Dear alumni and friends,
The Newsletter is arriving a little later than usual due to staffing shortages, but as the saying goes, better late than never! Thank you for your patience. Please join me in welcoming Leah Brown, our new Marketing and Events Assistant, who has stepped into this role and will continue our tradition of excellence in supporting the department. Leah joins us from our neighboring state of Idaho and holds an M.A. in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Welcome, Leah!
We also extend a warm welcome to Sophia Bailey, our newest hire in organic chemistry. Sophia comes to us from the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Stanford University. Her research uses molecular-level design to explore fundamental questions about mechanical reactivity, establish structure-property relationships in polymeric materials, and address challenges in biomedicine. We are thrilled about Sophia’s arrival. For this successful recruitment, we owe a big thank-you to the search committee chaired by Paul Blakemore, with contributions from Addison Desnoyer, Alison Bain, Daniel Myles, BJ Philmus, and Elizabeth Wolfram (search advocate). Thanks to the support of our office staff — Luanne Johnson and Paula Christie — the entire process ran smoothly, and even the weather cooperated! Sophia has moved into the lab space previously occupied by Chris Beaudry, who has departed for Temple University.
Another warm welcome goes to Kyung-Shin Suh and Patrick Gordon, two new instructors joining our teaching team. With the rollout of the new Core Education Curriculum, the College of Engineering has requested an expansion of their General Chemistry sequence, from two to three lecture courses and from one to two lab courses. Rick Nafshun has taken the lead in designing this expanded sequence for both the on-campus and online modalities. To support the expected (and now confirmed) increase in enrollment, we recruited Kyung-Shin, who brings a computational chemistry background and extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She is also leading the development of a new upper-level computational chemistry course, in addition to teaching the engineering labs and the trailer sequence online.
We were equally delighted to meet Patrick during the interview process; his passion for organic chemistry was immediately evident, and we knew we had to bring him on board to ease our urgent need for CH 337, the organic chemistry lab for non-majors. Patrick brings extensive experience teaching organic chemistry and has hit the ground running to increase our instructional capacity.
We also welcome two internal appointments: Michael Burand and Amila Liyanage, both promoted to Associate Professor of Teaching, with Amila also promoted to Senior Instructor II. Congratulations to both!
Across OSU, enrollment continues its upward trajectory. Even with our recent additions, we remain short by two full-time instructors, and nearly 20 sections this year are staffed by overloads or temporary instructors. We are currently in the process of hiring one or two more instructors to support our growing needs.
These increased teaching demands also require more support in our laboratories — specifically, the hiring of a new lab instructor and a new lab preparator. After all, chemicals do not simply appear on the bench — just ask Kristi Edwards, who can tell you all about her day in the basement of Gilbert Addition!
Congratulations are in order for our General Chemistry teaching team, recipients of the Student Learning & Success Teamwork Award. This award spans all three general chemistry tracks — CH 12x, CH 20x, and CH 23x/26x/27x — and recognizes the combined efforts of instructors across on-campus and online, lecture and lab. Our team includes Marita Barth, Michael Burand, Denis Drolet, Margie Haak, Jun Li, Amila Liyanage, Shrikant Londhe, Rick Nafshun, Artiom Skripka, Cassie Siler, John Terhorst, Paula Weiss, and Lou Wojcinski. You are the first faces our students encounter in chemistry, and your work plays a central role in student retention and success. Thank you for your dedication and service!
It has also been a whirlwind of good news for Alison Bain. In 2025, she received a new grant from McGill University, a single-PI award from the National Science Foundation, and recognition in the C&EN “Talented 12.” On February 27, 2026, she received the NSF CAREER Award. We are incredibly proud of you, Alison!
There are many additional awards I do not have space to list here, but you can read more about them in this Newsletter. These honors not only recognize the achievements of our colleagues but also reflect the tireless work of the nominators: Dipankar, Mas, Kyriakos, David, Rick, and Marita, effectively the entire executive committee. While teaching and research are the bread and butter of our work, service remains a core value of our department.
OSU Chemistry continues its remarkable upward trend in enrollment. After last year’s record of over 80 new majors, this year we exceeded 100. This is a strong testament to our collective teaching excellence. We are on track to teach 100,000 student credit hours and reach more than 27,000 students (across on-campus and online) this academic year.
After years of inquiries and planning, we finally have a new departmental golf cart! It will be used to transport chemicals between buildings and to shuttle people for teaching, research, and emergencies. The office and ChemStores have created a webform for reservations. (Please resist the temptation to take it for joyrides.)
Despite the challenges of the moment, our department continues to perform strongly, with several new NSF and NIH grants awarded in recent months and graduates securing excellent jobs. As we continue to navigate choppy waters, we remain grounded in our fundamentals: doing good science and serving our students well. I am often reminded of the Serenity Prayer by my mentor and friend, Glenn Evans, and it feels fitting to close with a modified version of it:
Accept the things we cannot change,
Change the things we can,
And know the difference.
Wei Kong
Department Head, Chemistry
