Archive for the ‘Canada’ Category

Congratulations to WesTEC 2020 Award Winners

We are pleased to support the 29th annual Western Canada Operations Technical Excellence Conference (WesTEC) hosted by Dow Canada, continuing from previous years. Despite 2020 being an atypical year with the COVID-19 situation, many Dow employees continued to innovate and drive excellence in science and technology for a better future.

This year, we were delighted to be invited again by Analytical Methods Advisory Board member Dr. Jim Luong to contribute a congratulatory letter and sponsor the Best Lecture and Best Poster Prizes at the WesTEC 2020 event.

WesTEC, Best Lecture Award

Best Lecture Award winners Allison De Man and Jerome Wong with Catherine Costin Vice-President of Dow Canada and Site Director

WesTEC2020; Best Poster Award

Best Poster Award winners Wade Osicki and Todd Blumentrath (not pictured) with Catherine Costin, Vice-President of Dow Canada and Site Director

Congratulations to everyone for their research and development achievements!

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Welcome 2020 North and South American Editorial Board members!

 

The RSC US and Brazilian offices want to give a big welcome to our North and South American board members appointed in the past year!

 

Michelle Arkin, University of California San Francisco (USA)

RSC Chemical Biology Editorial Board Member

 

Curtis Berlinguette, University of British Columbia (Canada)

Journal of Materials Chemistry A / Materials Advances Associate Editor

 

Lin Chen, Northwestern University (USA)

Chemical Science Associate Editor

 

Zhongwei (John) Chen, University of Waterloo (Canada)

Energy & Environment Book Series, Editor in Chief

 

Jianjun Cheng, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (USA)

Biomaterials Science Editor in Chief (formerly Associate Editor)

 

Wendell Coltro, Universidade Federal de Goiás (Brazil)

Analytical Methods Associate Editor

 

Neil Donahue, Carnegie Mellon University (USA)

Environmental Science: Atmospheres Editor in Chief

 

Norm Dovichi, University of Notre Dame (USA)

Analyst Editor in Chief

 

Leanne Gilbertson, University of Pittsburgh (USA)

Environmental Science: Nano Editorial Board Member

 

Jen Heemstra, Emory University (USA)

RSC Chemical Biology Editorial Board Member

 

Corey Hopkins, University of Nebraska Medical Center (USA)

Drug Discovery Book series, Series Editor

 

CJ Li, McGill University (Canada)

ChemComm Associate Editor (previously Green Chemistry Associate Editor)

 

Jennifer Love, University of Calgary (Canada)

Chemical Society Reviews Editorial Board Chair (previously Catalysis Science & Technology Associate Editor)

 

Gabriel Merino, Cinvestav Mérida (Mexico)

Chemical Science Associate Editor

 

Shirley Nagagaki, Universidade Federal do Paraná (Brazil)

RSC Advances Editorial Board Member

 

Zaneta Nikolovska-Coleska, University of Michigan (USA)

RSC Chemical Biology Editorial Board Member

 

Dong Qin, Georgia Tech (USA)

Nanoscale / Nanoscale Advances Associate Editor

 

Joel Thornton, University of Washington (USA)

Environmental Science: Atmospheres Editorial Board Member

 

Doug Stephan, University of Toronto (Canada)

ChemComm Editorial Board Chair (previously Chemical Society Reviews Editorial Board Chair)

 

Stacey Wetmore, University of Lethbridge (Canada)

RSC Advances Editorial Board Member

 

Hua-Zhong (Hogan) Yu, Simon Fraser University (Canada)

Analyst Reviews Editor

 

Vassilia Zorba, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA)

JAAS Editorial Board Member

 

 

 

 

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Congratulations to Prize Winners at the 28th Annual WesTEC

Among the many events that the Royal Society of Chemistry supports in North America is the Western Canada Operations Technical Excellence Conference , or WesTEC, which is an internal technology conference, held annually by Dow Canada, and has been showcasing research and development in the industrial sector for nearly three decades. In the fall of last year, the 28th Dow Canada WesTEC conference was held in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta on October 24th, 2019. This year’s event was attended by the president of Dow Canada, Global Technology Center Director, Director of Core R&D, and Dow Canada Vice-president of manufacturing, along with about 200 colleagues.

Pictured from left to right: Dr. Billy Bardin, Global Tech Center Director, Dr. Tonya Stockman, Associate Director, Analytical Science, and Best Poster Award Winner, Ms. Sanny Chan at the 28th WesTEC in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, on October 24th, 2019.

As in previous years, the RSC sponsored prizes for Best Poster and Best Lecture. This year, the Best Poster prize was awarded to Ms. Sanny Chan, and the Best Lecture prize was awarded to Mr. Dan Thompson. The winners received their awards from Dr. Billy Bardin, Dow Global Tech Center Director and Dr. Tonya Stockman, Dow Associate Director of Analytical Science. Congratulations to the prize winners for their accomplishments!

Pictured from left to right: Dr. Billy Bardin, Global Tech Center Director, Dr. Tonya Stockman, Associate Director, Analytical Science, and Best Lecture Award Winner, Mr. Dan Thompson, at the 28th WesTEC in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, on October 24th, 2019.

The conference was underpinned by Dow’s new SEEK TOGETHER™ brand platform, which reflects the company’s deeply held belief in the power of partnerships. The partnership between WesTEC and the Royal Society of Chemistry was initiated through the efforts of former Analytical Methods Editorial Board member, Dr. Jim Luong. The conference proceedings also included a congratulatory letter from Professor Dame Carol Robinson, President of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Dr. Deborah Nicoll-Griffith, President of the Canadian Society for Chemistry, to recognize Dow Canada’s commitment to sustainable innovation and to diversity and inclusion. Both societies are pleased to support this ongoing partnership with Dow as it strives to be a customer-centric, sustainable, innovative and inclusive materials science company and look forward to the continued advancement of science and technology through industry. 

 

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Highlighting the 6th Annual Alberta Nano Research Symposium

NaNoTeCH: Elements of the Periodic Table in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

The Alberta Nano Research Symposium is co-hosted by the University of Alberta Nanotechnology Group and the University of Calgary nanoGroup, and this year it was held at the Shaw Convention Center in Edmonton, Alberta. The interdisciplinary nature of nanoscience and nanotechnology brings together researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds, which makes the Alberta Nano symposium attractive to individuals with backgrounds in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, and Computer Science who were encouraged to share knowledge, develop collaborations, and celebrate their accomplishments with fellow experts in the nanotechnology field. The theme of this year’s symposium, NaNoTeCH: Celebrating the Periodic Table, was chosen to coincide the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT), and continued to highlight the diverse and collaborative nature of the field.

Alberta Nano Poster Prize Winners

Taylor Lynk, winner of the Chemical Science poster prize at the 2019 Alberta Nano Research Symposium

To recognize some of the outstanding research presented at the Alberta Nano symposium, the Royal Society of Chemistry sponsored two poster prizes to be awarded to the young researchers that presented their fascinating research and most impressed the judges. The winner of the Chemical Science poster prize was Taylor Lynk, an MSc Candidate in the McDermott Group at the University of Alberta, where she is focusing on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for the detection and quantification of natural plant products. Her poster showcased the application of this technique to cannabinoid and terpene detection as a method to provide chemical fingerprints for target molecules. Her poster, cleverly titled ‘The Hunger Games: In-Process Quality Control of Cannabis-Based Consumables,’ surely caught the attention of many attendees, as the recent legalization of cannabis in Canada and upcoming legislation processes has presented a clear unmet need for more advanced analytical tools for this rapidly-growing market. Before coming to Alberta, Taylor worked in the research lab of Prof Christa Brosseau at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Prof Brosseau’s lab focuses on sustainable chemistry and materials, and Taylor co-authored one of the group’s papers that was published in Analytical Methods earlier this year. You can follow Taylor on Twitter @taylorlynk and you can follow Mark McDermott on Twitter @MarkTMcDermott for more updates from the group. 

Nidhika Bhoria, winner of the Nanoscale Horizons poster prize at the 2019 Alberta Nano Research Symposium.

The winner of the Nanoscale Horizons prize was awarded to Nidhika Bhoria, an MSc student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Calgary, where she works with Prof Md Golam Kibria. Prof Kibria’s research group focuses on electrocatalysis and photocatalysis for the sustainable synthesis of hydrogen and ammonia, as well as carbon fuels or feedstocks, including CO2 conversion to high-value chemicals, which is the focus Nidhika’s work. She presented her poster on ‘Nanostructured MOF Catalysts for Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon dioxide.’ Her poster illustrated the selectivity for 2-carbon and higher products of carbon dioxide reduction, which could provide a basis high-throughput industrial-scale conversion. We look forward to seeing more of the research that both Taylor and Nidhika will be working on over the coming year and wish them the best in all of their endeavors. We will be happy to see the Alberta Nano Research Symposium return again next year and are excited to see how this unique and high-quality meeting continues to grow.  

Highlighting Elements in Nano and Materials Research

The Royal Society of Chemistry has also been celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Mendeleev periodic table, and with the addition of elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 to the 7th row of the periodic table in 2016 we were able to complete our beautiful ‘Visual Elements’ interactive periodic table; among our many IYPT-themed activities in the community, we have fun and informative educational resources, new funding and grant opportunities, and special collections we have been putting together from within and across our journals. Just as the Alberta Nano symposium encourages collaboration and diversity, we too have promoted further collaborative efforts across our journals. Many of our various IYPT-themed collections, like the Elements for Next Generation Batteries collection, feature international collaborations and cover rich and diverse aspects of the elements from multiple journals. This particular collection highlights the elements lithium, sodium, zinc, among other elements contained in new battery materials. Thanks to the teamwork and guest editing by Zhiqun Lin, Journal of Materials Chemistry A Associate Editor, from Georgia Institute of Technology, and Xiaodong Chen, Nanoscale Associate Editor from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, it features papers from across the Materials and Nano journal portfolios, including Materials Horizons, Nanoscale Horizons, Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Nanoscale. We hope that you enjoy this and our other special collections as part of the International Year of the Periodic Table!

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All a Board! Meet Our North American Editors, Board Members, and Chairs in 2019

A selection of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s North American Editorial Board Members that will be participating in events in 2019. Pictured from left to right, top row: Michael Krische, Andrei Yudin, Natalie Stingelin, Douglas Stephan. Middle row: Elena Shevchenko, Ryan Bailey, Alan Aspuru-Guzik, Sara Skrabalak. Bottom Row: Huw Davies, Emily Pentzer, Jim McCusker, Jonathan Sessler.


Do you want to know who is making the decisions behind the papers that we publish? We want you to get to know them too! While what happens behind-the-scenes after submitting a paper may seem mysterious sometimes, it’s no secret here at the Royal Society of Chemistry – our Editorial Boards are made up of international teams of globally-acclaimed researchers. As Editorial Board members, these folks work to stay up-to-date with the most exciting research and shape the field in which they have made significant contributions of their own. They are the world’s leading experts and they believe in the RSC’s mission.

To help our community get to know them, we have been bringing our Editors to events and institutions around the world, giving researchers a chance to learn not only about their science but also about the publishing process and what it’s like to handle manuscripts and be the deciding factor in a publication. Oftentimes, we include additional sessions and activities to help our communities grow stronger, stay connected to the bigger picture, and be in-the-know about the scholarly communication landscape and how it is affecting their research. We are very excited to showcase so many of our Editorial team members around the US and Canada this year. We hope you can join us in one of the cities we will be visiting this year!


Ann Arbor, Michigan

Our first Meet the Editor event will be held in beautiful Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan, the home institution of Professor Ryan Bailey. Prof Bailey is an Associate Editor for Analyst, and the Bailey Lab focuses on  biomolecular signatures of disease in individuals – single patients, in a clinical setting – and the development of tools for multiparameter biological analysis. Prof Bailey will be joined by Jenny Lee, PhD, from our Washington, DC office, and Professor James (Jim) McCusker from Michigan State University. Prof McCusker is an Associate Editor for Chemical Science, and is one of the most prominent researchers working in photochemistry. The McCusker Research Group focuses both on ultrafast spectroscopy of transition metal complexes, and on chemical dynamics related to electron exchange. Prof. McCusker will give a research presentation on “Deconstructing Reaction Coordinates for Ultrafast Excited-state Dynamics: Using Coherence to Inform Synthetic Design.” Afterwards, Jenny will join our two Associate Editors to give an interactive presentation on publishing in high-quality journals like Analyst and Chemical Science, and will cover components of a submission, the peer review process, and more. Attendees can ask the Editors and Jenny for specific advice or insights, and also share their own experiences. Lunch will be provided, while Jenny gives an informal talk on Careers in Publishing, and afterwards she will give an informative presentation on Open Access Publishing – an important topic for publishers that can otherwise be alien to researchers. The events are all free to attend, and you can register now at rsc.li/michigan!

For updates from the University of Michigan Department of Chemistry, you can follow @MichiganChem and for updates from Michigan State University Department of Chemistry, you can follow @msuchemistry


Toronto, Ontario

In September, Marika Wieliczko from our Washington, DC office will travel to Canada, where you can find many of our wonderful Board Members. Toronto is known as one of the most multicultural metropolitan areas in the world, with residents from all nations adding to the diversity of the city. Joining Marika in the provincial capital will be Professor Sara Skrabalak from Indiana University for a day of activities at the University of Toronto. Prof. Skrabalak is an Associate Editor for Nanoscale and our newly-launched Open Access journal, Nanoscale Advances. Her research is focused on developing synthetic methods for solid materials with defined shapes and architectures, and studying their properties for applications in energy, chemical sensing, and secure electronics. For updates from Prof. Skrabalak, you can follow her on Twitter @SaraSkrabalak and for news from the Department of Chemistry, you can follow @chemuoft.

In the Department of Chemistry, Prof. Skrabalak and Marika will join Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik and Professor Andrei Yudin, both Associate Editors for Chemical Science, as well as Professor Douglas Stephan, Chair of the Editorial Board of ChemSocRev. Prof. Aspuru-Guzik’s research group is renowned as a leader in quantum computing and machine learning. Prof. Aspuru-Guzik is very active on Twitter and posts lots of updates from his group and much more – follow him @A_Aspuru_GuzikThe Stephan Research Group spans a wide range of inorganic main group chemistry and organometallic chemistry. They explore fundamental research on new reactivity and chemical transformations, with the aim of developing new catalysts, materials and processes. Prof. Andrei Yudin is a pioneer in the development of tools for chemical synthesis. The Yudin Group has developed entirely new synthetic process that have reached the commercial market, and they continue to explore intermediates that many would consider impossible to prepare. You can get more updates on their exciting work through Twitter by following @andrei_yudin

Together with Marika and Prof. Skrabalak, Prof. Aspuru-Guzik, Prof. Yudin, and Prof. Stephan will help attendees learn about and understand the publishing and peer review process, and learn from the Editors first-hand how to craft their submissions to maximize their efficiency and improve their experience with publishing. If you can’t make it to the event, you can still ask your questions through Twitter! Send your questions to @ChemMarika with the hashtag #AskTheEditor and Marika will include your questions for Sara and the other Editors during the event and share their responses and advice with everyone! 


Atlanta, Georgia

Also in September, Jen Griffiths, PhD, will travel to Atlanta from our Washington, DC office. The city, whose emblem of a phoenix rising from the ashes, representing its transformation into a major center of the civil rights movement after its decimation in the civil war, has been flourishing with many diverse institutions of higher learning. While visiting Atlanta, Jen will host events at both Georgia Tech University and Emory University. At Georgia Tech, she will be joined by Elena Shevchenko, Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and an Associate Editor for Nanoscale and our newly-launched Open Access journal, Nanoscale Advances

Next, Jen will bring Professor Natalie Stingelin from Georgia Tech over to neighboring Emory University to introduce the Department of Chemistry to Prof. Stingelin, as a researcher and as an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry C. The Stingelin Lab is interested in organic functional materials, including inorganic/organic hybrids, advanced optical systems, and bioelectronics. You can follow Prof. Stingelin @StingelinN and get updates from her lab through @StingelinGroup on Twitter.

Prof. Stingelin and Jen will be joined by Professor Huw Davies, Associate Editor for ChemSocRev. The Davies Group is renkowned for its work on dirhodium catalyts for C-H activation, and leads the nation-wide NSF Center for Selective C-H Functionalization. They will give insights into publishing, and Jen will participate in a career panel to introduce attendees to careers outside of academia. 


Austin, Texas

The city of Austin is unlike the rest of Texas and is known for its lively music and arts scene. Towards the end of the year, Jen Griffiths will visit the great state of Texas, bringing Professor Emily Pentzer, who is moving to Texas A&M University over the summer of 2019, to the Department of Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. Prof. Pentzer is an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry, and she will present on her research, which focuses on synthetic organic and materials chemistry, and she will be part of an interactive presentation on publishing along with Jen. They will be joined by two of our Associate Editors for ChemComm from UT Austin, Professor Michael Krische, and Professor Jonathan Sessler. The Krische Research Group focuses on catalytic reaction development for natural product synthesis. You can get updates from the group by following @KrischeLab on Twitter. The Sessler Group explores various aspects of supramolecular chemistry and is highly interdisciplinary, combining inorganic and synthetic organic chemistry with biochemistry and spectroscopy. For updates from the Sessler Group, follow their Twitter account @JLsessler.


We are excited to highlight our high-quality journals, and we know that it’s the people behind them that make them so valuable and integral to the communities they serve. We hope that you have a chance to get to know our Board Members in person at one of our upcoming events, and that what you learn from them helps you in publishing your own research.

Do you want to host an event at your institution, or have suggestions for how we could better connect with your community? While we can’t accommodate all requests, we would love to hear from you and take your ideas into consideration! Email us at Americas-Editorial@rsc.org and we look forward to continuing to serve our community. 

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Summer Board Member Awards and Accomplishments

We wish to extend our sincerest congratulations to all of our Board Members, as they continue to impress the community with their achievements and contributions!

Several of our Chemical Science Board Members have been recognized for outstanding contributions to their respective fields.

Many other Board Members across the US and Canada have been recognized for their accomplishments with a variety of awards, prizes, and appointments. 

  • Sarah Tolbert was appointed the Director of the new UCLA-led Synthetic Control Across Length-scales for Advancing Rechargeables, or SCALAR. Sarah is a professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Materials Science & Engineering and serves on the Editorial Board of Nanoscale Horizons and led the organizing committee of the 10th International Mesostructured Materials Symposium, IMMS10, which took place September 10-13, 2018 at UCLA.
  • Green Chemistry Associate Editor Chao-Jun Li was awarded a prestigious Killam Research Fellowship by the Canada Council for the Arts. CJ is the E.B. Eddy Chair Professor of Chemistry at McGill University, Canada Research Chair in Green/Organic Chemistry, and Director of the NSERC CREATE Center for Green Chemistry Training.
  • Professor Heather Maynard serves on the Editorial Board of Polymer Chemistry and was selected for the 2018 UCLA Faculty Student Development Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.
  • At this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Professor Geoffrey Coates was presented with the 2017 Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the for the best paper published in Science. Geoffrey serves on the Editorial Board of Organic Chemistry Frontiers.
  • Peter Vikesland has been named the Nick Prillaman Professor in Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. Peter is the Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Science: Nano and a professor of the civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Other North American Board Members were honored by the RSC with awards and medals for their contributions to advancing the chemical sciences.

  • Professor Bradley Moore, Editorial Board Chair of Natural Product Reports, was honored by the RSC with the Natural Product Award for his pioneering discoveries in the chemical biology, biosynthesis, genomics and engineering of marine natural products. 
  • Professor Warren Piers was recognized for his contributions to detailed mechanistic understanding of catalytic reactions with the 2018 Ludwig Mond Award. Warren is S. Robert Blair Chair in Polymerization Catalysts and Canada Research Chair in the Mechanisms of Homogeneous Catalysis and serves as an Associate Editor for Dalton Transactions.
  • Professor Yang Shao-Horn was honored by the RSC as the first woman to win the Faraday Medal for her work at the chemical/materials physics and physical/materials chemistry interfaces. Prof. Shao-Yang serves on the Editorial Board of Energy & Environmental Sciences 

See all of the 2018 winners of Royal Society of Chemistry Prizes & Awards, which include many of our Advisory Board Members, colleagues and friends from around the world.

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Royal Society of Chemistry Highlights at ACS Boston

We look forward to attending the upcoming ACS National Meeting with colleagues traveling to Boston from both the DC and UK offices. We would love to meet you so please stop by Booth 2008 for conversations with the Editor from the flagship journal Chemical Science and others across the portfolio.  A great time to meet most of us is Sunday from 5:30-8:30PM when the Expo opens, or individually based on the schedule.

booth, stand, meet the editor, Royal Society of Chemistry, Richard Kelly, Richard Kidd, Laura Fisher, May Copsey, Chemical Science, Simon Neil, Adam Brownsell

 

In line with the conference theme of Nanoscience, Nanotechnology & Beyond, we’re launching the newest addition to our journal portfolio, Nanoscale Advances at the booth on Tuesday afternoon. This will be a nice opportunity to meet Associate Editors Shouheng Sun at Brown University, Benjamin Wiley at Duke University, Rongchao Jin at Carnegie Mellon University, and Elena Shevchenko at Argonne National Laboratory.

Nanoscale Advances,

We enjoy supporting opportunities for early career researchers with sponsored sessions throughout the meeting and corresponding web collections within the journals.

PMSE: PMSE Young Investigators’ Symposium

View additional content in the Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigators, 2018 web collection.

Organized by Polymer Chemistry Associate Editor Emily Pentzer

Sunday, August 19th and Monday, August 20th from 8:30AM – 4:50PM

Commonwealth Ballroom B, Westin Boston Waterfront

ENVR: Showcasing Emerging Investigators: A Symposium by the RSC Environmental Science Journals

The symposium features work across the Environmental Science sister journals Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, Environmental Science: Nano, Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology. Read about the speakers on the blog post and view content from the Emerging Investigator Series for each journal.

Presided over by Editor-in-chiefs Kris McNeill (ESPI), Peter Vikesland (ES Nano), and David Cwiertny (ESWRT).

Monday, August 20th from 1:00 – 4:30PM

Room 259A, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

environmental science journals, ESPI, Environmental Science Processes & Impacts, ES Nano, Environmental Science Nano, ESWRT, Environmental Science Water Research & Technology

 

ORGN: Young Academic Investigator Symposium

Annually sponsored by Chemical Society Reviews and Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. Read the Chem Soc Rev 2018 Emerging Investigators and the OBC New Talent web collections.

Organized and Presided over by Chemical Society Reviews Associate Editor Huw Davies

Tuesday, August 21st from 8:20 – 11:55AM & 1:20 – 4:55PM

Room 253C, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

 

We are pleased to support additional symposia throughout the meeting:

PHYS: Ultrafast Molecular Sciences by Femtosecond Photons & Electrons: Symposium in honor of Ahmed Zewail with support from Faraday Discussions, as detailed in the blog post.

INOR: Recent Advances in the Photochemistry & Photophysics of the P-Block Elements with support from Dalton Transactions in the form of Outstanding Poster Presentations.

 

If you plan the attend the ACS Meeting in Boston, we hope to meet you in person either at the booth or during the technical sessions!

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Congratulations to the ACS Reaction Mechanisms Conference poster prize winners!

We want to say congratulations to the winners of the RSC poster prizes at the recent ACS Reaction Mechanisms Conference, hosted by University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada!

Juliet Macharia won the prize from Catalysis Science & Technology. Juliet is originally from Kenya and is now a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the field of organic chemistry at the Binghamton University in New York. Juliet says her career in science was led by curiosity. She wants to understand how and why things happen the way they do to provide a “path to illumination of the many mysteries of the universe.”

Juliet Macharia with her poster

Juliet’s current research focuses on the chemistry of a class of compounds called “arylboronic acids”. These molecules are widely used in fine chemical, pharmaceutical, agrochemical, and modern-material industries due to their stability, easy preparation and environmental benign nature. The key step in many reactions employing arylboronic acids involves carbon-boron (C-B) bond cleavage. Due to the relative inertness of the C-B bond, the in-situ generation of a more reactive ‘boronate’ species is considered to be vital to the success of these reactions. Her goal is to determine the exact mechanism of C-B cleavage in reactions using a physical organic tool, Kinetic Isotope Effects (KIEs) at natural abundance. In the future, she will utilize the mechanistic information from these studies for the rational design and development of new catalytic processes.

Anna Lo, who works with Professor Jared Shaw at UC Davis, was the winner of the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry prize. She says that she decided to pursue a career in chemistry to take advantage of the creative thinking and liberty in the practice of organic synthesis.

Anna Lo

Anna’s work focuses on two goals: (1) to elucidate conditions that provide reliable selectivity for additions to a-chiral imines, (2) to develop a mechanistic rationale for the deviating selectivity trends her research group observes. Stereoelectronic models such as the Felkin-Ahn model and Cram’s rules have been used as powerful tools in the asymmetric synthesis of complex synthetic targets. Due to their robust utility, Felkin-control and chelation-control have been generalized to imine stereocontrol, despite fundamental differences in reactivity between N-substituted imines and their carbonyl analogues. Recent work has illuminated a class of a-chiral aldehyde derived imines that deviate from previously well-established stereoelectronic models. This illuminated a gap in understanding of existing stereocontrol models, specifically when applied to N-substituted imines, which Anna is now investigating.

This conference sounds like it was a great event, and we’re glad to support young researchers as they build their careers!

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Congratulations Alberta Nano Research Symposium!

For the fifth year running, the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary Nano Groups co-organized the two-day Alberta Nano Research Symposium. The symposium provides a platform for showcasing innovation in nanotechnology research done in Alberta, as well as fostering deeper connections among researchers in academia and industry.

Students from across Alberta in all nanotechnology disciplines were invited to present their research, with prizes awarded to the top oral and poster presentations. Plenary speakers – leaders in nanotechnology – from Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan were invited to give talks on some of their latest work. A poster session and a networking event brought together the community in the evening.

Special congratulations to Muhammad Zubair, who won the RSC Nanoscale Horizons Poster Award. He presented a poster about the development of a novel membrane based on chicken feathers/graphene oxide for water purification. In Canada, approximately 100,000 tons of poultry feathers are produced every year, and most of them are landfilled or burnt. He is using these chicken feathers to make membranes for water purification, which will not only help to reduce the environmental pollution related to chicken feathers but also bring a new and low-cost solution to existing water purification membranes.

The RSC is particularly enthusiastic about supporting the efforts early career researchers, so we want to say congrats for a successful event!

Nanoscale Horizons Poster Award winner Muhammad Zubair (center), with Nicolas Macia (L) and Alyx Aarbo (R), co-chairs of the Symposium. Photo credit: Vladimir Kabanov.

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Congratulations CQMF prize winners!

Materials Horizons, posters, prize

Prof JF Masson presents the Materials Horizons poster prize to Nicolas Zindy

The Centre Québécois sur les Matériaux Fonctionnels/Quebec Center for Advanced Materials recently held its annual meeting in Montreal, and we were pleased to sponsor poster prizes from Analyst and Materials Horizons at the event. Congratulations to winners Nicolas Zindy from Laval University and Régis Imbeault from the University of Sherbrooke!

Régis won the Analyst prize for his poster describing the development of high performance functionalized polynorbornenes (PBBEs) from simple, inexpensive and environmentally friendly synthesis procedures. Because of their very high physicochemical properties and their low anticipated cost, these new materials can compete with many commercial products, while offering a greener alternative and bringing new solutions for advanced applications.

Nicolas won the Materials Horizons prize for his poster that presented a new strategy to create a pi-conjugated polymer using pyromelltic diimide (PMDI) as an aromatic C-H bond bearer for direct heteroarylation polymerization (DHAP) with 1,4-dibromobenzene. This material has been difficult to synthesize with conventional methods such as Suzuki or Stille couplings and has potential to be used as a cost-effective active material in next generation Li-ion batteries.

Editors from two of our journals also took the initiative to present their advice on publishing, following our Meet the Editor format. Thank you Profs Jean-François Masson from Analyst and Federico Rosei from Journal of Materials Chemistry C for helping us educate the community about good publishing practice!

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