AR2018PDF

Faculty and Staff (continued)

Daniel A. Guerra

B.A., California State Polytechnic University
M.S., California State Polytechnic University

Laboratory & Stockroom Manager

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

I was happy to return to Harvey Mudd in the fall Karl Haushalter
after a year of sabbatical research at the City of
Hope National Medical Center. My teaching load B.A., Rice University
included general chemistry lab, which was my first PhD, Harvard University
chance to teach in the newly renovated teaching
laboratories. I also taught my integrative Chemical Biology
experience on HIV-AIDS, but with a new twist. The
entire course was taught inside of the California
Rehabilitation Center, a men’s medium security
prison, as part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange
program, which works across the country to bring
incarcerated men and women together with college
campus students to learn as peers in the same
classroom. Offered in a variety of disciplines and
correctional settings, more than 30,000 students
nation-wide have participated over the past 21
years. Inside-Out participants explore profound
social issues together, building a classroom
community based on collaborative learning and
problem solving. The Inside-Out model
emphasizes small group discussions and meaning-
ful dialogue in which the students learn from each
other. Teaching this class was a joy and an
opportunity to experiment with lesson structures
and formats. These strategies will be valuable
back in Claremont as I incorporate elements of
critical pedagogy into my other classes.

After the sabbatical hiatus, my laboratory is
back in business and returning to its roots in DNA
repair. My hope is to integrate our well-practiced
in vitro biochemistry techniques with the new skills
I learned at City of Hope working in vivo with the
model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also
known as budding yeast.

Among other projects, I am chairing the
Assessment and Accreditation Committee as
Harvey Mudd gears up for our visit by the WASC
accreditation team. We are planning to focus our
campus self-study on the dual themes of workload
and implementing the mission. I have also been
working on updating and expanding the pre-health
advising program for our pre-medical students.

Outside of work, I have been enjoying traveling
with my family and training for my first half-
marathon which I ran in October in Los Ange-
les. Laura is in the 10th grade and was just named
a co-captain of her school’s varsity swim. Our
dogs Chip and Ginger keep us active and they love
joining us on our regular RV camping trips to
Pismo Beach.

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

Last year I wrapped up my first sabbatical and Lelia N. Hawkins
returned to the department with two exciting
teaching assignments: first year chemistry and B.S., UC, San Diego
climate change. The newly redesigned core PhD, Scripps Institute
chemistry course engages students with topics
such as the Haber process and acid rain and is a of Oceanography
joy to teach. Fall 2018 was the first year I offered Environmental Chemistry
an introductory course on climate change. This
has been a goal of mine since arriving at HMC
and I am very grateful for the opportunity to teach
this important subject. This spring I am teaching
advanced analytical chemistry and a new co-
taught course on the behavioral and physical
science of climate change. Each one stretches me
in a new direction.

Research in 2018 got off to a strong start with
a new publication in Atmospheric Chemistry and
Physics (co-authored by two students) and a grant
awarded from NSF to continue work with HMC
students in Paris, France. This summer I’ll take
two students to Paris to live and work for one
month. We are studying reactions in clouds using
a state-of-the-art atmospheric simulation chamber
at the University of Paris in Créteil.

This year I am also co-advising a clinic team,
with the goal of understanding how air pollution in
Fresno varies on the scale of neighborhoods.
Fresno is an area with a greatly underserved
population that suffers from extremely poor air
quality so much attention is being directed at
improving this region.

Being on sabbatical in the early part of 2018
allowed me to travel for both work and pleasure. I
visited Michigan Tech in the Upper Peninsula (in
winter!) and Boulder, CO in May, both new to me,
and both for research. In April, we took a family
trip to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, and in
September I visited St. Louis, MO for a
conference. My family is doing well generally and
adjusting to the constant colds that accompany
having a school-aged child.

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

In Spring 2018 I taught inorganic and inorganic Adam R. Johnson
lab and supervised three rotations of Chem 40 students.
The project this year was to carry out the synthesis of B.A., Oberlin College
some sulfonamide ligands reminiscent of work published PhD, Massachusetts Institute
in 2011. It's a bit early to reveal the results but we’ve
found some better catalysts for asymmetric hydroamina- of Technology
tion and a publication describing these results is in the Inorganic Chemistry
works.

My thesis student for 2018 was Ben Mitchell
(PZ) who began graduate studies with a research rotation
at the University of Washington during the summer.
During his year in my group he approximately doubled the
number of crystal structures from the lab, with structures
of four ligands and one Ti complex. The focus of his the-
sis was the synthesis of chiral tridentate imine-diol ligands
for Ti and their use as catalysts. Ben and I were
nominated for the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry
Award for Undergraduate Research, and while we didn’t
win, we received an honorable mention which allows Ben
to present the work at the ACS meeting in an oral
session.

I had two students (Chris Ye and Fanrui Sha)
continue Ben’s project during summer 2018 (and Fanrui
continues this academic year for her thesis). A paper
describing the work has been submitted and is under
review. Two of the Chem 40 students joined my lab
continuing the sulfonamide work, Jenny Zhen and Sydney
Towell, and they were joined by Hannah Slocumb who is
doing her thesis work on the project. A poster on this work
will be presented at the ACS meeting in Orlando.

In the fall of 2018, I taught frosh Chem with both
Profs Hawkins and Van Heuvelen, as well as the organo-
metallics course. The VIPEr project continues and we
have begun data collection (I had to do human subjects
training!) on the “grand experiment” to show the efficacy
of teacher training on student learning. I am actually a
participant in the project for now, but will transition to a
research role next year.

News of a more personal nature include the fact
that I got married. Crista spent some time on an
unplanned but well-needed sabbatical during the last part
of 2018 but recently started working full time again as a
physical therapist. Nathaniel was accepted to and will be
attending his first choice: Cornell College in Mt. Vernon,
Iowa. He is finishing his senior year on the “jumping over
things team” at CHS where he does hurdles, high jump,
and pole vault. My daughter continues to enjoy theater
and music and sings constantly and now plays the ukulele
too. She attended the 3-week version of Interlochen
music/arts camp last summer and will attend the 6-week
version this coming summer. Finally, by the time you read
this I will have completed the Antelope canyon 50 mile
run, my second 50 miler.

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

Kerry K. Karukstis
B.S., Duke University
PhD, Duke University
Physical Chemistry

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

With increasing numbers of faculty, Penny Manisco
students, and staff aware of the need for safety B.S., University of Southern California
training, the college has purchased a series of
online training modules. We have been using Laboratory Technician
the Safety Skills modules for annual lab safety & Chemical Hygiene Officer
refresher courses. In addition, we have
students, staff, and faculty view topics such as
Laboratory Safety – Biological Hazards,
Biosafety Level 2, Compressed Gas Safety,
and Electrical Safety. F&M finds many of the
Cal OSHA required courses useful as well. I
am pleased that so many are evaluating their
safety needs before proceeding with research
projects!

Last summer we continued our Student Lab
Safety Officer (SLSO) program. SLSOs act as
liaisons between me and their PIs. They bring
questions and concerns about all things safety,
including hazardous waste disposal, chemical
inventories, and storage. They even flush their
eye washes and safety showers! A highlight of
the program is our annual Safety Day. The
event has grown over the years to include
many safety demo stations that are facilitated
by our SLSOs. This year we had a prize draw-
ing for everyone who visited all stations.

I have had the opportunity to do some
traveling again this year. My husband and I
hiked the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia. A child-
hood friend and I celebrated a special birthday
with a girls’ trip to New York. And in January
my husband and I visited Antarctica with the
UCLA Alumni Association (He’s a Bruin, I’m a
Trojan, but they accepted me nonetheless). We
traveled on a small ship that was able to
navigate the narrow bays and channels. We
really didn’t know what to expect of this trip, but
it surpassed all expectations. What a
breathtakingly beautiful continent!

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

Peter Sanchez
Scientific Instrumentation Technician

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

2018 began with a celebration as I was promoted Katherine Van Heuvelen
to Associate Professor with tenure. I’m very
grateful to work with such extraordinary students B.A., St. Olaf College
and fantastic faculty and staff colleagues at HMC. PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Teaching at HMC is a joy, and I continue to teach
in the Core. In Writ 1, our class “Curiouser and Inorganic Chemistry
Curiouser” asked students to think about curiosity
through an essay titled, “The Usefulness of Use-
less Knowledge.” We considered the merits of
fundamental research as opposed to applied
research, and we read about CRISPR, the James
Webb Space Telescope, and Einstein’s work on
the atom bomb. In Chem 23, we continue to use
societal problems as a lens for thinking about
chemical applications. We are in the midst of my
favorite module, the “Toyota vs. Tesla Smack-
down”, where we learn about the fuels of the
future, namely battery-powered cars and
hydrogen fuel cells.
My research students and I continue to work
towards homogeneous catalysts to help remediate
groundwater pollutants. Rachael Kretsch ‘18
spent her thesis developing a computational
protocol to help us screen potential catlysts.
Chris Ye ’19 took the lead on the experimental
side and has made a tremendous progress in
understanding how our nickel complexes facilitate
dehalogenation reactions. He presented his work
at the spring meeting of the American Chemical
Society in Orlando, Florida. This summer new
students will join the lab and pick up the baton.
Outside of class and lab, the summer brought
another celebration with my wedding in
August. We had a delightful gathering with family
and friends on a farm in Urbana, IL. Our little
nieces and nephews loved seeing the farm
animals (okay, I liked that, too), and everyone
enjoyed s’mores under the stars. My husband
Peter and I recently won our long-standing battle
with the LA real estate market and moved to a
new home together. I look forward to seeing what
the coming year will bring. When you are in
Claremont, please stop by and say hello!

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

Some old things and new things this year: Hal Van Ryswyk

I finally taught Advanced Analytical Chemistry/ B.A., Carlton College
Instrumental Analysis and its associated lab for the PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
25th time. The only instrument that has survived this
run is the McKee-Pedersen modular uv-vis spectro- Analytical & Materials Chemistry
photometer. What I learned this time around is just
how wonderful it is to have an analytical chemistry
colleague with whom to share teaching and philoso-
phy – go Prof Lelia Hawkins!

The filtration system beneath the department’s 150-
gallon tropical marine ecosystem (read: saltwater
aquarium) caught fire one evening over the sum-
mer. An alert Campus Safety Officer heard the
alarm, rushed into the lab and blew through two
extinguishers quelling the fire, saving me from the
sad task of having to explain to the department and
the physicists how I burned down the newly renovat-
ed lab.

We are now “printing” bulk heterojunction solar cells
from quantum dot inks. Since each cell has a
surface area of 0.09 cm2, we still have a way to go
before we save the world… But we are having a lot
of fun!

After years of being a closet materials scientist in
analytical chemist clothing, I published my first “real”
analytical chemistry paper, Experimental Analysis of

Metal Uptake in Soil and Citrus Plants from
Irrigation Water. This senior thesis project involved
a collaboration with HMC’s new Hixon Professor of
Sustainable Environmental Design, Tanja
Srebotnjak. The project involved watering 23
mandarin orange trees in containers for six months
with varying concentrations of various heavy metal
ions commonly found in oilfield-produced water
(read: fracking waste). Prof. Srebotnjak is
prolific – the paper was accepted before lead author
Ailin Zhang ’18 defended her thesis at Presentation
Days.

Charlotte and I continue to travel when and where
we can, most often to visit our daughters and their
families. All is well.

I love hearing what is new with you – keep in touch!

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

After an absence of 15 years I returned to teaching C51 Gerald R. Van Hecke ‘61
Physical Chemistry in the fall 2018. Wonderful to relate I had not
forgotten that much. Along with C51 I led six students through B.S., Harvey Mudd College
the “rigors” of C53 Physical Chemistry Lab. In spring 2019 I PhD, Princeton University
taught C194 Chemistry of Modern Materials – a relatively new
course only in its 3rd version, and a section of C24 Modern Physical Chemistry
Chemistry Laboratory. I also mentored first year students in
three rotations of C40 our introduction to chemistry research for
freshmen.

Summer 2018 was modestly busy with three research
students:
Daphne Guo `19 was continued her work as a Kubota Fellow
on the determination of binary phase diagrams of long chain
carboxylic acids with a view to exploring their use as thermal
energy storage media.
Brandon Wada `20 launched a project to determine the
isothermal compressibilities of binary mixtures of aliphatic and
aromatic compounds. The approach is to measure separately
adiabatic compressibility, density, coefficient of thermal
expansion, viscosity, refractive index, heat capacity and
combine these values using a classic thermodynamic identity to
calculate isothermal compressibility. These measurements are
possible through the acquisition of new equipment for the PChem
including the NSF MRI funded TA instruments DSC250.
Oliver Baldwin `21 joined Brandon on the isothermal
compressibility project and they traded off using the instruments
to make the measurements.

With some luck and funding from the Harris Endowment and
the Stauffer Endowment, I will be able to work with this dynamic
duo this summer 2019.

Two seniors threw their lot in with me for thesis projects this
year. Daphne Guo `19 continues to further the exploration of
binary carboxylic acid mixtures as energy storage media. Leah
Stevenson `19 initiated a project looking binary mixtures of
n-alkylcyanobiphenyls. These alkylcyanobiphenyls or variants
thereof are bases for many types of liquid crystal displays. These
compounds with 7, 8, or 9 carbon alkyl chains have been report-
ed to exhibit re-entrant behavior. Leah is looking for DSC signals
to confirm the existence of re-entrant behavior. Re-entrant
phase behavior is generally found to have very small phase
transition enthalpies. We are expecting to be able to detect the
thermal transitions with our new and highly sensitive DSC.

2018-2019 has been another light travel year. Attendance at
the Spring ACS Meeting in New Orleans was especially fun
reconnecting with many of you at the Chemistry Brunch. I did
attend a CalCon conference at Lake Tahoe in August. CalCon is
short for Calorimetry Conference. In December, just for fun, I
traveled to San Antonio, TX. While most visitors would be
enamored of the River Walk, which indeed is spectacular, I found
the Missions most interesting. The Alamo was actually the first of
some 7 missions established along the San Antonio River. What
was really surprising was to learn these missions were founded
about 1550 which is some 200 years before the California
missions and even about 100 years before the Pilgrims in MA.

Academic 2019 is not finished yet but the summer looks like
some exciting research will be done.

So as I usually end these comments, keep those cards and
letters coming in – even if they are electronic texts.
Cheers, VH BS AM PHD FRSC

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

Mary Van Vleet
B.S., Harvey Mudd College
PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Physical Chemistry

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

In February 2018 we installed our upgraded David A. Vosburg
NMR, and it has been wonderful to have this new
instrument and its autosampler capabilities. B.A., Williams College
Speaking of robots, we also acquired an automat- PhD, The Scripps Research Institute
ed flash chromatography system that figures to
make compound purification a snap. The NSF, the Organic Chemistry
Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and our
wonderful alums helped make these purchases
possible.

My family and I began a year-long sabbatical
adventure at the University of Guanajuato in July
2018, and we are having a lot of fun speaking
Spanish and exploring Mexico. I've learned a lot
about green chemistry and multicomponent
reactions through my host research group, and am
doing fairly well at understanding chemistry in
Spanish. It has also been great to meet many
other Fulbright grantees in Mexico this year.

We are living in the most Catholic state of
Mexico (possibly the most Catholic in the entire
Western Hemisphere), and I have been asked to
give many talks and seminars on science &
religion both in the community and for students.
Indeed, I have begun a Spanish translation of the
book Kate and I wrote in 2017, with the tentative
title Jesús, Comienzos y la Ciencia. I look forward
to keeping up my language skills after my return at
Pomona's Oldenborg Dining Hall and in conversa-
tions with Spanish-speaking Mudders!

Two HMC research projects came to fruition in
fall 2018. A computational study on biomimetic
Diels-Alder reactions in complicated, plant-derived
natural products was published in The Journal of
Organic Chemistry with Bob Cave, Kareesa Kron
'18, and Mikaela Kosich '16. Kanny Wan '11 and I
are also among 95 authors on an NIH-funded,
crowd-sourced screening effort on 346 of natural
products—we contributed nine compounds to the
library. The paper appeared in ACS Central
Science. After having trialed a new aqueous
oxidation/Diels-Alder cascade in both semesters of
organic lab at HMC and in an advanced lab at
UCLA, we are hoping to publish the experiment in
the Journal of Chemical Education soon.

In December we decided to transition our kids
from their Mexican school to homeschool, which
Kate is ably managing when she's not coaching
campus ministers around the US through video
chats (which mostly occur while our kids are with
our Spanish-tutor friends for 3 hours a day). Nate
is now in 8th grade and is working hard to
complete a year of algebra online before he starts
high school in California; he dreams of being a
Mudder one day. Isabella and Diego are in 4th
grade, enjoy making up stories, and appear to be
fascinated by every animal they see in Mexico.

Before we return to the US, Kate and I
anticipate celebrating our 20th anniversary in Peru,
and the whole family is looking forward to visiting
Marco Fernandez '12 in Guatemala.

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Faculty and Staff (continued)

We had another busy summer of departmental con- Kimberly Young
struction. Newly renovated restrooms, which all but one Academic Coordinator
are non-gender and nicely updated. There was extensive
work done on the Jacob-Keck roof. It was so blistering
hot this summer, I felt for the crew working up on the roof.

Once all that construction was finished, attention was
then turned toward my office for an update. The old “big
mac” teal/purple carpet (ugh) was replaced, the walls and
cabinets repainted, hardware updated, and nice roller
blinds installed. I am happy to report that my office is
bright, more spacious and clean looking. It’s a joy to sit
in here!

One of the department’s new projects is to go digital
with the collages. We purchased a large monitor and are
in the process of moving all collages over to a software
for easy access and viewing. It should be in place and
active by Alumni Weekend 2019. We are all very excited
to have this information at our fingertips instead of having
to search the entire department for a certain class year.
Since this project is still in its infancy, we will eventually
label all photos and cross-reference everyone.

Again, personally, this last year has been a busy one.
My mother had surgery and recovered at my house for
almost eight months. At the same time, we were all
planning a shower and preparing for a wedding. And, my
youngest “officially” moved out. Phew!

I have two more math classes to finish up and I will be
done with my degree. I have to admit, however, algebra
makes my head hurt but I love the challenge! I am also
working on becoming a professional administrative
assistant with a certification from the American Society of
Administrative Professionals.

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2018 Collage

Annual collage created by Professor Van Hecke. Photography by Professor Daub and Professor Van Hecke.

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