Jones, T., Ahmed, R., Cieza, E., Pratt, J. M.*, Popova, M.*, Resources and support for marginalized women in chemistry doctoral programs: What they had and what they needed. J. Chem. Educ., DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00274. Marginalized women now enter chemistry doctoral programs and earn more Ph.D. degrees than ever. As such, there is a growing emphasis… Continue reading…
Shi, L., Stachl, C., Popova, M.*, Linking departmental climate to the sense of belonging of chemistry graduate students and postdocs: Evaluation and insights from the DCaDEI survey. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., DOI: 10.1039/D4RP00322E The Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, created a survey, which we refer to as the Departmental Climate… Continue reading…
PI Maia Popova, her graduate student, Roshni G. Bhaskar, and co-PI David von Dohlen won internal funding to develop an intervention to support organic chemistry student representational competence and reasoning with multiple representations. While much research has been done on representational competence, there remains a pressing need for practical tools… Continue reading…
Janae Wofford always liked getting to the “root” of an issue. That’s not surprising for someone who grew up in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains encircling Asheville, North Carolina.
When she chose to study at UNC Greensboro, she was pleased to keep in touch with nature through greenspaces like Guilford Woods. “I love hiking,” the Honors College student says. “It was nice to see a woody area that I could hike with little creeks to jump across, the type of stuff I’m used to back home.”
One walk in the woods inspired research that landed her a Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most coveted STEM scholarships in the nation. She hopes that her work will contribute to new medicines to treat infections that are growing more dangerous with time.
With a $1.5 million state grant, UNCG faculty are leading a unique research effort to explore how complex molecules found in living organisms, such as fungi, could be used to engineer more environmentally friendly energy systems.
“People have been looking at natural products for centuries for medicinal applications,” said Dr. Shabnam Hematian, Bernard-Glickman Dean’s Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “We believe that can be done for energy, too.”
Dr. Nicholas Oberlies, Patricia A. Sullivan Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Director of Graduate Studies in UNCG’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has received a new $50,000 grant from Chemia Biosciences, Inc., as part of the company’s larger NIH SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant, “Developing novel natural products from fungal species.” The project is using machine learning coupled with genomic and LC-MS/MS data to identify promising fungal metabolites that derive from NRPS biosynthetic pathways. The goal for the UNCG team is to support efforts to isolate and identify those compounds from specific fungal cultures.
In this project funded by the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways (MPS-LEAPS) Program and managed by the Broadening Participation (CHE-BP) Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Chekan and his students at University of North Carolina Greensboro will study new enzyme catalysts for the crosslinking of amino acid side chains in peptides.
From photosynthesis in plants, to every breath we take and every thought we think, life is animated by complex chemical reactions that pass electrons back and forth between molecules. Dr. Shabnam Hematian, Bernard-Glickman Dean’s Professor in the UNCG Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has focused her research on the metals — iron, copper, and others — that are foundational to these processes. “The cool chemistry that happens in your body – metabolism of drugs or hormone biosynthesis – all of them are governed by a series of iron proteins,” she says.
Oberlies is renowned for his work in drug discovery from filamentous fungi – a line of research that could result in improved treatments for a variety of diseases, including cancer and malaria. He also investigates herbal drugs, such as milk thistle and kratom, to develop reference standards and determine chemical composition and safety.
UNC Greensboro scientists are among the top 2% most-cited researchers around the world, according to the 2023 Stanford-Elsevier List. While the list doesn’t account for citations in all journals or disciplines, it includes data from nearly 35,000 peer-reviewed journals in the life, social, physical, and health sciences.
