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Research Funding For Undergrads: MRSEC Summer Materials Undergraduate Research Fellowships

January 30, 2017 By

The Division of Science wishes to announce that, in 2017, we will offer seven MRSEC Summer  Materials Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SMURF) for Brandeis students doing undergraduate research, sponsored by the Brandeis Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

The fellowship winners will receive $5,000 stipends (housing support is not included) to engage in an intensive and rewarding research and development program that consists of full-time research in a MRSEC lab, weekly activities (~1-2 hours/week) organized by the MRSEC Director of Education, and participation in SciFest VII on Aug 3, 2017.

The due date for applications is February 27, 2017, at 6:00 PM EST.

To apply, the application form is online and part of the Unified Application: https://goo.gl/9LcSpG (Brandeis login required).


Eligibility
Students are eligible if they will be rising Brandeis sophomores, juniors, or seniors in Summer 2017 (classes of ’18, ’19, and ’20). No prior lab experience is required. A commitment from a Brandeis MRSEC member to serve as your mentor in Summer 2017 is required though. The MRSEC faculty list is: http://www.brandeis.edu/mrsec/people/index.html

Conflicting Commitments
SMURF recipients are expected to be available to do full time laboratory research between May 30 – August 4, 2017. During that period, SMURF students are not allowed to take summer courses, work another job or participate in extensive volunteer/shadowing experiences in which they commit to being out of the lab for a significant amount of time during the summer. Additionally, students should not be paid for doing lab research during this period from other funding sources.

Application Resources
Interested students should apply online (Brandeis login required). Questions that are not answered in the online FAQ may be addressed to Steven Karel <divsci at brandeis.edu>.

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, Biology, chemistry, labs, Physics, Undergrads Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How different metals stick together

December 7, 2016 By
Editor: Tamara Hanna JEM: Esther RTP: Bryan Nolte

Cover artwork from Inorganic Chemistry featuring paper from the Thomas group

Metal-metal interactions are at the heart of some of the most interesting metal-catalyzed transformations and are found everywhere from Nature (metalloenzymes) to industrially important heterogeneous catalysis (surfaces, nanomaterials).  While textbooks have been written about metal-metal multiple bonds, surprising gaps in knowledge remain, including bonding between first row transition metals and bonding between different metals.  The Thomas group in the Brandeis Chemistry Department seeks to fill these gaps in knowledge through the systematic synthesis of heterobimetallic complexes featuring a wide range of different transition metals and developing a thorough understanding of the electronic structure and bonding of these novel compounds.

The latest issue of Inorganic Chemistry features cover artwork highlighting the recent paper from the Thomas laboratory titled “Exploring Trends in Metal–Metal Bonding, Spectroscopic Properties, and Conformational Flexibility in a Series of Heterobimetallic Ti/M and V/M Complexes (M = Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu).” The paper describes an extensive study of a series of Ti/M and V/M heterobimetallic complexes, where M is systematically varied across the periodic table from left to right (Fe, Co, Ni, Cu).  These complexes are classified as “early/late” heterobimetallic complexes because they feature one metal from the left half of the periodic table (“early”) and one metal from the right half of the periodic table (“late”).  The inherent differences between the properties of the two metals makes their metal-metal bonding quite polar and sensitive to a variety of different factors, but also poises these compounds for interesting reactivity because of the two electronically different metal sites presented. This latest installation from the Thomas group uncovers trends in metal-metal bond distance determined using X-ray crystallography, and uses a variety of spectroscopic (EPR, NMR, Mossbauer) and computational tools to probe the electronic structure of these compounds.  Most interestingly, these compounds are shown to be conformationally flexible, with ligand rearrangements occurring rapidly in solution and this ligand hemilability, which is ideal for facilitating reactivity, can be correlated directly with the strength of metal-metal interactions.

This paper was highly collaborative and its preparation involved researchers from both Brandeis and Harvard University. The synthesis and characterization of the new compounds were largely carried out by Bing Wu, a graduate student in the Thomas group, along with Chris Thomas herself. Matt Wilding, a recent Ph.D. graduate student from the Betley laboratory at Harvard University, assisted with the collection and interpretation of Mossbauer data and designed the cover artwork. Recent Ph.D. graduate Mark Bezpalko, of the Thomas/Foxman groups, and Bruce Foxman carried out all of the structural work in the Brandeis X-ray Diffraction Facility, and all of the computational studies were carried out by Bing Wu and Chris Thomas using the Brandeis high performance cluster.

Filed Under: chemistry, labs Tagged With: , ,

Irving Epstein has been named AAAS Fellow

November 21, 2016 By
irving-epstein

In recognition of his contribution to the study of oscillating chemical reactions, Irving Epstein, the Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry, has been selected as a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Epstein, who in his 45 years at Brandeis has served as Provost and Dean of the Arts and Sciences, said he was honored to receive the award from the AAAS. “I’m delighted and grateful for the recognition,” he said. “It’s always nice to be appreciated by fellow scientists.”

Read more at Brandeis Now.

 

Filed Under: awards, chemistry, labs Tagged With: , , , ,

SciFest VI recap and stats

August 11, 2016 By
photo credit: Mike Lovett

photo credit: Mike Lovett

The Brandeis University Division of Science held its annual undergraduate research poster session SciFest VI on August 4, 2016, as a record number of student researchers presented posters with the results of their summer’s (or last year’s) worth of independent research. We had a great audience of grad students, postdocs, faculty, proud parents, and senior administrators.

More pictures and abstract books are available at the SciFest site.

SciFest VI by numbers

Filed Under: Biochemistry, Biology, chemistry, Neuroscience, Physics, Undergrads Tagged With: ,

Sprout Award Winners Announced

July 12, 2016 By

The recipients of the 6th annual Sprout Awards have been announced. There will be eight teams from labs in the Biology, Biochemistry, and Chemistry departments sharing the $100,000 in funding in FY 2017. The Sprout program’s grant pool was doubled this year in order to expand the support for the promising innovation and research that is happening here at Brandeis University.  The Sprout program, created 6 years with the intent to encourage entrepreneurial activity, is sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Hassenfeld Family Innovation Center. It is administered by the university’s Office of Technology Licensing

(read more at Brandeis Now).

 

Filed Under: Biochemistry, Biology, chemistry, grants Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Four Brandeis Science Grads Receive 2016 NSF Graduate Fellowships

April 3, 2016 By

GRFP_logoA science education at Brandeis University can be a springboard to future science achievements. We would like to congratulate four of our science graduates who have received the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships for 2016.

Noam Saper

Noam was an outstanding student graduating summa cum laude with highest honors in Chemistry in 2015. At Brandeis, Noam worked in the labs of Prof. Barry Snider and Prof. Christine Thomas. He co-authored 3 publications with Snider and Thomas.

Noam received multiple awards including the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship (2014); the Elihu A. Silver Prize (2014); and the Doris Brewer Cohen Endowment Award (2015).

Following graduation and enthralled by the mysteries of the west coast, he decided to attend the University of California, Berkeley. Noam is working on mechanistic studies of Ni-catalyzed diaryl ether hydrogenolysis in Professor John Hartwig’s laboratory.

Alexandra Sun

Another outstanding Chemistry student, Alexandra Sun graduated magna cum laude with highest honors in 2015. Alexandra also worked in Christine Thomas’ lab where she carried out research on Transition Metal Complexes Featuring a Redox-Active Bidentate Amido-Phosphido Ligand. Alexandra received the Melvin M. Snider Prize in Chemistry in 2015.

She is currently a first-year student in the Chemistry Department at the University of Michigan working with Professor Corey Stephenson on developing new methods in photoredox catalysis.

Abigail Zadina

Abigail received her BS/MS in Neuroscience in 2013. Working in Michael Rosbash’s lab, she was a co-author on 2 publications and received numerous awards including the Doris Brewer Cohen award and the Elihu Silver Prize. In 2013, Abigail discussed her science experience in the Brandeis publication Imprint.

Following graduation, Abigail worked at Columbia in Richard Axel’s lab. She is currently a PhD student in Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University.

Joseph Jacobowitz

Joseph Jacobowitz received his BS/MS in 2014, graduating summa cum laude with Highest Honors in Biochemistry. While a Brandeis undergraduate, Joseph co-authored a publication with his faculty mentor, Doug Theobald. In 2013, Joseph received the Division of Science Prize for Outstanding Research Accomplishment and the William P. Jencks  Award in Biochemistry in 2014.

Joseph is in the Biology PhD program at MIT, working for Jing-Ke Weng on the origins of chemodiversity in plants.

Summer Research at Brandeis

All four science graduates had the opportunity to jump start their careers by doing summer research at Brandeis. Noam, Alexandra and Joseph were Division of Science Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows (SURF). Abigail received a Computational Neuroscience Traineeship.

These undergraduate research programs enable students to spend their summers at Brandeis engaged in intensive undergraduate training and summer research. Both programs provide a stipend, faculty mentoring and full-time lab research. The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows work culminates in a poster presentation summarizing their work. The SURF program is funded by generous donations from alumni. The Computational Neuroscience Traineeship program begins in the summer and runs through the following academic year. It is funded through a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, chemistry, labs, Neuroscience, Undergrads Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

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