Chemistry & Biochemistry Seminars

 Spring 2026 Seminar Series All seminars are held in Chem 200 from 3 - 4 p.m. (unless otherwise noted). 

Refreshments will be served!

Friday, January 23rd

  • Weather Cancellation

 

Friday, January 30th

  • Title: Manganese Oxidation using Mutant Azurin to model Multicopper Oxidases
  • Speaker: Jackson Jones
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Steve Berry

 

Friday, February 6th

  • Title: Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Water Soluble Prodrugs of Niclosamide as Potential Anticancer Agents
  • Speaker: Mathew Jacob
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Venkatram Mereddy

 

Friday, February 13th

  • Title: Spatial Analysis of PFAS in Sediment from Lake Ontario and Lake Erie
  • Speaker: Wyatt Baude
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Bridget Ulrich

 

Friday, February 20th

  • Title: Nectar Chemistry at the Nexus of Plant-biotic Interactions
  • Speaker: Dr. Clay Carter
  • Affiliation: UMTC College of Biological Sciences
  • Hosted by: Tim Craig

 

Friday, February 27th

  • Title: Microplastic Depth Patterns in Lake Superior: Linking Polymer Characteristics to Vertical Distribution
  • Speaker: Ariyah Thomas
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student

  • Hosted by: Liz Minor

     

  • Title: The Influence of Material Properties on the Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Poly(Lactic) Acid
  • Speaker: Emma Gordon
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Melissa Maurer-Jones

Friday, March 6th

  • Title: Spatial Distribution of Microplastics in Major Minnesota River Systems
  • Speaker: Emeka Ngene
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student

  • Hosted by: Liz Minor

     

  • Title: Effects of size and surface charge of crowding agents on multi-scale dynamics of donor-linker-acceptor constructs
  • Speaker: Gaby Nunez
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Ahmed Heikal

Friday, March 13th

No Seminar - Spring Break

 

Friday, March 20th

  • Title: Exploiting Molecules and Molecular Materials for Quantum Information Science
  • Speaker: Dr. Michael R. Wasielewski
  • Affiliation: Northwestern University

  • Hosted by: Prashanth Poddutoori

     

Friday, March 27th

  • Title: Bridging Citizen Science and Research Standards in Microplastic Monitoring: Comparative QA/QC Analysis in Minnesota Waters
  • Speaker: Abimbola Ige 
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student

  • Hosted by: Melissa Maurer-Jones 

     

  • Title: Design, Synthesis and Computational Evaluation of Novel Alkyl Sulfur-Linked Pomalidomide CRBN Recruiters
  • Speaker: Tosin Oladosu
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Venkatram Mereddy

Friday, April 3rd

  • Title: Investigating Reductive Electron Transfer in Non-Covalent and Covalent Hypervalent Phosphorous(V) Porphyrin Systems
  • Speaker: Margaret Ierien
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Prashanth Poddutoori

 

Friday, April 10th

  • Title: A Photochemical Study of the St. Louis River Plume in Lake Superior
  • Speaker: Sidney Pettit 
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student

  • Hosted by: Liz Minor

     

  • Title: How Does Salt Change Dissolved Organic Matter Photochemistry? Examples from Lake Superior
  • Speaker: Keagan Bailey
  • Affiliation: UMD Chemistry Graduate Student
  • Hosted by: Liz Minor

 

Friday, April 17th

  • Title: A hybrid density functional and reduced density matrix functional approach to the strong electron correlation problem
  • Speaker: Dr. Daniel Gibney
  • Affiliation: University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  • Hosted by: Melissa Maurer-Jones