Awards ... conferred and received

St Louis, the Award-Winning Section

Recognition Night

Awards Night Banquet

Midwest Regional Award

St Louis Award

High School Chemistry Contest

Outstanding College Chemistry Students

Marcus Award

Outstanding High School Chemistry Teacher

Distinguished Service Award

Chemical Science and Technology Award

Salutes to Excellence

St Louis Chemical Technician Award (ret.)

St Louis, the Award-Winning Section

In current events, our section has continued its winning ways in 2005.

Ted Gast, immediate past chair, with the Outstanding Performance, Large Section, Award and ACS President Ann Nalley

The St Louis Section, under the leadership of Chair Ted Gast, brought home the Outstanding Performance, Large Section Award. Ted highlights some of the distinctive activities, for which we were explicitly cited, that put us over the top: round table with Bill Carroll Sponsorship of Her Lab in Your Life travelling exhibition the First Annual picnic with kite-flying (always a good idea to give us scientists a break and just have fun) Also mentioned were a strong Women Chemists Committee, the joint meeting with AIChE, and National Chemistry Week activities: Battle of the Burets received special recognition. Section members in attendance at ChemLuminary Awards (l to r): Tom Mines, Hal Harris, Alexa Serfis, Donna Friedman, Steve Kinsley, Ted Gast with award, Sadiq Shah, Lisa Balbes, Greg Wall, Lol Barton

And here’s a list of the awards our Section has won since we seriously started keeping track in 1980.

St Louis, the Award-Giving Section

Recognition Night

Greg Wall accepts the Distinguished Service Award Chair Bijan Khazai is flanked by two new 50-year ACS members. Maybe “new” isn’t the right word.

The Recognition Night Banquet gives us the opportunity to acknowledge those who have served our Section and our profession. We especially honor the outgoing section chair, who gives an address. We present the Distinguished Service Award for exemplary service to the Section. During Recognition night we also acknowledge the commitment and dedication of 50-year members of the American Chemical Society who are residing in the St Louis area. This event is traditionally held in March.

Leah O’Brien and Bijan Khazai proudly display the plaque from the national ACS

Awards Night Banquet

This event, held during Chemical Progress Week, honors the winners of:

• the High School Chemistry Contest
• College Awards
• Outstanding Students at area colleges and universities
• the Leopold Marcus Award
• the Outstanding High School Chemistry Teacher Award
• the Chemical Science and Technology Award

The 2005 banquet was held on Monday, April 18th, at Kemoll’s Restaurant, 1 Metropolitan Square.

Time: Social Hour 5:30, Dinner 6:30 pm, Program 7:30 pm
Cost: $20
Reservations to Samir El Antably, P.O.Box 50168, Clayton, MO 63105. Tel: 314 664 5522.

Midwest Award

For complete details on the Midwest Regional Award, including qualifications, current and past winners, and the nomination process, go here.

St Louis Award

For complete details on the St Louis Award, including qualifications, current and past winners, and the nomination process, go here.

High School Chemistry Contest

The St Louis Section–ACS and the Associated Drug and Chemical Industries of Missouri (ADACIOM) present the High School Chemistry Contest Award winners. The award is based on a written test given in mid to late March. There are two divisions. The Regular Division exam is given to students who are finishing their first year of high school chemistry; the Advanced Division to those taking their second high school chemistry course. Each exam has a multiple-choice section and then a “tie breaking” section that consists of short-answer and essay questions. The 2008 winners are listed below.

Outstanding College Awards

Outstanding College Awards are presented to outstanding chemistry students in their junior year at local colleges. An Outstanding Chemical Technology Student Award is given to a student at St Louis Community College–Florissant Valley. For 2007, the winners are:

Outstanding college student awards

• Neil K Munjal, Saint Louis University
• Lindsey N Hamilton, Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville
• Adele L Pacquette, University of Missouri–St Louis
• Joshua Mosberg, Washington University
• Andrew R Wilhelm, Lindenwood University
• Laura K Hardebeck, Maryville University
• Emily Moeller, Principia College

Outstanding chemical technology student award

• Brian C Petty, St. Louis Community College–Florissant Valley

Marcus Award

The Leopold Marcus Award was established by Mr Jack Marcus of Missouri Analytical Company and his wife, Gertrude, in memory of his father, Leopold Marcus. It is administered by the Saint Louis University Department of Chemistry and the St Louis Section–ACS. The Leopold Marcus Award competition is held on the campus of Saint Louis University.

The competition consists of presentations based on the undergraduate research projects of senior chemistry majors at the university. The candidates, chosen by the faculty, each make a 15-minute presentation. The winner of the Marcus Award is determined by vote of the professional chemists in the audience. All ACS members are invited to attend, as are all teachers of chemistry from high schools and other universities as well as chemists from the industrial sector and government laboratories. The winner receives a cash prize of $200 and a letter of citation. The other finalists receive $100 and a letter of citation. The winner, finalists, and other participants receive their awards and citations at the Awards Night Banquet of Chemical Progress Week.

Refreshments are available after the competition.

... and the winner is ...

Anne Blackwell is the winner of the 37th Annual Leopold Marcus Award competition held at Saint Louis University on April 11, 2007. Blackwell was chosen on the basis of her presentation, Conducting Dye Polymers as a Drug Release System and an Electrocatalyst for NADH Oxidation, carried out under the direction of Dr Shelley Minteer.

In addition to Blackwell, the other finalists in the competition were:

• Shana Beg, Predicting Arene-Arene Binding Energies, with Dr Mike Lewis
• Tammy Klotzbach, Towards the Development of an Azure C Mediated Chitosan Membrane-Based Bioanode with Dr Shelley Minteer
• Michelle Watt, Developing Chemically Modified Electrodes for Bioelectrocatalysis, with Dr Shelley Minteer

For further information, contact Bruce Kowert at (314) 977-2837 or kowertba@slu.edu.

Outstanding High School Chemistry Teacher Award

High school teachers don’t get nearly enough respect ... unless they are also the football coach. Winning the High School Chemistry Teaching Award could help. Nominations by students, colleagues, administration—even self-nominations—are welcome. The award, presented at Chemical Progress Week Awards Banquet, consists of a plaque and a $500 honorarium; the awardee is automatically nominated for the Midwest Regional Award in High School Chemistry Teaching and the national ACS James Bryant Conant Award.

In addition to outstanding classroom work, the nominee should excel in other aspects of teaching, such as professional growth, curriculum or course material development, workshop participation, chemical or educational research, publications, or other similar activities.

The nomination packet must include:

1. Your letter of nomination, which should include information on the qualifications of the nominee with respect to:
   • quality of classroom teaching
   • ability to motivate and challenge students
   • extracurricular work with students such as projects and science fairs
   • efforts made to keep current with developments in chemistry and teaching through professinal activities and continuing education
2. Two letters seconding the nomination from anyone you consider appropriate, such as a science colleague, principal, former student, or parent of former student
3. The official nomination form, which provides background biographical and educational data on the nominee.

To submit a nomination, contact the High School Chemistry Teaching Award coordinator.

The 2008 High School Chemistry Teaching Award winner is Sara Knobloch of Triad High School in Troy, IL. The notes that follow are from a nominating letter for her award.

Sara possesses exceptional talent and superior motivation, is well organized and extremely enthusiastic about teaching chemistry. She single-handedly implemented an Advanced Placement Chemistry curriculum into the Triad science department, resulting in 88% of the students initially taking the test receiving college credit. She makes learning chemistry enjoyable by offering special rewards to her classes when they perform well on exams and has created a Mole Day King and Queen.

Ms Knobloch stays current in her teaching through continuing graduate classes in chemistry and reviewing new materials and resources to revise and improve her courses. She has introduced relevant topics such as recycling, nuclear energy, and plastics into the chemistry curriculum.

In addition to classroom teaching, Sara is involved with students outside of the classroom. She co-sponsors the Science Club, which has been involved in such diverse activities as rock-climbing and camping to blood drives. Through her time and effort the science club has grown to be one of the most popular clubs at Triad.

Past Winners include:

This award, established in 1993 by the Board of Directors, is intended to recognize distinguished service by a member of the Section through excellent contributions, outstanding leadership, and continuing service to the Section. The Steering Committee nominates a member of the Section for a Distinguished Service Award, and the nominee must be ratified by the Board of Directors.

The award consists of a plaque, and is presented at the Recognition Night banquet. The award is supported by funds of the Section.

Past Winners Include:

The St Louis Chemical Science and Technology Award is presented to a chemist in the St Louis area who has demonstrated a high degree of professionalism and scientific contribution. Criteria used to judge the award include technical proficiency, presentations, coaching/teamwork, and additional professional activities. The award will consist of a plaque, a $500 honorarium, and dinner for the awardee and a guest at the annual Chemical Progress Week Awards Night.

To be eligible, the nominee should have an Associate, Bachelor, or Masters Degree in chemistry or a chemistry-related curriculum. The nominee need not be a St Louis Section–ACS member to be eligible.

Letters of nomination must be received by December 20 of the year preceding the award. The nominating letter should address the criteria above. A current work address, phone number, and fax number must be provided for each nominee. Please include an email address.

To submit a nomination, contact the Chemical Science and Technology Award coordinator.

The incumbent Chemical Science and Technology award winner is ...

Congratulations to Mike Rogers for being selected as the 2008 recipient of the St Louis Science and Technology Award. Mike is an accomplished medicinal/synthetic chemist with 26 years experience and proven ability to develop lead compounds to commercial quality products. He has demonstrated ability in multi-step organic synthesis on milligram to kilogram scale and has extensive experience in production scale process development and product separation, including crystallization, fractional distillation, filtration and centrifugation.

After many years with Monsanto and Pfizer, Mike recently joined IQsynthesis as a Project Leader and immediately made a positive impact on the contract research organization. He has provided key leadership managing multiple projects, writing quotes and interacting with clients. On one of the first projects Mike managed at iQsynthesis, he was able to deliver over 35 challenging compounds in two months. The customer evaluated his work as outstanding and signed a second contract for additional research.

Throughout his career, Mike has excelled at training and mentoring new employees, helping them become effective team members. He has presented his work at numerous internal company presentations over the years and has been awarded fourteen US patents.

Mike will receive his award at the Chemical Progress Week Awards Night Banquet at Kemoll’s Restaurant on April 21.

Previous St Louis Chemical Science and Technology Award Winners

The Salute to Excellence Award is used to recognize an individual, process or company that has made a positive impact on the place of importance of chemistry on everyday life. The St Louis Section has presented several of these awards over the years.

Dr Lincoln Diuguid
presented November 11, 2000

Dr Lincoln Diuguid, shown in an advertising brochure for DuGood Chemicals

The St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society is proud to recognize the positive impact on the everyday life of a practitioner of chemistry by awarding the Salute to Excellence award to Dr. Lincoln I. Diuguid. After receiving his BS from West Virginia State College in 1938, he went to Cornell University and received his MS in organic chemistry in 1938, and a PhD in organic chemistry in 1945.

His research interests have taken him from the chemical process of reacting aviation fuel with formaldehyde to yield unsaturated C-9 alcohols that are later used to make dinonyl phthalates, to making a unique form of glass from the reprocessing of materials used in the manufacturing of beer, to identifying the chemical compound in antifreeze (benzothiazole) that causes corrosion of copper pipes in baseboard heaters. In the early 1970’s, Dr Diuguid’s research interest centered on his developing a method to determine the level of the thyroid hormone triiodothyronine (T₃) in serum. He continues to pursue his research interests at his company, DuGood Chemicals, Inc, at 1215 South Jefferson Ave.

In 1997, he presented a talk on Potential Anticancer Derivatives of Benzothiazole, Pyridine, Piperdine and Satonic Acid at the Midwest Regional Meeting, Tantara, Osage Beach, MO.

St Louis Science Center
presented March 10, 2001

The St Louis Science Center was created by the merger of the Museum of Science and Natural History with the McDonnell Planetarium in 1983. The roots of the St Louis Science Center can be traced back to 1856, when the Academy of Science of St Louis was founded by a group of physicians, a lawyer, an engineer and a businessman. Its purpose was to maintain a museum collection and library, publish a journal, and interact with other scientists.

The museum moved from Lindell Blvd to Oak Knoll Park in 1958 and became known as the Museum of Science and Natural History. In 1971, voters in St Louis City and County approved the formation of the St Louis Metropolitan Zoo–Museum District. The ownership of the museum was then transferred from the Academy of Science to the new subdistrict.

The St Louis Science Center serves as a bridge between scientist and layperson, encouraging an understanding of ecology and the environment, humanity, technology, and the space sciences, and how they interrelate. By fostering an active interest in science and mathematics, the Science Center prepares people to make decisions that may shape the future and meet society’s need for scientific literacy. By enhancing the scientific literacy of those who visit, the Science Center has given non-scientists a better appreciation of chemistry, the chemistry around us and that everything is made of chemicals.

Dr William Knowles, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
presented March 2002

William S Knowles was born on June 1, 1917 in Massachusetts. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard, his graduate work at Columbia University, followed by a research position at Monsanto.

After a brief stint in Dayton, OH, he was transferred to St Louis in 1944, where he has been ever since. While here, he showed that it was possible to use transition metals to make chiral catalysts for hydrogenation, thereby obtaining the desired mirror image form of the final product. His research quickly led to an industrial process for the production of L-DOPA, a drug that is still used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. In 2001, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.

Marie Sherman
presented December 2002

Marie has a BS in Chemistry from Iowa State University and a MS in Chemistry from St Louis University. She worked at Eastman Kodak before moving to St Louis and Monsanto. She has been teaching chemistry at Ursuline Academy since 1967.

Marie has been a member of the ACS St Louis Section for 18 years, and has presented “Chemistry Is Fun“ programs for the past 15 years, giving about 25 programs per year at area elementary/middle schools. Marie serves on the Board of Publications for the Journal of Chemical Education, and has been a reviewer for this journal for many years. In 1989, she helped to found the Polymer Ambassadors, a group of pre&endash;high-school teachers who promote the use of plastics and polymers in classroom activities.

She has given many presentations for teachers at National Science Teacher conventions, at Science Teachers of Missouri conferences, TIE conferences and the annual Interface conferences. She has received numerous awards, including the Regional Catalyst Award (1986), the National Catalyst Award (1996), and Outstanding Missouri Science Educator (2002).

Eric Ressner, Editor Chemical Bond
presented December 2003

Eric Ressner was smitten by chemistry in high school in spite of Mr B, who was a much better soccer coach than chemistry teacher. He received his BS in Chemistry from Clarkson College in Potsdam, NY, and his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Kansas. An elective in molecular biology led him to a postdoc in Virology at SUNY Stony Brook.

Two teaching positions, at Colgate University and at Seton Hill College, helped him learn chemistry a lot better than he ever did as a student. He’s been plying his trade as a technical writer at Sigma since 1985. A stint as editor of the Chemical Bond seemed like a natural fit ... and he stayed for eight wonderful years!

Lisa Balbes, Founding Webmaven
presented November 2004

Dr Lisa Balbes received BAs in chemistry and psychology from Washington University in St Louis, and her PhD in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then spent several years at Research Triangle Institute conducting protein and small molecule modelling studies. In 1992, she founded Balbes Consultants (formerly Osiris Consultants), offering a range of services including technical writing, information architecture, web site design and maintenance. Her work has been published in Drug Discovery and Development, Scientific Computing and Instrumentation, The Alchemist, Genetic Engineering News, Chemistry, and Reviews in Computational Chemistry, among other places.

For the past decade Dr Balbes has been involved in ACS activities in a variety of capacities. She was chair of the St Louis Section of the American Chemical Society in 2002, was Webmaven from 1996 to 2004, and is currently Career Services coordinator and a presenter for the Division of Career Services. Starting January 2005, she will also assume the duties of the St Louis Section Treasurer.

In addition to her ACS responsibilities, Dr Balbes has been on the Executive Board of the St Louis Web Developers’ Organization since 1997, is Chair of Washington University’s APAP-St Louis South Committee, and Chair of the Corporate Sponsor Committee for the St Louis Chapter, Society for Technical Communications.

Lisa lives in Kirkwood with her husband Mark, and their two boys, Jack (13) and Alex (11). In her spare time, she does all types of needlework, and in 2000 won second place in the American Needlepoint Guild national competition.

Lisa is being honored for her service as local section Webmaven from 1996 to 2004.

The St Louis Section Chemical Technician Award has been retired as of 2005. The illustrious previous winners are still illustrious, however, so it seems a shame to retire their honors along with the ongoing award.

A chemical technician is a person whose training includes successful completion of an Associate or Bachelors Degree in chemistry or a chemistry-related curriculum, or equivalent knowledge gained by experience. The primary work of a chemical technician is conducting experimentation and/or correlating information to assist in the solving of chemical problems.

The award was presented to a chemical technician in the St Louis area who had demonstrated a high degree of professionalism as a chemical technician. Criteria included technical skills, safety and housekeeping, relationship with co-workers, presentations, reliability, communication skills, contribution to team efforts, and additional professional activities.

St Louis Chemical Technician Award Winners