oNortheastern Section of the American Chemical Society

oBoard of Directors Meeting

oHarvard University Faculty Club

oHarvard University

oCambridge MA

oApril 14, 2005

Chair Elect: P. Mabrouk

Please review the Report on March Joint NESACS/YCC Meeting Survey attached at the end of these written reports.

Please review the ACS Local Section Innovative Grants on creating a NESACS E-section attached at the end of these written reports.

Trustees: K. Piper

See Trustee’s statement at end of these written reports.

Local Arrangements: M. Burgess

The March meeting was held at the Holiday Inn in Brookline on March 10. There were 41 signed up for the meeting. Dr John Fetzer was the guest. His subject was Chemistry as a Soft Science.

The April meeting will be held at the Harvard Faculty Club. We are expecting 110 guests. This year’s award will be presented to Dr. Jean M. Frechet who will speak on Functional Macromolecules after the presentation of the award

Membership Committee: M Chen

187 Welcome New Member Letters were sent on March 20, 2005. (113 were new members, 74 were members who were transferred to our Local Section).

3 new members are attending the Esselen Award Dinner.

Nucleus Editor: M. Filosa

The May issue is at the printer and the Blue Line copy was reviewed by the Board of Publications on 4/12/05.

  • The issue will consist of 32 pages and includes an application for membership for the ACS as requested by Micheline Chen.
  • Highlights of the edition are the Governance Report complete with pictures from Mort Hoffman
  • The announcement of the upcoming String Scramble
  • The fourth and final Summer Scholar report for this year.

I expect the Summer Issue to be quite interesting with a focus on reporting the upcoming social/networking events and the YCC visit to Germany.

I plan to carefully review the expenses year-to-date with the budget after this issue and, if necessary, adjust our publication plan for the remainder of the year in consultation with the Business Manager.

YCC: I. Korendovych

Career Symposium 2005: Making the Transition from School to a Career: Experiences and Advice (March 10, 2005)

  • The annual YCC Career Symposium was held on March 10, 2005 from 3:30-5:30pm prior to the NESACS monthly meeting at Brookline Holiday Inn. This year, the YCC concentrated on the importance of transition from school to a career, the difficulties that have to be overcome, skills that needs to be developed. Speakers at the event represented academic, industrial and governmental jobs.
  • This year’s speakers were Dr. Nora Conlon of the EPA, Dr. Alexander Kolchinski of Pharm-Eco, Prof. Oleg Ozerov of Brandeis University, Dr. Mark Charest of Novartis.
  • Each of these speakers shared their personal career experiences and answered questions from the attending students. The event was followed by a social hour where student could ask presenters more questions and network. Approximately 30 younger chemists attended the event.
  • NESACS monthly meeting following the event featured a career talk. This year keynote speaker wasDr. John Fetzer of Fetzpahs Consultinga author of ‘Career Management for Chemists’. The title of the presentation was ‘Chemistry as a Soft Science’

Northeast Student Chemistry Career Fair, NSCCF (March 31)

  • 2nd annual NSCCF held in Brookline Holiday Inn on March 31, 2005 was a continuation of highly successful Career Fair held last year. The four-hour program constitutes a set of workshops on resume writing and interviewing, resume review as well as the career fair itself. All the parts of the program were held simultaneously.
  • The workshops were hosted by ACS Career Services coordinated by Dr. Daniel Eustace. Mr. Eustace engaged the workshop-attending students in discussion about searching for a job and even held a mock interview to illustrate good and bad interviewing behavior.
  • ACS Career Services booklets and materials were also provided to all attendees.
  • Representatives from 9 regional companies made themselves available for greeting and discussing employment with ~120 attending younger chemists. Companies that attended include Strem Chemicals, Inc., Merck, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Genzyme, Wyeth, Sigma-RBI, ArQule, Amgen, and the Graduate Women in Science. Many beneficial contacts were made through the Fair. One representative from Wyeth said, "Very successful event, we have collected fewer resumes from bigger career fairs. Looking forward to another job fair next year!"

Results of a survey handed in to the participants of the Career Fair were very positive.

NESACS/GDCh Exchange Program

  • During the week of April 3, 2005 ten graduate and two undergraduate student from colleges and universities in the Boston area (Harvard, MIT, BC, BU, Tufts, Dartmouth College, University of New Hampshire) have traveled to Germany to participate in the 5th NESACS/GDCh exchange program. German Chemical Society (GDCH) as well it’s Younger Chemists Committee organized the program for students which is presented below.
  • Saturday, Apr 2, 2005
  • Departure from Boston
  • Sunday, Apr 3, 2005
  • Arrival to Berlin, welcome by members of the organizing committee of JCF Berlin
  • Dinner at ‘Zur Letzten Instanz’, the oldest restaurant in Berlin
  • Monday, Apr 4, 2005
  • Guided tour of Berlin
  • Visit of Technical University of Berlin
  • Welcome address by Prof. Christopher van Wuleen, Chair of the local section of GDCh
  • Tuesday, Apr 5, 2005
  • Visit of Schering, tour the facility, lectures of pharmaceutical research, product development, application process in European companies.
  • Wednesday, Apr 6, 2005
  • Visit of Potsdam
  • Tour of Chemistry Department in the University of Potsdam, tour of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
  • Tour of Castle Sanssoussi
  • Welcome party of the Young Scientists Conference on Chemistry (JCF Spring symposium) at Humboldt University
  • Thursday, Apr 7, 2005
  • Oral and poster sessions at JCF Spring symposium
  • Champagne reception in the evening
  • Friday, Apr 8, 2005
  • Oral and poster sessions at JCF Spring symposium
  • Conference dinner/party
  • Saturday, Apr 9, 2005
  • Morning oral research presentations at JCF Spring symposium
  • Poster session in the afternoon
  • Closing ceremony, presentation of awards
  • Farewell dinner in downtown Berlin
  • Sunday, Apr 10, 2005
  • Arrival to Boston
  • The students that participated in the program were selected by a steering committee (Dr. Amy Tapper, Dr. Michael Strem, Lauren K. Wolf, Dr. Ruth Tanner, Dr. Morton Hoffmann, Sonia Taktak, Aida Herrera) in a two step process that consisted of application screening followed by an interview. High quality of work presented by the students from the US has been acknowledged by first prize for oral presentation. Undergraduate student Sarah Chobot, a senior at Boston University, received the award. The prize consists of a cash award and a paid trip to any conference of awardee’s choice.
NESACS-YCC/GDCh-JCF exchange: M. Hoffman

Sarah Chobot, a graduating senior at Boston University who is doing research with Professor Sean Elliiott, was awarded the prize for the best oral presentation at the 2005 Frühjahrssymposium of the Jungchemikerformum (JCF) of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) that was held in Berlin, Germany, April 7-9. Sarah's prize consists of a cash award of 250 euros (~$325) and a flight ticket to attend any scientific meeting in the world during the next year.

Sarah was a member of the delegation of twelve students from NESACS that attended the Frühjahrssymposium; her talk was entitled, "Electrochemical Studies of Thioredoxin and Thioredoxin Reductase - Gaining Insight into Molecular Mechanisms Affecting Oxidative Stress." Oral presentations were also made by Pia Lopez (Schrock), M.I.T. (graduate student); Will Neeley (Essigmann), M.I.T. (graduate student); Alex Taylor (Schreiber), Harvard University (graduate student). Poster presentations were made by Liz O'Day (Kantrowitz), Boston College (undergraduate student); Rukman De Silva (Kull), Dartmouth College (graduate student); Tim Gay (Tullius), Boston University (graduate student); Ivan Korendovych (Rybak-Akimova), Tufts University (graduate student); Xiaoguang Lei (Porco) Boston University (graduate student); Liz Vogel (Imperiali), M.I.T. (graduate student); Dan Kennedy (Planalp), University of New Hampshire (graduate student); Amritanshu Sinha (Schrock), M.I.T. (graduate student).

A poster presentation was also made by Lauren Wolf (Georgiadis), Boston University (graduate student). She attended as the Immediate Past Chair of the NESACS Younger Chemists Committee; the current NESACS-YCC

Chair is Ivan Korendovych.

A poster on the NESACS educational programs was also presented by Morton Hoffman (Boston University), Ruth Tanner (University of Massachusetts Lowell), Mike Strem (Strem Chemicals, Inc.), Amy Tapper (Peptimmune, Inc.), and Lauren Wolf. Because of other commitments, Amy was not able to attend.

The meeting afforded the opportunity for the organizers of the NESACS-YCC and the GDCh-JCF to meet and make plans for the program beyond this exchange, which has been an annual event since 2001. Morton Hoffman, Chair of the ACS Division of Chemical Education, met with his counterpart of the GDCh (Prof. Franz-Peter Montfors, Universität Breman) to plan cooperative educational programs.

At the farewell dinner for the NESACS-YCC delegation last Saturday night in Berlin, Prof. Henning Hopf, President of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) presented Mike Strem with the Golden GDCh Pin for his work in promoting the cooperation between the GDCh and the ACS. As a member of the ACS Board of Directors in 1998, Mike was instrumental in the founding of the German-American Frontiers of Chemistry series of symposia, which has now been expanded to include the Royal Society of Chemistry of the United Kingdom in a Trans-Atlantic Frontiers series. Mike was the initial driving force in the establishment of the exchange of young chemists between the GDCh and NESACS, and has been a member of the GDCh since 1991.

The Golden Pin was established by GDCh in 1995 to recognize members and non-members who have rendered outstanding service to chemistry and the chemical society. Mike is the third person to receive the Golden Pin; previous awardees are Prof. Rolf Sammet, the former CEO of Hoechst, and Prof. Wilhelm Fresenius, the former President of the Fresenius Institute.

Report on March Joint NESACS/YCC Meeting Survey

Pam Mabrouk

April 1, 2005

A. Survey Methodology

Attendees registering for the Thursday March 10, 2005 Joint NESACS/YCC dinner were asked to complete a brief anonymous 8-question survey questionnaire (see Appendix A). To maximize the number of respondents completing the survey, individuals were told that if they completed the survey their names would be placed in a drawing for a copy of Dr. Fetzer’s (the dinner speaker) new book. Twenty four valid survey tools were obtained in this way.

B. Survey Results

Breakdown of March Meeting Attendance

Of the 24 survey respondents, 4% identified themselves as academics, 33% as professionals, 17% as retired professionals, and 46% as students.

58% of the respondents currently attend NESACS meetings on a regular basis (3 or more meetings each year). 88% of the professionals, 18% of the students, and 100% of the retired professionals identified themselves as regular attendees.

Of those respondents who indicated that they are regular meeting attendees,

50% would like to be more active in NESACS

29% indicated that there is nothing they feel NESACS needs to change about its meetings

33% would like to see meeting topics changed

21% would like to see meeting locations changed

13% would like to see the cost of dinner changed

Food choices and general meeting times don’t appear to be issues for current meeting attendees.

The March meeting was a joint meeting with YCC focused on career issues. This likely accounts for the skewed meeting attendance by students, which accounted for 46% of the survey respondents. Interestingly, academics did not appear to attend this meeting.

Among those respondents who indicated that they do not currently regularly attend meetings, the majority identified themselves as students. 60% of those respondents who don’t regularly attend section meetings indicated that they are simply too busy. 60% of this same group of respondents indicated that they would like to be more active in NESACS.

Student respondents indicated that awareness of meetings and the meeting time are considerations affecting their participation. Food selection, dinner cost, and meeting locations do not appear to be significant issues affecting student attendance at section meetings.

A significant number of respondents offered suggestions for future meeting topics. These include new topics including biotechnology, biodefense, and nanotechnology, career-related, industrial chemistry, process chemistry, and physical chemistry.

Sixteen respondents (66%) indicated their desire to be notified of upcoming NESACS events via e-mail by providing their e-mail addresses (see Appendix B). The high response rate among the respondents suggests that members would be receptive to efforts to contact them about section events, etc. electronically.

Ten respondents (42%) indicated their interest in more active participation in the section by providing contact information (see Appendix B). The significant response rate suggests that there are members who would welcome a more active role in the section and its activities.

C. Recommendations

1. We need to identify methods with which to engage our academic and student membership, who are largely non-participating members of NESACS. Academics and students do not appear to regularly participate in NESACS meetings. Based on the lack of academic respondents, it is not possible to state the reasons for this behavior at this time. However, based on the data obtained for student respondents, the primary reasons appear to be a lack of time and a lack of communication between NESACS and student chemists studying in the greater Boston area. In this regard, we recommend that the Section compile a contact list of faculty advisors (address and e-mail) for student affiliate groups at local area colleges and universities and that we work through them to begin to compile an e-mail list of student affiliates so we can contact them via e-mail and notify them of upcoming section meetings and other opportunities for involvement in the local section.

One possible way of better engaging busy individuals who may not be able to regularly attend section meetings may be to develop a more vital website and web-based section activities. NESACS submitted a proposal to the Local Sections Innovative Grant Program today in order to develop an “E-section.” Planned assessment of the “E-section” program will be an important aspect of this project and should provide information concerning our effectiveness in engaging a wider section of our currently non-participating section members.

2. The Section should consider dinner speakers who can present on new topics of current interest in chemistry. A significant number of respondents identified a wide range of topics that can generally be identified as topics of current interest, e.g., biodefense, biotechnology, nanotechnology, etc. that they would like to hear about at section meetings. This may represent an opportunity to capture the interest of a broader section of our membership. So, we recommend that the Chair-Elect, who chairs the Program Committee make every effort to identify dinner speakers who can present engagingly on these topics.

3. The Section should expand its efforts to use electronic communications to be in contact with its membership. Two-thirds of the respondents indicated their interest in receiving news of upcoming events via e-mail and freely provided their e-mail address. Consequently, we urge the section to expand its efforts to use electronic communications with the membership. The logical first step would involve developing an electronic address list of the active membership and developing and implementing plans that will allow us to manage and maintain a meaningful e-mail database.

4. The Section should make a more active effort to involve members in its activities. A significant number of respondents, both currently active and inactive members, indicated an interest in being more active in section activities. Indeed 42% of the respondents provided contact information with which the Section should now follow up. Given that folks are busy we might be wise to consider more active participation in the section through its committee structure. We recommend that a listing of opportunities for service on section committees be prepared and that this information be posted on the NESACS website so interested members can directly contact section committee chairs. This listing should be made available at section meetings. We also recommend that membership forms and a sign up list be made available at all future Section meetings for those individuals who would like to be more active in the Section.

Appendix A.

NESACS Questionnaire

March 10, 2005

Directions. Please answer each of the following questions as directed.

1. Which of the following describes your current position

Student

Professional

Retired professional

Academic

2. Do you currently attend NESACS meetings on a regular basis (3 or more meetings each year)?

Yes (please go to Question 4)

No

3. Which of the following are the most significant issues relating to why you don’t currently attend NESACS meetings: (please go to Question 5)

General meeting topics

Meeting locations

General meeting times

Cost of dinner at meetings

Food at meetings

Too busy

Other______

4. What, if anything (select as many as are relevant), would you like to see the NESACS change about its meetings?

Nothing

General meeting topics

Meeting locations

General meeting times

Cost of dinner at meetings

Food at meetings

Other______

5. Do you have any suggestions for future meeting topics?

______

6. Do you have any suggestions for possible meeting speakers?______

7. Would you like to be notified of upcoming events by e-mail?

Yes (please provide your e-mail address:______)

No

8. Would you like to be more active in the activities of the Northeast Section?

Yes (please provide your name and daytime telephone number) ______

No

THANK YOU!!!   

Appendix B.

List of Members Who Would Like to Be Notified of Upcoming Events by E-mail