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We are on Summer Break!
Princeton ACS Section meetings will resume in the fall.
These will include a presentation by
Michelle DiMeo, Science History Institute
Michelle DiMeo is vice president of collections and programs and Arnold Thackray Director of the Othmer Library at the Science History Institute. She was most recently the associate library director at the Hagley Museum and Library. Previously, she held the position of director of digital library initiatives at the Institute, overseeing the construction and launch of our digital collections platform. She first fell in love with the Othmer Library’s collections when she held an Allington short-term research fellowship here in 2014.
Michelle earned a PhD in history and English from the University of Warwick and a certificate in curation and management of digital assets from the University of Maryland. She is the author of Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle’s Sister (University of Chicago Press, 2021), part of the Institute’s Synthesis book series.
and an August meeting (possibly in person)
Professor Varsha Kelkar Mane, Associate Professor and Head of University Department of Biotechnology
Demonstrated expertise in: Environment and Biotechnology, with emphasis on diagnostics and therapeutics, paleontology & archival preservation, bioprospecting and bio-valorization.
2022 Hubert N. Alyea Awards
The namesake of this award, Hubert N. Alyea, was a Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University who was world renowned for his scientific demonstrations, his enthusiasm, and his love of scientific discovery.
In his honor an award was established for Princeton area high school chemistry students by Princeton University and the Princeton Section of the American Chemical Society. Each year high schools in the Princeton area are invited to nominate a Senior or Junior level student for this award.
This award is unique in that it leaves the criteria for the award at the discretion of the Science Department of each high school. The one stipulation made by the Award Committee is that the award not be based on test scores or grade point averages alone. We seek to recognize the student who is excited by scientific discovery, as was the award's namesake, Hubert N. Alyea.
This year’s winners are:
Ryan Applegate, Nottingham High School
John Balian, The Hun School of Princeton
Edward (Ned) Erickson, Princeton High School
Caitrin Greene, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South
William Hou, Montgomery High School
Paw Hser, Trenton Central High School
Elizabeth Lee, Princeton Day School
Arthur Li, The Lawrenceville School
Joseph Miller, Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science
Nandini Swami, Lawrence High School
Kathleen Zhang, The Peddie School
On Friday, May 20, the Princeton University Department of Chemistry hosted a special program for alumni in Frick Chemistry Building, Taylor Auditorium. The 2022 Alyea Award recipients were invited to attend and be recognized.
Environmental Sustainability is
Focus of Earth Day Event
- Barbara Ameer
On Earth Day Eve, April 21st the Princeton Local Section of the ACS hosted an online live event in recognition of the 52nd International Earth Day. The conversation centered on possible pathways to sustainability of our quality of life in the face of climate change.
The virtual event attracted ACS members, students, professors, and community members, including not-for-profit foundations, and those in industry. The keynote speaker Maurie J. Cohen, PhD, Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and author of Sustainability (Polity Press, 2020) presented a social scientist’s perspective on our journey as a society. Four panelists representing the greater Princeton area and central New Jersey community shared their thoughts and knowledge about local action towards ensuring environmental sustainability.
Findings from their scenario testing with the policy simulations model, En-ROADS (Climate Interactive, MIT Management) revealed the challenges of controlling and limiting multiple anthropogenic impacts on the environment, towards achieving the United Nations’ goal of minimizing global warming. En-ROADS is a freely-available, online application that gives individuals the chance to design scenarios to determine how human interventions, e.g. electrifying transportation, pricing carbon, replacing fossil fuels with renewables, and modifying agriculture, can impact climate change.
Supported by an ACS mini grant for sustainability programming, the event concluded with a summary and call for comments on the ACS Climate Change Public Policy Statement. The event’s co-organizers, Randy Weintraub, MS, PhD, and Barbara Ameer, PharmD, MBA, are compiling comments, to be conveyed to ACS for consideration.
Those who wish to provide feedback on the current policy statement (tinyurl.com/CEI-climate) should email the event co-organizers by July 15th at raw4chemistry@gmail.com and b4chemistry@gmail.com.
Chemagination at Princeton, a Virtual STEM Competition, Forges Into the Future
by Barbara Ameer, Chemagination Committee Chair and Local Section Competition Coordinator
Congratulations to winners in our June local section Chemagination competition, which was asynchronous /remote for the third consecutive year in its 20-year history.
The 37 teams consisting of 2 or 3 high school science students tackled the question: How might chemistry be used to improve our lives 25 years in the future? Teams selected their category and prepared cover art and a feature story for the high school chemistry magazine ChemMatters, as if it were 2047.
First-place teams (or second- or third-place teams as alternates) are eligible to participate in the regional MARM Chemagination competition in late Spring 2023.
Alternate Energy Sources
First place Team #AE4, Joyce Zhu, Ellen Wu and Sohini Mukherje, Innovative Discoveries in Electricity Generation through Tomato Microbial Fuel Cells, WWPHS-S
Second place Team #AE3, Alexander Yang, Aarushi Thejaswi and Edward Xiong, Competitive Hydrogen Generation: Reverse Electrodialysis Innovations,
WWPHS-S
Third place Team #AE5, Vinay Panchal, Atharva Katkar and Ajay Desai, Nuclear Fusion: Limitless Applications of Limitless Energy, Hillsborough HS
Environment
First place Team #E3, Sumedha Jayaraman and Leo Li, Novel Black Carbon Filtration with Sonic Agglomeration and Nanofiber Aerogel, WWPHS-S
Second place Team #E2, Caitrin Greene, Alexander Xu and Tanya Bhakhri, What "Eu" Need to Know about Eutrophication, WWPHS-S
Third place Team #E4, Harinni Shyamalan and Stephanie Guo, Scrubbers: Cleaning Air Since '22, Hillsborough HS
Medicine/Health
First place Team #M2, Ansh Tandon, Aman Grandhi and Suraj Das, Treating Alzheimer's with Revolutionary Nanobot Technology, WWPHS-S
Second place (tie) Team #M3, Swathi Radhakrishnan and Ovya Kumar, Anti-Seizure Medication to Treat Epileptic Patients, WWPHS-S
Second place (tie) Team #M8, Jason Shumsky, Alisha Greenstein and Manbir Guron, Silkworms A Surgeon's Best Friend, Hightstown HS
New Materials
First place Team #NM3, Khushboo Etai, Anushka Kaluskar and Phalguni Miraj, Multi-Layer Graphene, WWPHS-S
Second place Team #NM4, Alyssa Yang, Apurva Nayak and Qirui Cai, Illuminating the Chemistry of Our Screens, WWPHS-S
Third place Team #NM5, Nistha Sheth and Vikaas Dindigal, From 2DPA-1 to Polymerized Magnesium Spacecraft?, Hightstown HS
Proteins/Protein Chemistry
First place Team #P2, Varrshitha Kumar and Amy Siby, Battle Against PFAS 'Forever Chemicals', WWPHS-S
Second place Team #P1, Kaylee Moyne and Xiying Fan, Curing Cancer with Proteins in Nanotechnology, WWPHS-S
Third place Team #P3, Graciela Zhang and Mia Qu, Use of SpCas9-HF1 Enzyme to Recover Extinct Species, Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science
For schools last year, altered schedules, uncertain availability of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, and the late scheduling of standardized examinations made it impractical for some of our local teachers who wished to participate to do so. This year’s remote competition was successful. Teachers from 5 schools guided over 100 students through the novel activity, thus confirming their interest in future Chemagination competitions.
We appreciate the cooperation of the New Jersey high school chemistry teacher-mentors: Kenneth Lisk, Hightstown HS, Karen Randazzo, Hillsborough HS, Barbara Safira, Wallington Jr/Sr HS, Cindy Jaworsky and Karel Marshall, West Windsor-Plainsboro HS-S, and Randy A. Weintraub, chemistry teacher at Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science, who also coordinated the judging teams.
2022 Princeton and Trenton Sections’ Outstanding High School Chemistry Teacher Awards
By Louise Lawter, Award Coordinator
The purpose of this award is to recognize and encourage outstanding teachers of high school chemistry and to motivate others to emulate them.
The evaluation criteria for this award are:
- quality of their teaching;
- their leadership (classroom and profession);
- keeping up to date in the field;
- extracurricular work in chemistry and teaching;
- emphasis on laboratory safety;
Each year, up to two winners are selected – one from the Princeton and one for the Trenton ACS Sections. This year, we have a tie for the Princeton Section award. The awards were presented on Saturday, June 4 at the Princeton and Trenton ACS Sections’ 2022 Awards Ceremony at MARM 2022.
The winners are:
Qiang “Steven” Chen, Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science (PRISMS).
Dr. Chen integrates classroom science teaching with authentic college level research. Specifically, he focuses on utilizing chemistry and nanotechnology in solving environmental issues as a lab director and research mentor at PRISMS.
He is a strong supporter of the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad. He has participated in the national coaching program for the past two years. Under Dr. Chen’s guidance, dozens of students have won top awards in the US National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO). Of note, his student, Yutong Dai, won a gold medal at the 50th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) in 2018 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia! Another of his students, Qiyang Zhou, was a gold medalist at the 2021 International Chemistry Olympiad, and is now a freshman student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In a few words Qiyang aptly describes why Dr Chen was selected for this award – “Dr. Chen ignited my passion in Chemistry and research. He is the most influential teacher in my life, and many students benefited from his expertise and dedication in chemistry and education.”
Dr. Alex Lloyd, The Hun School of Princeton
Alex Lloyd started his teaching career in 2017 when he joined The Hun School of Princeton as a science teacher. Alex challenges himself to excel and always seeks out opportunities to grow. He sees each student and each new challenge as a chance to learn and develop his knowledge and craft in the teaching of chemistry and other physical sciences.”
Alex teaches his students to question everything and to never be completely satisfied that current prevailing theories cannot be improved. He’s a true scientist who is inspiring his students as well as his peers.
Alex has made every effort to employ a truly student-centered, application based, hands-on, minds-on methodology in all his classes. His students actively engage their natural curiosity because of a “learn by doing” approach.
Alex has developed many active learners who have developed a heightened appreciation for how science actually works and how chemistry is the basis for all other sciences. He provides a stimulating environment for students to explore their knowledge in authentic situations.
Meghan Plaxe, North Hunterdon High School
Meghan has been a teaching chemistry for over 20 years, most recently at North Huntingdon High School. Her letters of support stress her knowledge and love of chemistry; her skills as a teacher and her efforts to reach out to all her students.
For example, to address a growing interest among the students for an organic chemistry class, Meghan volunteered to develop and teach a new course. She has also worked tirelessly to develop interesting and appropriate labs to support the curriculum. Meghan also established a Science National Honor Society chapter at North Hunterdon and is currently a co-advisor for the program. She coordinates the peer-tutoring program which has been a beneficial program for both the honor students and those receiving the help.
“Meghan’s greatest strength is the way that she mentors and interacts with students. She is an influential teacher who engages her students with a wide variety of classroom activities and you will often find her working with those who need additional support after school and during her off periods of the school day.”
Princeton Team Wins a First at MARM Chemagination 2022
The Chemagination regional competition took place on Saturday June 4, 2022 at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), Ewing, NJ, in conjunction with MARM 2022. It was our first in person competition since 2019, as the 2020 and 2021 competitions were held virtually due to the Covid-19 restrictions.
For this competition, students work in teams and must imagine they are scientists living 25 years in the future and have made scientific discoveries that have impacted people’s lives in a positive manner. These discoveries can be in one of four categories: Alternate Energy, Environment, Medicine/Health or New Materials.
The day’s program consisted of a poster session, judging and a tour of TCNJ by graduated senior, and junior (rising senior) chemistry majors from TCNJ. Following the tour, the winners were presented their prizes during the Award Ceremony for Chemagination and other Trenton and Princeton Section awards.
The team from the Princeton Section, won a First Place in Alternate Energy with their entry "Wave Toward Clean Energy and Water". The full list of winners is:
Alternate Energy Category
First Place - "Wave Toward Clean Energy and Water", Omar Alghondakly, Marta Rzeszutko and Paula Wasik, Wallington High School
Second Place - "Mushroom Turbines", Sophia Castiglioni and Kayla Yoder, Muhlenberg High School
Environment Category
First Place - “The O-Fish-Ally Perfect Nanotechnological Fishing Line”, Matthew LaSusa and Natalia Pszeniczny, General Douglas MacArthur High School
Second Place - “Artificialis Florae”, Jairo Alcaraz, Samson Evans and Nathan Ramkissoon, Muhlenberg High School
Medicine/Health Category
First Place - “CROCDROPS”, Stephen Jones and Anushka Pandya, Half Hollow Hills High School West
Second Place - "The NeuroPen", Yahfrelyn Alvarado, Dalhendji Henly and Jeslee Ruiz, Muhlenberg High School
New Materials Category
First Place - "Glasphene: The Future of Glass", Matthias Maftei, Muhlenberg High School
Thank you to teachers Christine Tjersland, Lauren Austen, David Friedman, Matthew Zausin, Barbara Safira, Audrey Smeltzer-Schwab and Chris Evans; our judges Deborah Cook and Lisa Veliath, and all the other volunteers who made this competition possible