From the Department Head
Chemistry Matters, Spring 2025
Welcome to the biannual Department of Chemistry newsletter, where we celebrate the achievements and impact of our students, postdocs, faculty, and staff. Over the past six months, we have made significant strides in research, teaching and outreach, which you can read more about here.
As we face a potentially uncertain and turbulent year ahead, I encourage everyone to continue their impactful work and to support each other. Decisions made by the U.S. government in the coming weeks will have enormous impacts on our work, our communities and the world for many years.
To give you a sense of the importance of federal funding for research, NIH funding contributed to research that led to every drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2010 to 2016. In North Carolina, NIH funding supported over 25,000 jobs and $5.34B in economic activity, representing a ~2:1 return on investment. You can learn more about how to teach students about science funding here.
The indirect funds associated with federal funding help pay for essential hazardous waste management, repair and maintenance of research buildings, and provide critical utilities like power, heat, and air conditioning.
Our work remains vitally relevant and impactful to society. Our faculty and research groups, comprised of undergraduates, graduates, postdocs, and the staff that support them, are crucial to solving society’s grand challenges. These include addressing the storage, capture, and conversion of solar energy, developing drugs to treat diseases and analytical tools and methods to study them, developing green chemistry and sustainable chemical processes, and expanding our fundamental knowledge that connects chemical structure, function, and properties. We have secured significant external funds from government agencies, foundations, and industry partners to support these efforts, and our researchers are collaborating with colleagues in other departments and institutions across the globe to tackle complex challenges.
Our students continue to impress us with their dedication and accomplishments. Many of them have won prestigious scholarships and fellowships, have presented their research at national conferences, and have published papers in top-tier journals. Our students have also engaged our community and the public with positive messages about the impact of chemistry and science on society, including the remarkable efforts of our Chemistry Graduate Student Association to celebrate National Chemistry Week and the work of our Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma- Gamma Xi chapter.
Our faculty received numerous awards this year, including Jun Ohata and Wei-chen Chang. We have also continued to expand the boundaries of our teaching and research missions, with notable examples including our ChemEd Summit and related activities.
Our department recently welcomed Chris Stanisky, a new faculty member who will contribute to our general chemistry and analytical chemistry instructional programs.
We also wished Maria Oliver-Hoyo all the best after her January retirement and congratulated Julius Massenburg on his retirement as Senior Research Accountant.
In sad news, Carl Bumgardner passed away on February 24, 2025. He left the Ann Bumgardner and Myrtle Bumgardner Scholarship as a lasting legacy. We were also heartbroken to hear of the passing of one of our extraordinary postdocs and graduate alumnus, Khiêm Châu Nguyễn. A fund has been established to support Khiêm’s family in Vietnam.
This newsletter offers a glimpse into our vibrant and dynamic community in the Department of Chemistry. We are deeply grateful for your interest and support, and we look forward to another productive and fulfilling year, albeit one that will be subject to considerable uncertainty and turbulence. I encourage everyone to follow our website, X (formerly Twitter), BlueSky and Instagram accounts, as well as our Facebook and LinkedIn pages, to learn more about our department’s activities and accolades. Please reach out to us if you have any questions, concerns, or if you are interested in offering assistance to the department and our community.
Thanks for reading this, and best regards.
Gavin Williams