Sustainability at Carolina Chemistry

Sustainability

At the department’s annual “State of the Department” address, Professor and Chair Jeff Johnson asked “What is the department doing to be sustainable?” Inspired by this question, the department formed a new Sustainability Committee in August to guide and inform our efforts to become more sustainable. The committee is comprised of faculty, staff, graduate students, and post-docs from across the department.

Since its inception, the committee has been working towards improving sustainability practices on both small and large scales within the department, and collaborating with groups in Chemistry and across campus.

One project involves collaborating with the UNC Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling, and UNC Green Labs, to educate the department members on UNC’s recycling policies with the goal of increasing recycling participation across the department.

Pictured, from left to right: Nicole Parsley, Lauren McRae, Jessica Coleman, Marcey Waters, Kelsey Kean, Hannah Ferguson Johns, Katherine Albanese, Emilia Leon, and Mandy Melton. Not pictured from the Sustainability Committee: Tyler Motley, Ian VonWald, and Randy Simmons

Following the lead of our teaching labs, research labs are now widely participating in nitrile lab glove recycling through VWR. Additionally, the department is participating in a pilot program with Thermo Fisher Scientific to recycle plastic films. Along with the Social Activities Committee, the committee works to make department-wide events greener, with a focus on reducing waste and using compostable or reusable items whenever possible.

For the future, the committee has set their sights on establishing composting across the department, providing recommendations for sustainable practices in the laboratory, and ultimately working towards having solar panels in use across the chemistry building complex.

In a big department like ours, even taking these small steps towards reducing, reusing, and recycling are making a huge impact!

From the Chair

Continued from page 3

les conspiratorially at its 18-year-old predecessor, wondering how he or she had it quite so easy. The assistant professor dreams of inventing the 25th and 26th hour of the day, while the department chair looks longingly at his or her 30-year-old version who only had to worry about teaching and research and service. To our graduates, I conveyed that even with my limited wisdom I could confidently share that there are two ways one can meet the inevitable march of rising entropy. The first is to struggle, fret, and worry over the demands, the deadlines, all the “adult” stuff; however, it’s called a law of thermodynamics for a reason. So I recommended a second course of action, which is to embrace the disorder and look at it as the challenge and opportunity that it is. The world one enters as a B.S. or B.A. or Ph.D. graduate is undeniably entropic, messy and complex, but I would contend that it is those very characteristics that are nearly custom built to allow us to assert our vision and make an impact. However, it means accepting that life gets more complex as we go, and that is probably a good thing.

The march in “year 201” continues unabated. We welcomed three new faculty colleagues to our ranks in July, with the arrival of Professors Zhiyue Lu, Alex Zhukovitskiy, and Anna Curtis. The department has commenced a new student wellness initiative, SWELL, and its launch coincides with the complete upgrade and renovation of the graduate student lounge. Professors Jillian Dempsey and Jeffrey Dick launched a Cyclic Voltammetry Boot Camp. Professor Frank Leibfarth was recognized as a Beckman Young Investigator and as one of Chemical and Engineering News’s ‘Talented 12,’ while Professor Leslie Hicks rang the awards bell multiple times, having been selected by Iota Sigma PI, the National Honorary Society for Women in Chemistry, to receive the 2019 Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award, by the ACS Women Chemists Committee as a 2020 Rising Star Awardee, and by Marshall University for the Distinguished Alumni Award. Emeritus Professor Tom Baer was celebrated by former co-workers with a symposium on the occasion of his 80th birthday, while alumni of Professor Jim Jorgenson’s group returned to Chapel Hill in May to fête Jim on the occasion of his retirement from the university, recognizing a remarkable career filled with scientific excellence. These are but small vignettes in the vibrant 201st year of the department. I invite you to explore the pages of this missive to learn more about what is happening here at UNC Chemistry.

Finally, I would like to share that my term as the department chairperson ends on June 30, 2020. It has been an honor to lead such an impressive group of people. There will be a local decrease in entropy associated with this particular member of the faculty, but I feel confident that global disorder will continue to obey all the relevant thermodynamic laws, and that the department will continue to embrace the opportunities that circumstance presents.

As always, we welcome visitors to the department and I extend an open invitation if you find yourself in Chapel Hill. Of course, I am wishing all of our Carolina Chemistry community a very prosperous and happy 2020.

The Wilkerson-Hill Group Continued from page 12

Reaction Methodology The development of new reactions is critical for advances in many fields such as pharmaceutical, biological, and material sciences, because doing so permits access to unique chemical space. Structurally complex dimeric products represent unique chemical space, because reactions that allow cross dimerization reactivity are lacking.

Linchpin strategies are a nontraditional take on dimeric components and provide the advantage of being convergent and opportunities to access dimers that lack bilateral symmetry. In the Hill lab, members have developed a new linchpin reagent bis(2-chloroacrylonitrile) and are currently investigating its reactivity and ability to provide dimeric natural products which contain, or lack, bilateral symmetry.

Total Synthesis The sequence of reactions by which a complex natural product is obtained is of paramount importance. Unique synthetic strategies can result in the development of innovative reaction methodologies, uncover new reactivity of small molecules, and begin to address shortages natural compounds used as leads for drug development. Total synthesis also provides a means to confirm the structure of natural products, which can be critical for understanding how they function.