer Heemstra (Moore) | University of California, Irvine |
2003 | |
| Kim Deaton (M. Gin) | Carthage College |
| Shinji Fujimori (Denmark) | Lake Forest College |
| Justin Montgomery (Denmark) | Miami University |
| Mary Smalley (Silverman) | University of Northern Iowa |
| Matthew Stone (Moore) | Michigan State University |
Vandeveer Voorhees Award
This award is presented each year to the 4th year graduate student(s) with the most creative Independent Research Proposal. Dr. Voorhees was a graduate student with Professor Roger Adams and was the coauthor on the seminal paper describing catalytic hydrogenation with palladium oxide (J. Am. Chem. Soc 1922, 44, 1397-405), which came to be known as Adams' catalyst. Recent recipients of the Vandeveer Voorhees Award:
| 2007 | William Collins(Denmark) Benjamin Leslie (Hergenrother) |
| 2006 | Jack Liu (Denmark) |
| 2005 | John Heemstra, Jr. (Denmark) |
| 2004 | Justin Montgomery (Denmark) |
| 2003 | Dahui Zhao (Moore) |
| 2002 | Matthew Gieselman (van der Donk) Gregory Beutner (Denmark) |
| 2001 | Kyle Hurth (Katzenellenbogen) |
