All News

Patrick Marris ’16, Mia Kang ’17 and Richard Wenner ’17 presented the results of their summer research projects during the 13th annual Molecular Educational Research Consortium in Undergraduate computational chemistRY (MERCURY) conference. The conference was held July 24-26 at Bucknell University.

Ten current and former Hamilton Chemistry Department faculty members co-authored a chapter titled “A Departmental Focus on High Impact Undergraduate Research Experiences” in a recently published edition of the American Chemical Society Symposium Series dedicated to “Developing and Sustaining a Successful Undergraduate Research Program.”

Hamilton College’s highest awards for teaching were presented to four faculty members during the annual Class & Charter Day ceremony on May 12. Associate Professor of Russian Franklin Sciacca, Associate Professor of Music Rob Hopkins,  Assistant Professor of Chemistry Adam Van Wynsberghe and Nathan Goodale, assistant professor of anthropology, received awards. Professor of History Doug Ambrose was named recipient of Student Assembly’s Sidney Wertimer Award.

Senior Chemistry concentrator Leah Krause is a co-Principal Investigator on a successful  proposal through the National Science Foundation’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) program. Acceptance of her proposal grants Krause 100,000 hours of computational time on the Texas Advanced Computing Center’s “Stampede” supercomputer, currently the 6th fastest supercomputer in the world.

Four Hamilton students presented their research at the 12th Molecular Educational Research Consortium in Undergraduate Computational chemistRY (MERCURY) conference held July 25-27 at Bucknell University.

Seven Hamilton College students presented their research at the 245th American Chemical Society National Meeting. The conference, held from April 7 to 11 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, attracted more than 14,000 attendees and featured research presentations and posters spanning 37 sub-divisions of chemistry.  Chemistry department faculty Karen Brewer, Saritha Nellutla and Adam Van Wynsberghe also attended.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Adam Van Wynsberghe gave an invited seminar as part of the “Modeling Diffusional Encounter and Subsequent Events Mini-Symposium” held this week at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD).

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Adam W. Van Wynsberghe presented a seminar titled “Hitting the Target: Simulations of the ligand binding pathways of influenza neuraminidase” on Oct. 16 at Colgate University. The seminar was co-sponsored by Colgate’s chemistry and biology departments and primarily described the work of three undergraduate researchers in the Van Wynsberghe lab: Erica Losito ’12 and Carmen Montagnon ’13, as well as Jeffrey Sung of the University of California-San Diego.

The Molecular Educational Research Consortium in Undergraduate Computational chemistry (MERCURY) has received a $200,000 award from the National Science Foundation to further its work utilizing computational chemistry techniques to provide productive and educational research experiences for undergraduates.

One of the most common methods of combating the influenza virus is to utilize an inhibitor to prevent the binding of the viral protein neuraminidase with cell surface receptors terminating in a sialic acid moiety. While this may sound like a complex process, it’s actually relatively simple to understand once the scientific jargon has been translated. In order for a virus like influenza to continue its life cycle, its neuraminidase enzyme needs to bind to and cleave a sialic acid molecule away from the human cell receptors.