Over 200 people attended the March 15th UCLA Reception & Research Showcase at the American Chemistry Society (ACS) conference in San Diego.
Chair Prof. Miguel Garcia-Garibay welcomed the guests who represented alumni, friends, current faculty and students. He spoke about the department’s many accomplishments in the past year and how much the department has contributed to the University’s standing both in education and research. Prof. Garcia-Garibay also thanked the numerous people who support the department in many ways, and he gave a special shout-out to the friends of our department from Amgen, Merck, Proctor and Gamble and other companies where our former students and postdocs now thrive. He also introduced our newest faculty members Prof. Hosea Nelson and Prof. Ellen Sletten.
In her remarks, Prof. Heather Maynard invited guests to the upcoming first ever UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry Alumni Reunion in November and the coinciding Seaborg Symposium honoring Prof. Mike Jung for his synthetic and drug discovery prowess. The remarks portion of the evening ended with Prof. Maynard’s daughter leading the crowd in the UCLA’s “Eight Clap” cheer.
The Research Showcase included a poster session presenting the work of 41 UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, all of whom also either gave a talk or presented a poster at the ACS conference.
The event was sponsored by the Saul Winstein Chair, the Donald J. & Jane M. Cram Chair, the Dean Willard Chair, the Howard Reiss Career Development chair, the Irving & Jean Stone Chair and the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Most of the poster session participants received travel scholarships to attend the conference provided by the Chairs supporting the event.
Select photos can be viewed below and an online gallery of all photos from the event can be viewed here.
The event included a poster session representing research from 19 UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty labs.
At left: Chair Prof. Miguel Garcia-Garibay welcomed alumni, friends, current faculty and students to the event. At right: Prof. Heather Maynard’s daughter led the crowd in UCLA’s Eight Clap cheer.
Over 200 people attended the UCLA Reception and Research Showcase at the San Diego Convention Center.
Former Ken Houk group members – from left: Dr. Eric Hu, Ph.D. ’03 (Gilead), Dr. Mike Bartberger, postdoc ’98-02 (Amgen), Dr. Jim Na, Ph.D. ’96 (Dart Industries) and Prof. Thomas Strassner, postdoc ’96-’99 (TU Dresden).
At left: Dr. Christopher Arntsen, Ph.D. ’14 (postdoc, University of Chicago) and Prof. Sarah Tolbert (UCLA). At right: UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry friends and alumni enjoyed the event.
From left: Graduate student poster session participants (from left) PeiYuan Yu, Zhongyue Yang and Abing Duan (Houk group), Prof. Ken Houk, Xing Jiang (Garcia-Garibay group) and Jessica Grandner (Houk Group).
Above left: Prof. Heather Maynard and Dr. Rafael Ortiz, Ph.D. ’93 Chapman group (Proctor & Gamble). Proctor & Gamble has sponsored our student group Organization for Cultural Diversity in Science for many years. Above right: graduate student Emma Pelegri-O’Day (Maynard group) discusses her research at the poster session.
From left: Profs. Clifford Kubiak (UC San Diego), Emily Carter (Princeton), De-en Jiang (UC Riverside) & Craig Merlic (UCLA).
Above left: Poster session participants graduate students John Abendroth & Nako Nakasuka (Paul Weiss group) with John Cook (Sarah Tolbert group). Above right: Dr. Alina Schimpf (postdoc, MIT), Prof. Philippe Sautet (University of Lyon & CNRS) and Prof. Anastassia Alexandrova (UCLA).
Prof. Fraser Stoddart (Northwestern University), Prof. Ken Houk, Prof. Miguel Garcia-Garibay and Dr. Douglas C. Friedman (National Academy of Sciences).
Prof. Paul Weiss (UCLA) (center) with former members of his group – from left: Prof. Charlie Sykes (Tufts), Prof. Beth Anderson (Hope College) and Prof. Zach Donhauser (Vassar) holding his son (future Weiss group member). Prof. Donhauser met the boy’s mother, Dr. Penelope Lewis of ACS Publications (not pictured), when they were both Ph.D. students in the Weiss group.
From left: UCLA Profs. Alex Spokoyny & Ellen Sletten, withTom Baker (University of Ottawa) and Paula Diaconescu (UCLA), Dr. Charles Machan (postdoc, Kubiak Group, UCSD), and Amy Lai (undergraduate student researcher, Pophristic group, University of the Sciences).
Current and former Garg group members – from left: Elias Picazo, Joyann Barber, Tejas Shaw, Prof. Neil Garg, Dr. Alex Schammel, Ph.D. ’12 (soon to start work at Stemcentrx), and Liana Hie.
From left: Prof. Jason Hein (University of British Columbia), Dr. Rebecca Ruck (Merck-Rahway) and Dr. Mike Bartberger (Amgen).
To receive information about upcoming UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry events such as this and/or news, please contact Penny Jennings, Communications Manager, penny@chem.ucla.edu, 310-825-9809.
Photos by Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
