Catalyst Magazine V 3.1

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V 3.1Catalyst

Spring 2008 Volume 3 • Issue 1

COLLEGE OF CHEMISTRY • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Working with IndustryThe flow of ideasEyes to the sky, feet on the groundThird tour of duty

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all text and photos by michael barnesunless otherwise noted.

for online versions of our publicationsplease see: chemistry.berkeley.edu

© 2008, College of Chemistry, University of California,

Berkeley

COLLEGE OF CHEMISTRYUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

interim deanClayton H. [email protected]

chair, department of chemistryMichael A. Marletta

[email protected]

chair, department of chemical engineeringJeffrey A. Reimer

[email protected]

PUBLICATIONS STAFF

assistant deanJane L. Scheiber

510/642.8782; [email protected]

principal editorMichael Barnes


contributing editorKaren Elliott


alumni relations directorCamille M. Olufson


circulation coordinatorDorothy I. Read


designAlissar Rayes Design

printingUniversity of California Printing Services

Catalyst

ON THE COVER

A fully integrated 48-lane genetic analyzerdesigned by chemistry professor RichardMathies. The proposed device integrates allthe elements to perform rapid and highlyparallel genetic analysis.

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Corrections to the Fall 2007 Catalyst+ On page 8, the beautiful technical

graphics were provided by Somorjaipostdoc Yimin Li.

+ On page 19, we regret we inadvertentlyomitted the name of Professor JohnPrausnitz from the list of College ofChemistry faculty who have won theNational Medal of Science.

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Spring 2008Volume 3 • Issue 1

c o n t e n t s

2 DEAN’S DESK

4 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING NEWS

5 CHEMISTRY NEWS

6 FACULTY PROFILE

8 WORKING WITH INDUSTRY

18 ALUMNUS PROFILE

21 COLLEGE OF CHEMISTRY UPDATES

22 UNIVERSITY UPDATES

25 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS

26 CLASS NOTES

31 IN MEMORIAM

37 ’08 COMMENCEMENT

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d e a n ’ s d e s k

College of Chemistry, UC Berkeley

Some of you probably recognize the guysitting on his deck with his dog and aresaying to yourselves, “Hey, he looks familiar;I thought he retired.” Well, you are right; youdo recognize me, and I did retire. However,when the provost needed someone to step infor a brief term as interim dean, I acceptedhis invitation and am very much enjoyingmy time back in 420 Latimer, interactingdaily with the great faculty, staff and studentsof the College of Chemistry.

In this brief message, I want to talk to youa bit about saving for the future, somethingthat I have done my whole life—a habitthat is permitting me to enjoy a relativelycomfortable retirement on my one acre inMartinez with my wife, Cheri, our parrotand four dogs, our annual vegetable garden,and our 22 fruit and nut trees.

I don’t need to convince you about theexcellence of Berkeley—our great universityhas more departments ranked in the Top 10of their cohorts than any other school inthe United States. Our two departments inthe College of Chemistry lead the way in thiscategory; for years both have been rankedat or very near the top of their competitordepartments. However, although we are

Financing our future

CLAYTON H. HEATHCOCKInterim Dean

funded like the other large public schools—Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Minnesota—or like the other University of Californiaschools, we are trying to hold our own infaculty recruitment and retention with thelikes of Harvard and Stanford, with theirmulti-billion dollar endowments.

A lot of people assume that our State ofCalifornia appropriation makes up for thefact that we don’t have a large endowmentand permits us to be competitive with ourprivate academic peers. Until a few yearsago, this was true. An interesting way toview our annual state appropriation is toconsider it as though it is the payout from a“virtual endowment fund.” Most universities,UC included, have teams of excellent invest-ment managers for their endowment port-folios, producing average annual returnsof about 10 percent, of which part (usually5 percent) is paid out for current use andthe remainder is retained to grow the fund.Therefore, the $500 million state appropri-ation to Berkeley corresponds to a “virtualendowment” of $10 billion. This is to becompared with the actual endowments (asof January 2007) of Harvard ($29 billion),Yale ($18 billion), Stanford ($13 billion),and Princeton ($13 billion). A comparison,corrected for inflation, is shown in Figure 1.

This is a graphic demonstration of theproblem we face as we strive to maintainour place at the top of the chemistry andchemical engineering heap. Until about 15years ago, we were actually in a very goodposition with respect to our private peers.In 1994–95 Harvard’s actual endowment—aided by successful fundraising and expertmanagement—passed our “virtual endow-ment,” and in the last five years, we havebeen surpassed by Yale, Stanford, andPrinceton. The results are even more strik-ing if you consider the fact that we educatemore than twice as many students as anyof these private competitors, increasing thegap in support per student.

One immediate consequence of this imbal-ance in resources is that we find ourselvesin a continual battle to recruit and retain thebest faculty. It is the quality of our facultythat attracts the best students, which is

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FIG 1. Comparison of the UC Berkeley “Virtual Endowment” with theactual endowments of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford.

harvardstanford

yaleprinceton

uc berkeley “virtual endowment”

Source: UC Berkeley

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put away a relatively modest amount of ourdiscretionary funds—the gifts from ourgenerous donors—in an endowed fund. Ifwe begin this year by saving $200,000, ifour UC Berkeley investment managerscontinue to do the excellent job they havedone for many years by achieving annualreturns averaging 10 percent, and if ournew fund pays out 5 percent per year forcurrent use, the College of Chemistry401(k) fund will grow as illustrated inFigure 2.

In the early years we will be foregoingabout $180,000 per year of discretionaryfunds that we could use for various pur-poses, such as enhancing new faculty start-up packages and matching funds for grantproposals. However, over time, the annualpayout will grow and eventually exceed theamount we need to save each year. Inessence, in about year 19 of the plan theendowment becomes “self-funding” in thesense that it pays out more each year thanwe need to contribute to keep building thefund. In just 30 years the endowment fundwill have grown to be about $20 million,with an annual $1 million payout of discre-tionary funds. Of course, if we can increasethe number of our alumni who support us,and if our current supporters increase theircontributions over time, we can addresspressing needs and build the endowment,ensuring the continued excellence of theCollege of Chemistry.

what really makes Berkeley great. To com-pete successfully with these flush privateinstitutions in recruiting young facultymembers, we have to raise large “start-uppackages”—usually in excess of $1 millionand often more than $2 million. Anotherplace where we feel the pain is in facultysalaries. In competing with the rich privatesto both recruit and retain our outstandingfaculty, we must offer salaries that are con-siderably greater than the UC rank-and-stepscale that we receive in our state allocation.In addition, many of our most experiencedfaculty have progressed past the top stepof the official UC salary scale and have“above-scale” salaries. As a result, the totalrank-and-step state-funded budget for our65 faculty is approximately $7.5 million peryear. However, we are actually paying $9.3million. The extra $1.8 million, above whatthe state provides us, is our cost for beinga Harvard-quality institution. This premiumcomes directly from campus funds thatwould otherwise be available for new facultylab start-ups, matching funds for researchinstrumentation grants from the NationalScience Foundation, or renovating ourantiquated undergraduate laboratories.

All this is why I have proposed that theCollege of Chemistry embark on a long-term plan to build its endowment, with thegoal being to eventually have an endowmentof $200 million. I envision this endowmentto be made up of a portfolio of endowedchairs, endowed graduate fellowships andscholarships, and endowed discretionaryfunds. We have already begun work onthis ambitious project and currently havea $30 million endowment that includes15 endowed chairs, 3 administrative chairsthat yield valuable discretionary funds, 51endowed funds for graduate support andscholarships, and several endowed unre-stricted funds. Additional millions have beencommitted by our alumni through gener-ous estate plans.

As one novel part of this project, I recentlylaunched the idea of a “College of Chemistry401(k) Plan.” In much the same way as myregular savings over my 40-year careerhave permitted me to enjoy a comfortablelife today, I would like to see the college

Spring 2008 Catalyst

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Chemistry lecturer Steve Pedersen and studentstake advantage of spring weather.

FIG 2. Illustrating the possible growth of a Collegeof Chemistry discretionary endowment fund.

contributions payout

’08 ’10 ’12 ’14 ’16 ’18 ’20 ’22 ’24 ’26 ’28 ’30 ’32 ’34 ’36 ’38

$1,000,000

$750,000

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Source: UC Berkeley

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Recently I attended a gathering of govern-ment researchers, academic leaders, andexecutives from the chemical industry. Thedominant topic was globalization, andspeeches and hallway conversations werefilled with dire phrases about the loss ofU.S. dominance in chemical manufacture,the purchase of U.S. industrial icons by“foreigners,” and the rise of internationalhigher education that will compete withU.S. universities.

As other countries like India and Chinadevelop better higher education systems,their brain drain to the U.S. will inevitablydry up. This should not be a problem—wehave plenty of untapped raw material forour graduate programs and laboratories hereat home. The problem is we turn our backson many of our young, curious minds, andlose them even before they enter high school.

The American solution to globalization isnot, I believe, political and economic actions,trade tariffs, H1-B visas, and other grist forthe political mill. Nor is the Americananswer to globalization to be found in theNational Academy’s Rising Above theGathering Storm, a manifesto for, amongother things, more math and science teachers.

I think the solution is uniquely American—provide more upward mobility, give studentsof all backgrounds what they need to suc-ceed, and stress innovation and creativityover the drill-and-test mentality emphasizedby the No Child Left Behind and other fed-eral and state programs. We must addressglobalization with a substantive shift in ourchildren’s cognitive capacity at an early ageto foster deep learning and creativity.

With technological innovation andincreased productivity, we have createdample spare time for our children to spendwatching TV and playing video games.This coming year Americans will spend200 billion hours watching television.Stated differently, this coming weekend we

will spend 100 million hours watching TVadvertisements alone.

Media pundit Clay Shirky, along with MartinWattenberg of IBM, estimates that all ofWikipedia took about 100 million hours ofhuman thought; that’s right, all ofWikipediatook about the same amount of “thoughttime” as Americans will spend watchingTV ads in one weekend. This passive enter-tainment is the perfect antidote to anyattempt to increase cognitive capacity inour young people, and our indulgence in ithas severe consequences for U.S. leadershipin all human endeavors.

Having recently lived abroad for a year, andhaving watched gifted Cal students for thepast 25 years, I offer my own solution. It is,of course, about education, but you maybe surprised to discover that it is not abouthigher education. Indeed, it is not evenabout high school, AP classes, math andscience teachers, or vector calculus for10th graders.

I propose that all K–8 students, regardlessof their socio-economic status, learn lan-guages, play musical instruments, playintramural sports, act in school plays, builduseful objects with real power tools, learnhow to create well-researchedWikipediaentries, and have international pen palsmediated by internet social networks.

c h e m i c a l e n g i n e e r i n g n e w s


Addressing globalization withdeep learning and creativity

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JEFFREY A. REIMERChair, Department of ChemicalEngineering, Warren and KatharineSchlinger Distinguished Professor

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Whatever remains of the school day couldbe devoted to traditional instruction inreading, math and other subjects. Thisschool experience would be a full day ofshifting learning and teaching styles, withvarying group and solo work. Any parentreading this proposal will recognize that atthe end of the school and homework “day,”there is little room for television.

Imagine a complete generation of Americanteenagers entering high school math andscience courses with these experiences.Imagine that these students go on to collegeand become leaders in commerce, commu-nity, and academia. Their K–8 experienceof active and deep learning will preparethem pedagogically, psychologically andcognitively for a rapidly changing, multi-cultural world that will make demandsupon them that we cannot even predict.

by jeffrey reimer

ChemE chair Jeff Reimer and studentTesa Dinio review the pronunciation ofstudent names before the commence-ment ceremony.

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Ask people what they know about HowardHughes and you are likely to hear manytales about a person with a storied life.Many people know that he was a driven,brilliant businessman who took a modestinheritance and turned it into a future.Most know from movies and newspapersthat in his later life he became a recluseand a hypochondriac, the latter trait lead-ing to some very strange, well-chronicledbehavior. Many also know that after hisdeath, his fortune led to a bitter fightamong his relatives.

But there is something much more lastingthan anything mentioned above. Hughesleft behind the Howard Hughes MedicalInstitute (HHMI). He did this by directinga portion of his fortune—that derived fromthe sale of Hughes Aircraft Company—toestablish HHMI, an entity devoted to basicmedical research. At the end of 2007,

MICHAEL A. MARLETTAChair, Department of Chemistry,Joel B. Hildebrand DistinguishedProfessor, and Aldo DeBenedictisDistinguished Professor

HHMI’s endowment stood at $18.7 billion.The institute disbursed $727 million in2007, making HHMI the largest privateorganization funding basic biomedicalresearch in the United States.

Tom Cech is the president of HHMI. Tomearned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Berkeleywith John Hearst in 1975 and has been afaculty member at the University ofColorado since 1982. Tom’s discovery ofcatalytic RNA was a stunning observationthat led to many honors, including theNobel Prize in Chemistry in 1989.Although he remained on the faculty atColorado, in 2000 he joined HHMI aspresident, and his impact there has beenremarkable. He has used his influence andHHMI resources to many positive ends,including an expansion of the scientificdisciplines represented within HHMI, andthe creation of a research campus dedicated

to basic biomedicalresearch. He has notgiven up his ownresearch, and hereturned to theBerkeley campus lastMarch to present theAndrew BraistedLecture in ChemicalBiology.

HHMI has a numberof different programs,but the flagship effortis its investigator pro-gram. HHMI investi-gators receive anunprecedented amountof support for theirresearch, includingsalary, stipends for

students and postdocs, and money forequipment and supplies. Over the years,the path to become an HHMI investigatorhas changed, but the requirements havealways been extremely stringent. Initially,all investigators were drawn from medical

schools. Once that requirement was lifted,Berkeley became a home to several investi-gators—although the focus was primarilyin biology. As chemists turned their atten-tion to problems with an impact on humanhealth and disease, however, chemists atBerkeley began to be noticed. Peter Schultz,a chemistry professor who later moved tothe Scripps Research Institute in San Diego,was an HHMI investigator during part ofhis time here, and Carolyn Bertozzi hasbeen with HHMI since 2000.

HHMI has just completed a new competi-tion, and I am most pleased to report thattwo of our outstanding young chemists,Chris Chang and Jay Groves, have bothbeen offered positions as investigators.They are among five new Berkeleyappointees—the most appointed in thiscompetition from any single institution(along with MIT’s five new investigators).I serve on the HHMI Scientific ReviewBoard, and so I viewed this competition at aclose angle. From a pool of 1,100 applicants,Chris and Jay were among the 56 leftstanding at the end. Clearly, their accom-plishments and promise make them rise tothe very top of the very best.

HHMI is making a difference—around thecountry and certainly here at Berkeley. Weare very grateful.

by michael marletta

HHMI embraces chemistry

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Chemistry alumnus Thomas Cech, Nobel Laureate andpresident of HHMI, receives the plaque after deliveringthe 2008 Andrew Braisted Lecture in Chemical Biologyfrom chemistry chair Michael Marletta.

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f a c u l t y p r o f i l e

Chemical engineering professor Rachel Segalman comes from a long line of chemists and engineers.

Chemical engineering professor RachelSegalman is a member of the third generationof female chemical scientists in her family.

On the maternal side of the family, herChinese grandparents built two sulfuricacid factories in mainland China beforeWWII. After the war they relocated toTaiwan, where her grandfather was theCEO of a paper factory and her grandmothertaught physical chemistry. Her mother andtwo of her aunts are biochemists, and anuncle is a chemist as well.

From the paternal side, Segalman acquiredher talent for engineering. Her father, amechanical engineer, was born in Sioux City,IA, and is best known for the Johnson-Segalman equations that are used to modelfluid dynamics.

Segalman herself was born in 1975 inMadison, WI, when her parents weregraduate students. The family eventuallysettled in Albuquerque, NM. Like manyyoung people in New Mexico, she tookadvantage of the outdoors—hiking and

whitewater rafting in the Jemez andSangre de Cristo mountains, and takingtrips to the cliff dwellings at BandolierNational Monument.

But Segalman spent many hours in highschool doing something far less conven-tional—working at a national weaponslaboratory. “New Mexico is a relatively poor,rural state,” she says, “and the local highschools didn’t have much in the way ofhonors or AP courses.” So Segalman, aspart of a small group of outstanding students,went to work part-time at Sandia NationalLaboratory. Sandia, in Albuquerque, per-forms engineering and applied research tocomplement the fundamental research atLos Alamos and Lawrence Livermorenational laboratories.

At Sandia, Segalman first began to discoverhow to create specialized materials, a taskthat still drives her research. “I worked ontechniques for the rapid prototyping ofceramic materials,” she says. “We used aceramic slurry with a consistency similarto cake icing that we shaped to create newmaterials with the characteristics we wereseeking.”

Segalman earned her undergraduate degreein chemical engineering at the Universityof Texas, Austin. The city is known for itscollege town atmosphere and its musicscene, including the PBS music program“Austin City Limits,” which was taped acrossthe street from Segalman’s dormitory room.“But Austin was a blue dot in a big redstate,” she says. Upon graduating in 1998,she moved on to a chemical engineeringPh.D. program at UC Santa Barbara.

“The cultural landscape in Santa Barbara isunique,” she says. “You have people whose

lives look like a page from Sunset magazine,and you have the undergraduate party scenein places like Isla Vista. But at the graduatelevel, UCSB is not a party school. When Iwas there, the high rents didn’t leave us withmuch disposable income, so we socializedby getting together for gourmet cooking.Thanksgiving dinners were elaborate affairswith as many as 30–40 people.”

Edward J. Kramer, Segalman’s dissertationadviser, headed a research group that focusedon understanding the fundamentals thatcontrol the structure, properties and pro-cessing of block copolymers—polymerscomprised of two or more polymer subunitslinked by covalent bonds. Segalman’sresearch concerned controlling the long-range order in block copolymer thin films.

It was over a microscope at UCSB whereSegalman first met her husband, TalMargalith, now a materials scientist whodevelops high-power LEDs for lightingapplications at Philips Lumileds LightingCompany in San Jose. They married inDecember 2003, after her one-year postdocin France. “Tal lived in Santa Barbara whileI was in France. We couldn’t find a solutionto our two body problem for that year, sowe just flew back and forth a lot.”

For her postdoctoral appointment, Segalmanwanted to learn more about polymersynthesis. She spent 2003 working withProfessor Georges Hadziioannou atUniversité Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg,France, 250 miles east of Paris in theAlsace region on the border with Germany.Daily conversation was French, but Englishwas spoken in the lab. Segalman took Frenchclasses and studied with a tutor, and shequickly learned enough French to get by.

Rachel Segalman draws inspirationfrom both sides of her family tree

I T ’ S A L L I N T H E F A M I L Y

Carefully designed semiconducting block copolymershave self-assembled into 10 nm-wide sheets.

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self-assembly of block copolymers forenergy and biological applications. “At thenanometer length scale,” she says, “weneed to learn how to gain control of self-assembly, show how structure affects prop-erties and demonstrate how to designthese properties into devices.”

Her lab takes a curiosity-driven approachinspired by the need to fundamentallyunderstand the thermodynamic propertiesof self-assembly. “But we’re happy to discoverother interesting things along the way,especially in the areas of photovoltaic, thermo-electric and fuel cell applications.”

Segalman has received numerous awardsfrom foundations, government and industryto support her growing research program,including the Hellman Family Young FacultyAward, the National Science FoundationCAREER Award, and a 3M NontenuredFaculty Grant.

Segalman recently won the newly launchedMDV Innovators Award fromMohr DavidowVentures, a leading Silicon Valley-basedventure capital firm. The award recognizes

innovative approaches to important scien-tific and technical challenges.

Segalman has also been recognized byMIT’s Technology Review magazine as oneof the world’s top innovators under age 35.She was chosen for developing a novel wayto generate electricity from heat by trappingorganic molecules between metal nano-particles. Devices using this effect couldproduce electricity from waste heat that iscurrently released to the environment.

There may now be a fourth generationfemale chemical scientist to continue thelegacy of Segalman’s family. Her daughterwas born in 2006. “She has already beenfrom Taipei to Tel Aviv to visit grandparentsand scientific conferences, but we haven’thad time to take her to France yet for realbaguettes and gelato,” says Segalman.

“Will she turn out to be a chemist orchemical engineer? Nature and nurturewill certainly push her in that direction,but I’m sure she’ll have a mind of herown. Stay tuned.”

She was there during the deadly heat wavethat struck France in the first half of August2003. “It was odd,” says Segalman. “Theforeign students were so busy coping thatwe didn’t realize how big the crisis was.” InFrance, she explains, most families vacationin August, leaving only the elderly and sickbehind—along with the foreign students.

Says Segalman, “There is almost no airconditioning in France. Our lab was over110 degrees Fahrenheit, and the organicsolvent dichloromethane would start boilingon our countertops once the temperaturerose to over 103 degrees. Outside, for twoweeks, it was well over 100 degrees untildusk. I would stay outside in a park untilafter sunset, which, during the summer innorthern Europe, is around 10:00 pm. Onlylater did we learn that 35,000 people diedacross Europe. The tragedy reinforced forme the dangers of climate change and theneed to find alternative energy sources.”

Segalman joined the Berkeley chemicalengineering faculty in spring 2004. Herresearch group focuses on controlling the

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Chemical engineering professor Rachel Segalman examines data in her lab in Tan Hall. Segalman is an expert in thenanostructure and self-assembly of polymer materials.

The Segalman group has discovered that blockcopolymer nanostructures can be aligned byannealing them within a magnetic field. Thistechnique has the potential to control theformation of electrical charge pathways withinsemiconducting polymer nanostructures.

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In 1862, President AbrahamLincoln signed into law theMorrill Act, “an act donatingpublic lands to the severalstates and territories whichmay provide colleges for thebenefit of agriculture andmechanic arts.” Under theprovisions of the act, the

University of California waschartered as the state’s land-grant institution on March

23, 1868.

As a land-grant institution, the university pursues the fundamental missions ofteaching, research and public service. According to the university website,“through its public service programs and industry partnerships, UC disseminatesresearch results and translates scientific discoveries into practical knowledge andtechnological innovations that benefit California and the nation.” UC innovationsin microelectronics, software, and biotechnology have been among the principaldrivers of California’s high-tech economy.

While UC focuses on its own mission, it is the private sector that translatessome of the university’s most exciting research into new products. The universityencourages interaction with industry through its Discovery Grants and other partner-ships amongUC, industry sponsors, the state of California and the federal government.

UC is also drawn to industry by the practical scientific problems to be solvedthere. With the downsizing of many corporate research labs that began in the1980s, research universities are called often upon to conduct the fundamentalresearch that industry used to perform.

The changing nature of the relationship between UC and industry has led toconcerns that UC research is becoming too privatized. However, the data onresearch funding do not support this concern. National Science Foundation fig-ures show that industry’s share of academic research and development supportgrew rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s, but declined since then and has leveledoff at about 5 percent nationally. Figures for UC are similar.

Meanwhile, support from the federal government for academic research anddevelopment decreased in 2006 for the first time since 1982 as funding growthfailed to outpace inflation. There is pressure for faculty members to work withindustry for the funding it can provide, especially in stem-cell research and otherareas where the federal government has not been generous.

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(l.) A historical photo of a College of Chemistry laboratory, circa 1900. (r.) Chemical engineering student Wei-Cheng Lien in the campus Microfabrication Laboratory.

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On the following pages, you’ll read about the role that Collegeof Chemistry professors have played in this constantly evolvingdebate. C. Judson (Jud) King, former chemical engineering depart-ment chair, college dean, provost for the professional schools andcolleges, and UC provost and senior vice president, has been grap-pling with the complexities of these issues for 45 years. King hasbeen instrumental in shaping how the university has responded tothe challenges of working with industry.

At the campus level, chemistry professor Richard A. Mathieshas seen the issues from both sides. He is one of Berkeley’s mostsuccessful inventors, yet during his busy career he has taken thetime to chair the campus Conflict of Interest Committee. He hasseen many start-ups come and go over the years, and he has neverstopped probing the big questions.

After working in industry and as a consultant, alumnus KeithAlexander has returned to the Department of ChemicalEngineering to lead the new Product Development Program. Alongwith his students, he will spend the summer helping Clorox, head-quartered in Oakland, CA, to develop alternatives to animal testingfor its growing line of consumer products.

Here are three faculty members of widely different back-grounds and interests, all of whom share a desire to see that the collegecan work with industry in a way that respects the values of both andthat leads to vital new science and engineering, well-trained studentsand important new products, while ensuring that the fundamentalmission of the university remains paramount.

f e a t u r e

Recently, UC researchers have sought to collaborate withindustry to help address climate change and the need for alternativefuels. In 2007, a consortium of UC Berkeley, the Lawrence BerkeleyNational Laboratory and the University of Illinois reached anunprecedented agreement with the petroleum company BP to createthe jointly operated Energy Biosciences Institute in Berkeley.

Although large industry awards such as this attract mediaattention, most technology transfer to industry continues in thesame manner it has for decades—in the minds of trained studentswho graduate and transfer their knowledge and skills when they arehired. Industry in turn often supports the education of its futurework force with fellowships and scholarships and through dona-tions of equipment to help modernize teaching labs.

Industry support also helps launch the careers of young facultymembers, who do not have the track records required to earn manyfederal research awards. Ironically, although industry funding issometimes criticized because it comes with “strings attached,” theunrestricted industry funding for new faculty members actually hasfewer strings attached than federal research money, giving them theflexibility they need to purchase equipment and implement theirresearch programs.

In the face of a steady stream of scientific discoveries withtremendous market potential, and with the need for fellowships andresearch awards to train students and support young faculty mem-bers, university administrators are on constant alert to shape poli-cies that don’t impede the flow of ideas to the private sector, whilesimultaneously protecting the integrity of their institutions.

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When professors retire, they usually reduce their commitments.But Jud King, emeritus chemical engineering professor, formerCollege of Chemistry dean, former Berkeley provost, and formerUC systemwide provost, is gaining responsibilities in retirement.

Along with a small office he maintains in Gilman Hall amonghis chemical engineering colleagues, King, 73, can also be foundsince his retirement at the Center for Studies in Higher Education(CSHE), where he has been the director since 2004. Last year hepicked up a new position when, at the request of ChancellorBirgeneau, he agreed to become the new interim director at thePhoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. At the museum, Kingis grappling with the repatriation of Native American remains andartifacts in accordance with the Federal Native American GravesProtection and Repatriation Act, and with facility planning toexpand the museum.

Says Birgeneau about King’s role, “At my request, Jud steppedinto this difficult situation as interim director of the HearstMuseum. He has been extraordinarily effective in this role and nowhas us on a track which promises to resolve many of these prob-lems; this includes especially seeking out appropriate NativeAmerican input. I, the Hearst Museum, and the university as awhole owe Jud a great debt of gratitude for this selfless service.”

King’s steady hand as an administrator has won him the confi-dence of UC chancellors and presidents. When there is a need towork out new university policies in an area of vague federal andstate laws and committed stakeholders, UC calls on ace trou-bleshooter Jud King.

Theflowof

ideasHow Jud King has kept

UC’s innovation machinerunning smoothly

Jud King in the ear l y1960s , managing MIT’sSchoo l o f Chemica lEng ineer ing Prac t i ce ,a prac t i cum program forgraduate s tudents at theEsso Bayway re f inerynear L inden, NJ .

K ing in h is Evans Hal lo f f i ce , where he is thed i rec tor o f Berke ley ’sCenter for Stud ies inHigher Educat ion .

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King’s administrative talents came to light early in his career.In 1960, at age 26, even before he had filed his doctoral dissertationat MIT, he was managing MIT’s School of Chemical EngineeringPractice, a practicum program for graduate students at the EssoBayway refinery near Linden, NJ. At that time the local neighbor-hoods were working-class enclaves of recent European immigrants.He still recalls the lunches at Halecki’s Tavern. “Kielbasa has neverbeen better,” he recalls fondly.

In 1961, Berkeley’s Charles R. Wilke visited the Practice Schoolsite in New Jersey. Wilke was building the new Department ofChemical Engineering and was impressed by the young man whoescorted him up and down the multi-story catalytic crackers. Wilkeoffered a job to King, who accepted andmade the move west in 1963.

King began a successful research program in separationprocesses. He also concentrated on spray- and freeze-drying, learningto preserve the elusive and volatile flavor and aroma compounds incoffee and other foods. But although he holds 11 U.S. patents andhas published over 215 journal articles or chapters in research andacademic textbooks, research would not prove to be King’s primarycalling in life. Perhaps taking a cue from his father, a U.S. Armyofficer who served on Eisenhower’s staff during World War II andwho later became the deputy chief signal corps officer at thePentagon, King decided to serve the university more directly.

He began by handling admissions. He was the department vicechair (1967–72), department chair (1972–81), college dean(1981–87), provost of the Berkeley professional schools (1987–94),UC Office of the President vice provost for research (1994–95), and

then UC provost and senior vice president–academic affairs untilhis retirement in 2004, when he returned to the Berkeley campusto direct the CSHE.

One of the most fluid and contentious policy arenas King hasfaced is how to manage the university’s relationships with industry.During his 45-year career at UC, King has witnessed the decline ofcorporate labs, the end of the Cold War, the rise of the high-tech andbiotech industries, the aftermath of the Bayh-Dole legislation, and thedecentralization of tech transfer offices from the UC systemwideheadquarters to the campuses.

As the United States began facing more foreign competition inthe 1980s and corporations struggled to become leaner, many corpo-rate labs, including giants such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, weredownsized or reorganized. Says King, “The same trends shaped thechemical industry. The industry’s interest in partnering with uni-versities pre-dates the end of the Cold War and was not driven asmuch by Bayh-Dole as by the demise of its corporate labs.” King wasa co-founder and early chair of an industry-university consortium,the Council for Chemical Research, which emerged in the 1980s topromote industry-university relations and is still going strong.

Meanwhile, after the passage of the Bayh-Dole legislation (seebox, p. 13), which allowed UC to take patents on government-fundedtechnologies, UC’s patent portfolio grew, and along with thatgrowth came tensions over how the patents should be used.

Should the portfolio be used to support UC’s traditional landgrant mission by channeling innovations rapidly to the private sector,or should the goal be to maximize patent portfolio income withrestrictive licensing agreements? “UC did a little of both,” says King,“but over time has swung more and more toward overall facilitationof relations with industry, including rapid diffusion of technology.”

By fiscal year 2007, UC’s annual income from patenting andlicensing had grown to $98 million. For an institution with a multi-billion dollar budget, “this is a significant, but not a major source ofincome,” says King.

Another source of tension arose from the nature of the industriesinvolved in university tech transfer. In microelectronics and software,timing is everything. Profitability hinges on getting products tomarket just months ahead of competitors. In these disciplines, UCschools of engineering have developed fluid, informal networkswith Silicon Valley firms that allow for rapid sharing of information.

Says King, “Many engineering faculty did not want what theyfelt to be a bureaucratic layer of university lawyers getting in the wayof an effective system that had been built over many years.”

Yet across the Bay, at UC San Francisco and at the other UCmedical schools, colleagues were giving King a different message.“It takes many millions of dollars and a decade or more to get amajor new drug through FDA clinical trials,” says King. “Withoutstrict patent protection and exclusive licenses, pharmaceutical firmswere not willing to take the risk of developing UC discoveries.

s Hal li s thee ley ’ses inn .

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12

“Silicon Valley and UC academic medical centers are milesapart in more ways than one,” says King, “but we had to develop poli-cies that worked for a variety of industries and academic disciplines.”

The issues came to a head at a two-day retreat at UCLA inJanuary 1997. King worked closely with UC President Richard C.Atkinson to bring together hundreds of participants from academiaand industry to spend two days hashing out how their relationshiphas evolved since Bayh-Dole, and how to make it work better inthe future (the summary of the retreat is available online atucop.edu/ott/retreat/tabofcon.html).

In his concluding comments at the 1997 retreat, King acknowl-edged the consensus that UC needed to take “a bolder role that willrequire some risk.” But King reminded the audience:

“We need to find that balance, where we do encourage a moreaggressive approach to relations with industry and do recognize thatit takes risk as part of that—and we need to find the best ways tocounterbalance that risk with accountability and responsibility.”

Under King’s guidance, the university’s academic personnelmanual was modified to clarify that activities such as assuming anexecutive or managerial position in a for-profit or not-for-profitbusiness are generally not allowed. To engage in such activities afaculty member must make a written request to the chancellor orchancellor’s designees and receive written approval. The manualalso limits the number of days a faculty member may engage incompensated outside professional activities.

King’s expertise on university policy has created demand inEurope for his perspective. For the last two years, he has been afaculty member at sessions at the Salzburg Global Seminars inSalzburg, Austria, on innovation in knowledge-based economies.“UC’s role in helping to develop California’s high-tech economy isa model that many other countries and universities would like toemulate. We developed a lot of insight over the years, and I’m happyto share it with the international community,” says King.

King adds, “Salzburg is spectacular, a university town knownfor its baroque architecture at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. It’s the

birthplace of Mozart, but for Americans it is best known as the set-ting for the movie The Sound of Music.”

King has always sought refuge in mountains closer to home, inthe Sierras, and he is known for coercing his city-slicker colleaguesinto week-long mule-supported treks through the high country. Hedid take a break this spring to spend two weeks hiking and raftingin the Grand Canyon, where he says he had trouble keeping up withhis hiking companion and wife of 51 years, Jeanne.

Over the course of his career, King has worked with hundredsof administrators and faculty members, including PresidentAtkinson—the former director of the National Science Foundationand the 17th president of the University of California.

Says Atkinson, “Jud did a magnificent job as the University’ssystemwide provost. He was evenhanded in his decisions andthoughtful in his approach to any and every problem. His deepunderstanding of the university and the faculty has made him a greatacademic leader, someone who always acts in the best interest of UC.”

King is an elected member of the National Academy ofEngineering, the American Chemical Society and the AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science. He is a fellow of theAmerican Institute of Chemical Engineers. He served as chair of theCalifornia Council on Science and Technology from 2002–2004and was a nine-year member of the council.

Looking back, King credits his background in chemical engi-neering for his success as a problem solver. “I think my chemicalengineering background gave me an ability to deconstruct complexproblems and situations, so as to identify and evaluate alternativesand seek the best among them. Some might call that linear think-ing. I’d call it structuring and simplifying.”

King foresees a continually evolving relationship betweenindustry and the university that will require constant diligence—and will bring continuing rewards. “Industry and academicresearch need each other,” he says. “One without the other is sterile.The question is not ‘whether,’ but ‘how.’”

(left) King in his Gilman Hall office,examining the doctoral dissertation of hisstudent Keith Alexander, the director ofchemical engineering’s ProductDevelopment Program (see p. 18).(right) King in the Phoebe A. HearstMuseum of Anthropology, where he isthe interim director.

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MICRO

Launched in 1981, the MICRO Program isdesigned “to support innovative research inmicroelectronics technology, its applicationsin computer and information sciences, andits necessary antecedents in other physicalscience disciplines.” More than 500 compa-nies have participated in the program overthe years. In the year 2005–06, 97 compa-nies supplied $6.5 million for 104 projects,with another $3.8 million coming throughthe program from state funds.

INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY COOPERATIVERESEARCH PROGRAM (IUCRP)

This program awards discovery grants thatare jointly funded by UC, the state, andindustry. Five fields are covered—biotech-nology, communications and networking,digital media, electronics manufacturing andnew materials, and information technologyfor life sciences. As of 2007, since the 1996inception of the program, 777 projects havebeen funded. Currently, on an annual basis,about $22 million of state and UC fundsbring in about $36 million from industry.

UC CONNECT

In 1985, working with the San Diego businesscommunity, the UC San Diego campusformed UC CONNECT to develop entrepre-neurial businesses in the region. Theorganization is freestanding and connectsentrepreneurs with technology, money,markets, management, partners, and supportservices. In many respects, CONNECT isan organized effort aimed at replicatingwhat occurred naturally in Silicon Valley.

CALIFORNIA COUNCIL ON SCIENCEAND TECHNOLOGYFounded in 1988 as a not-for-profitcorporation through enabling legislationfrom the state, the California Council onScience and Technology emulates the rolesthat the National Research Council and theNational Academies have at the federallevel. The council consists of scientists,engineers and technology leaders fromCalifornia’s universities, corporations andnational laboratories. Studies are undertakenat the request of branches of state govern-ment. Jud King served as chair from2002–04.

UC–industry programs that promote technologicalinnovation in California

5.1%

5.2%

3.9%

2.9%

3.0%

3.3%

3.7%

’00-’01 ’01-’02 ’02-’03 ’03-’04 ’04-’05 ’05-’06 ’06-’07

Note: These figures do not include gift funding fromindustry and other private sources, nor do they includestate general fund support for research.

Industry-funded researchas a percentage of total externally-funded research

FY 2000–01 to FY 2006–0711

.0%

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTES FOR SCIENCEAND INNOVATION

Four major research institutes were launchedin 2000, as a gubernatorial initiative tosupport the role of innovation in spurringthe California economy. The institutes arelocated on UC campuses and conductresearch in fields believed to be promisingfor the economic growth of the state. Theywere envisioned as catalytic partnershipsbetween university research and privateindustry. At Berkeley, QB3, located in StanleyHall, and the Center for Information Tech-nology Research in the Interest of Societyare funded under this program.

NOVARTIS AGREEMENT WITH UCBERKELEY

In 1998, a controversial research agreementwas made between the Berkeley campus andNovartis, a large Swiss pharmaceutical andbiotechnology company. Novartis agreed tocontribute $5 million per year for five yearsto support research in the Department ofPlant and Microbial Biology. Another impor-tant component was access to the Novartisagricultural genomic database. In return,Novartis received first rights to license apercentage of inventions from research inthe department, whether or not supportedby Novartis funds. Over the course of theagreement, there was a major restructuringof Novartis that eliminated the unit thathad made the agreement, and it was notrenewed.

ENERGY BIOSCIENCES INSTITUTE

In 2006, the oil firm BP announced anintention to create the Energy BiosciencesInstitute in conjunction with a major uni-versity. In early 2007, the competition waswon by a team headed by UC Berkeley thatincluded the Lawrence Berkeley NationalLaboratory and the University of Illinoisat Urbana–Champaign. BP will contribute$50 million annually for 10 years. Recognizingconcerns about academic freedom and otherissues, the Berkeley campus developed theproposal in close consultation with theleadership of the campus Academic Senate.

Source: UC Berkeley Center for Studies in HigherEducation, University Roles in Tehcnological Innovationin California, C. Judson King

UC Berkeley College of Chemistry

In 1980, an event occurred that completelychanged the way universities and industryinteract—Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act.

The Bayh-Dole Act was sponsored bySenators Birch Bayh (D-Indiana) and RobertDole (R-Kansas). Previously, the federalgovernment had retained ownership of dis-coveries funded by federal research dollars.The act changed this by allowing universities(and other performers of federal research)to retain ownership of ideas they developedthrough government-funded research.Under the act, universities could licensepatented ideas to industry and could earnroyalties. The act required universities togive inventors, usually professors, a shareof the royalties.

The impetus for the legislation was the per-ception that the United States was losingits technological edge and competitiveness.The domestic steel and auto industries weredeclining, while productivity growth andinvestment in research and developmentwere stagnant. Although the U.S. govern-ment owned approximately 28,000 patents,fewer than 4 percent were licensed toindustry. The Bayh-Dole Act was conceivedto help commercialize ideas that would oth-erwise lie dormant. Under the Bayh-Dole act,UC has commercialized thousands of tech-nologies since 1980 and now earns almost$100 million annually from technologylicensing.

The Bayh-Dole Act

Source: UC Berkeley

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Rich Mathies is a hard guy to pin down. He started as a physicalchemist, but now he also has a research group devoted to life sciences.He is one of UC Berkeley’s most prolific inventors, yet he has devotedlarge amounts of his time helping the campus manage complexconflict-of-interest questions.

As a graduate student, he climbed mountains in one of thecoldest, wettest parts of the country, yet his research has taken himto one of the hottest, driest places on Earth. His lab-on-a-chipdevices may help answer some of the most profound questions facinghumanity, yet he has also focused on clever devices that solve farmore practical problems.

Mathies always liked making things work. Born in 1946, hegrew up in Kirkland, WA, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Inelementary school he mastered the repair of the family clothesdryer. By the time he graduated from high school, Mathies hadmade a crude powder x-ray diffractometer.

Mathies’s scientific aptitude could have taken him in manydirections, but he followed the example of his father, a biochemistand the head of the lab at Seattle’s Swedish Hospital. For college,Mathies moved across the lake and earned a degree in chemistry atthe University of Washington in 1968. There he worked with MartinGouterman on porphyrin chemistry and wrote his first journal articlewhile still an undergraduate.


Rich Mathies tests wine for its amine content. Mathies is working to develop a hand-held device to allow diners to testwine to avoid red wine headaches. This technology is a spin-off of his research with NASA to look for chemical signs oflife on Mars.

R I CHARDMATH I E S

Eyes tothe sky,feet on

theground

From the sands of Marsto local start-ups, Rich Mathies

keeps exploring

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Mathies moved on to Ithaca, NY, where he earned his Ph.D. atCornell University in 1974. His mentor was Berkeley alumnusAndreas C. Albrecht (B.S. ’50, Chem), who is considered by many tobe the father of the theory of resonance Raman spectroscopy.“Albrecht was a brilliant but understanding mentor who allowed meto take time off for some major outdoor expeditions,” says Mathies.

On the wall behind his desk hangs a large photograph ofMathies climbing the Devils Thumb, a rock spire jutting out of theStikine Ice Cap near Petersburg, AK. The 9,077-foot peak features anear-vertical, 6,000-foot face—twice as tall as Yosemite’s El Capitanwith ice and snow and horrific weather—that has taken the lives ofseveral climbers. Mathies and his partners scaled the peak from theeast, as did the climbing author Jon Krakauer, who completed the firstsolo ascent of the mountain following a similar route.

Back in civilization, Mathies won a Whitney fellowship to YaleUniversity to work with Lubert Stryer, who three decades later wouldwin the 2006 National Medal of Science for his work on fluorescencespectroscopy and the biochemical basis of signal amplification invision. Mathies’s postdoc with Stryer was his first foray into the lifesciences, a path he would explore more fully later in his career.

Mathies came to the College of Chemistry in 1976 as an assistantprofessor and spent the first 10 years as a biophysical chemist focusingon Raman spectroscopy and understanding themolecular basis of theprimary events in vision.

Former Mathies student Christina Stuart (Ph.D. ’07, Chem),who is on her way to a postdoc at UC San Diego, explains thegroup’s work this way: “Raman spectroscopy is a vibrational techniquethat provides information on the structure of molecules. In Ramanspectroscopy, a sample is irradiated with laser light. A small numberof the laser photons imparts energy to the molecules, exciting theminto a higher vibrational state. The resulting Raman-scattered lightnow has a frequency which is shifted from that of the incident light.The difference in these frequencies corresponds to a vibrationalfrequency of the molecule, which tells us about its structure.”

In 1984 Mathies embarked on another adventurous path whenhe filed his first patent—an infant carrier that he designed with wifeJoAnne. “It was a good design, but it was never commercialized,” hesays. “I still have the prototype in my garage.” The next 34 patentswould prove to be more successful.

By the late 1980s, the revolution in genomics was in full swing.Biotech pioneers such as Genentech, Chiron and Amgen—all UCspin-offs—were growing, along with a host of smaller companies.With the beginning of the Human Genome Project slated for 1990,Mathies and his students began exploring the utility of laser spec-troscopy techniques for biomolecular detection.

Stephen Fodor was a postdoc in the Mathies group at that timewho used Raman spectroscopy to elucidate the photoactivation ofbacterial and plant photo receptors. Intrigued by the applications of

laser spectroscopy to genomics, Fodor in 1989 took a position at theAffymax Research Institute in Palo Alto, where he spearheaded theeffort to develop high-density microarrays of biological compounds.Fodor also developed techniques to read these arrays, employingfluorescent labeling methods and confocal laser scanning.

Four years later, Fodor co-founded Affymetrix, a company thathas developed technology to synthesize many varieties of high-densityarrays containing hundreds of thousands of DNA probes. TheseDNA chips have broad commercial applications and are now widelyused in many areas of basic and clinical research. Says Mathies,who serves on the scientific advisory board of the company, “It wasAffymetrix that got the whole gene chip technology going.”

The company is just one of 10 start-ups in which Mathies hasplayed a role. One company, ACLARA Biosciences, pioneered lab-on-a-chip microfluidic arrays for high-throughputpharmaceutical drug screening and geneexpression analysis. Another start-up,Molecular Dynamics, developed inte-grated systems that combinedlaser-scanning, electro-opticaland software technologiesto produce bioanalyticalinstrumentation and DNAsequencing systems.

In the 1990s,Mathies’s patents on flu-orescent probes began tobear fruit for Berkeley,earning almost $1 mil-lion dollars annually inlicensing fees by the endof the decade. It was alsoin the 1990s that Mathiesbegan working on themicrofabrication of lab-on-a-chip devices. The Mathiesgroup started this work in 1992,and it led to miniaturized devicesthat could perform DNA bioanalyticalwork. Says Mathies, “We put together a groupof smart, brave, hard-working people doing newthings. I was so lucky to be part of that.”

Adam Woolley, now an associate professor at Brigham YoungUniversity, earned his Ph.D. with Mathies in 1997. Says Woolley, “Ihad the great fortune to work with Rich at a very exciting time: theHuman Genome Project was at an early stage as I was starting grad-uate school at Cal. Rich gave me broad latitude to work in his lab todevelop a revolutionary DNA sequencing technology at the interface

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A schematic of a microfluidic device.

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of chemistry, engineering and biology. It was a transformative timein my career, and I think it was for Rich, too.”

In his days as a graduate student, Mathies tackled the cold, wetand harsh environment of southeast Alaska. In the last decadeMathies has ventured to one of the hottest and driest places on theplanet, Chile’s Atacama desert. There, in 2005, along with graduatestudent Alison Skelley (Ph.D. ’05, Chem) and colleagues fromNASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he performed experiments to verifythat he could detect signs of life in an environment similar to Mars.

The Mathies group is refining a device, the Mars OrganicAnalyzer (MOA), part of an instrument package scheduled to fly toMars in 2013 on the European Space Agency ExoMars mission.During the mission, instruments will dissolve Martian soil withwater, add fluorescent tags that selectively bind with certain organicmolecules, dry the samples and use a laser to check for amino acids,amines and fragments of DNA and RNA. Amino acids can bedetected at concentrations as low as a few parts per trillion.

If amino acids are detected, the MOA will use microcapillaryelectrophoresis to analyze their composition and to check the “hand-edness” or chirality of the amino acids. Inorganic processes produceleft- and right-handed amino acids in roughly equal proportions. Ifthe MOA detects only left-handed amino acids on Mars, that wouldindicate they were produced by life processes similar to those onEarth, where life evolved using only left-handed amino acids. “Butwhat if the MOA detects mostly right-handed amino acids in

Martian soil?,” asks Mathies. “That would indicate that Martian lifeevolved in a way distinct from life on Earth.”

The ExoMars rover is scheduled to land on Mars in 2015, aftera two-year journey across the solar system. “The odds of a successfulMars landing are about 50/50,” says Mathies, “so I am not gettingmy hopes up too high. But sending an instrument to test for life onMars is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s likely to be my lastexperiment, my most expensive experiment and perhaps the mostimportant.”

Looking back on the research tools he has created over threedecades, Mathies sees them as extensions of ourselves. Some toolsallow us to reach all the way out to Mars, dig in the soil and examineit to find traces of life that may have existed millions of years ago.Other tools let us tease apart the minute details of our DNA with adevice that can sit in the palm of a hand.

“There have been four central scientific issues that have madehumankind question the nature of our place in the universe,” saysMathies. “They are the realization that the world is round; the dis-covery that the Earth is not the center of the universe; the sequencingof the human genome; and the unresolved question of whetherthere is life elsewhere in the universe. Two of those issues wereresolved long before my time, but I’m happy to have played, and tobe playing, a part in two of the remaining fundamental issues ofhuman existence.”


16

(l. to r.) A typical Raman spectroscopy workbench in the Mathies lab. Mathies climbing the Devils Thumb, near Petersburg, AK, while a graduate student at CornellUniversity in the 1970s. Mathies in Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2005, where he tested a prototype of the device scheduled to fly to Mars in 2013.

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For over a decade, Professor Rich Mathies has chaired the campus Conflict of Interest (COI) commit-tee, overseeing the review process that makes sure professors’ efforts to develop creative ideas andnew inventions don’t conflict with their university obligations.

Says Mathies, “This is a committee that takes real action on real cases. It’s never dull—the casescome from all over the campus and involve inventive faculty members who are always coming up withnew things and new business arrangements. Ultimately, my goal is to allow people to be creative whilepreserving and protecting the academic environment.”

Seven faculty members meet once a month to review company and university documents under strictrules of confidentiality. “Each case is individual,” says Mathies. “We decide on a case-by-case basis,and not by a rigid set of rules. I’ve found that trying to apply rules can lead to odd decisions that aren’tsensitive to the totality of the situation.”

The basic principle behind conflict of interest policies is that the conduct and reporting of research andthe education of students cannot be compromised for financial interests. Mathies gives an example ofa researcher who patents a discovery and maintains a financial interest—as a founder, as a member ofthe scientific advisory board, or as a consultant—in a start-up that is commercializing the invention.

“The researcher’s interest in the firm may overlap strongly with her university research,” says Mathies.“This can lead to a significant conflict of interest. In this case, a grad student might be directed to doresearch that is more beneficial to the company than it is to the student’s thesis and progress towarda degree.”

In such a case, the conflict, or the appearance of conflict, must be managed by the COI committee. Tomanage such a conflict, the committee might, for example, require public disclosure of the interest andcreate an ad hoc subcommittee of faculty to meet with the researcher’s students and monitor theirdegree progress and goals.

“In such cases where the overlap is too complete,” says Mathies, “the faculty member can have eitherthe research grant or the financial interest, but not both. About once a year we have to make a toughdecision like this, and these decisions are not popular.

“The reality,” says Mathies, “is that the university is both pushed and pulled toward working withindustry—pulled because industry has money and interesting ideas and research agendas, pushed

because federal and state support for research is not keeping up. The acceptance rate forresearch grant applications to the National Science Foundation and the National Institutesof Health is running less than 10 percent. You can’t tell me that, given the number ofsmart people at places like Berkeley, only one in 10 grants is worthy of funding.”

Mathies remains ambivalent about the growing emphasis on practical results in aca-demic research. “Personally,” he says, “I like working with industry. You get newideas and catalytic feedback. It’s fine to interact, patent ideas, start companies, andhelp the economy by enhancing the success of start-ups—as long as the integrity ofteaching and research is protected.

“But if the trend toward practical solutions and working with industry makes it harderto do fundamental, blue-sky research, I’m not convinced that trend is a good idea.

Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far and needs to come back a bit. There is a lot tobe said for doing basic, curiosity-driven research that might not bear fruit for many years.”

Mathies on maintaining research integrity


In 2005, Keith Alexander returned to the Department of ChemicalEngineering to lead the new Product Development Program (PDP). “It’smy third ‘tour of duty,’” he says. “First I was a chemical engineering under-grad here, then a ChemE Ph.D. student, and now I’m director of the PDP.”

It’s been a long trip for a scrappy kid fromRichmond, CA, who fell in love with thejazz trombone as a teenager and who con-ducted the John F. Kennedy High Schoolband at his graduation in 1971. During hislife, Alexander, 54, has taken his jazz lessonsto heart. He is an energetic player who paidhis dues, practiced his chops, learned tolead other talented players, and when themoment is right, can stand up and impro-vise with skill.

After high school, Alexander first attendeda local community college and then trans-ferred to UC Berkeley as a chemistry major.“One day I was walking through GilmanHall,” he explains, “when I noticed a clipping

on a bulletin board. It was a listing of start-ing salaries for different professions, andchemical engineers were at the top. I hearda booming voice behind me that said, ‘Lookspretty good, doesn’t it?’ That was the voiceof Ted Vermeulen, and Ted was instrumentalin guiding me along as I switched majorsfrom chemistry to chemical engineeringand completed my undergraduate degree.”

Graduating from Berkeley in 1978, Alexanderbegan working at a local company, StaufferChemical, as a junior engineer. He workedwith Ed Force, who had earned his Ph.D. inchemical engineering at Berkeley. “Ed wascommitted to young people,” says Alexander,“and he urged me to go get my Ph.D. He

Product Development Program director Keith Alexanderwith a sample of Clorox’s consumer products at theirPleasanton, CA, research facility.

a l u m n u s p r o f i l e


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K E I THA L E XANDER

was so persistent that I applied to severalprograms and was accepted at Berkeley forwhat I call my second tour of duty.”

Alexander found himself back in GilmanHall in the fall of 1979. “I didn’t know whatto expect at first,” he says. “Although thesurroundings were familiar, I found thegraduate experience was much more of anapprenticeship than my undergrad program.Jud King was my adviser, and at that time hehad about 18 people in his research group.

“We worked on food chemistry, separations,freeze- and spray-drying, and organic aque-ous solutions. King was the best model,”says Alexander. “He was a clear, organizedthinker, very good at problem-solving andcoaching. With so many graduate students,it was uncanny how, from meeting tomeeting, he could remember where wehad left off the last time.”

Keith Alexander returns to Gilman Hallto create a unique new program

T H I R D T O U R O F D U T Y

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Alexander researched how to improve tech-niques for making instant coffee. “In themorning I drank coffee, all day long I smelledcoffee in my lab, and at night I dreamedcoffee,” he says. “I was up against humantaste buds, which are incredibly sensitiveinstruments for detecting volatile organiccompounds. From a chemical engineeringstandpoint, I had to study the effect ofheat, mass transfer and the morphology ofparticle formation. My Ph.D. educationwas a very satisfying stage in my life.”

But it was not all work. In those years, theChemE grad students had their offices onthe third floor of Lewis Hall, overlookingthe Greek Theater. Alexander, whose owntaste in music runs to jazz giant JohnColtrane, still remembers the nights theGrateful Dead played the Greek. “We wouldsit at our office windows and watch theband’s devoted and eccentric fans streaminto the theater—that was the real show.”

In 1982, with his Ph.D. degree in hand,Alexander began working for the researcharm of Chevron in his hometown ofRichmond, where he helped develop newtechniques for catalytic cracking of heavyoil residues. But Alexander’s drive andcuriosity were still propelling him forward,and he was growing more interested in thebusiness side of Chevron’s operation. “AChevron recruiter mentioned StanfordBusiness School,” says Alexander. “Thatsounded interesting—but even though Ihad grown up in the Bay Area, I had neverbeen to Stanford.”

Alexander didn’t let that stand in his way.In 1986, he started at Stanford BusinessSchool, where he focused on managementconsulting as a career choice. After gradu-ating in 1988, Alexander joined McKinseyand Company, the international consultingfirm, and spent five years working andtraveling from its San Francisco office. SaysAlexander, “I worked for a whole range ofindustries. I learned how to think throughissues and how to solve problems. It wasrough and tumble, and I enjoyed it.”

In 1994, Alexander made the switch toCH2M HILL, an international engineeringand consulting firm with more than24,000 employees worldwide. Starting inthe Oakland office, he relocated after severalyears to the corporate headquarters inDenver, CO, where he spent two yearsmanaging about 230 people in an informa-tion technologies business solutions group.

While in Denver, Alexander also became asenior vice president and aide-de-camp tothe firm’s CEO. “At that level in a big con-sulting firm,” says Alexander, “the job isjust not predictable. You have to learn toadjust on the fly. Like jazz, the work has itsown rhythm and melody, but you have toimprovise, and let others improvise, with-out crowding in.”

In the meantime, back in Berkeley, ProfessorArup Chakraborty became ChemE chair inJuly 2001. One of Chakraborty’s goals wasto add new dimensions to the department’sgraduate student experience. “Perhaps, inaddition to the traditional teaching andresearch program,” he said at the time, “wecould provide interested graduate studentsthe opportunity to gain first-hand experiencein start-ups and industrial laboratories dur-ing their time at Berkeley.” The departmentbegan looking for models to allow studentsto gain that first-hand industry experience,but there were few good academic models.

On a visit to the Bay Area in 2004,Alexander stopped by the chemical engi-neering department to say hello to hismentor, Jud King, and learned that thedepartment was developing a new programin product development.

Alexander wanted to get back to his rootsin the Bay Area, as did his wife, Elaine,who had been raised in El Cerrito, CA. SoAlexander signed on for his third tour ofduty in the Department of ChemicalEngineering and began work as the PDPdirector in June 2005. The first class starteda little over a year later, in fall 2006.

The PDP is designed for chemical engineersand other students from related disciplineswho want to learn more about transformingtechnical innovations into successful prod-ucts. In the space of one calendar year (falland spring semesters plus a summer in anindustry setting), PDP graduates earn amaster’s degree by gaining exposure toreal-world product development practicesin a range of industries, including biotech-nology, microelectronics, nanoscience andconsumer products. The PDP also includesa certificate program for Ph.D. studentsthat was developed with seed funding fromthe Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

Says Alexander, “Over the past 15 years,product-based industries like biotech andconsumer products have been hiring a

r

The interplay between society, technology and the economy creates opportunities for new products.

Society

Economy

Technology

ß Social and cultural trends and driversß Reviving historical trends

ß State-of-the-art and emerging technologyß Re-evaluating existing technology ß State of the economy

ß Shift of focus on where to spend moneyß Level of disposable income

Product opportunity

gap


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greater proportion of bachelor’s-level ChemEgraduates. At the same time, a shrinkingpercentage of ChemE students have beenhired by traditional process-based indus-tries like chemicals.

“We wanted to give undergraduate studentsa better crack at getting jobs in these growingindustries. The real beauty of our one-yearprogram is that it is very time- and cost-effective for students. The one-year PDPprogram costs about one-fifth as much asa typical two-year Bay Area MBA program,and about one-tenth as much as theStanford MBA program that I attended.”

This summer the second graduating classwill get hands-on experience by tacklingan important problem for a local company.Beginning in 2009, the countries in theEuropean Union will ban the sale of cosmeticproducts and ingredients that have beentested on animals. Many companies arelooking to develop alternatives to animaltesting.

The PDP students will help Clorox developa plan to prepare for emerging standardsand phase out animal testing where possi-ble. The company is a local success story.In 1913, five entrepreneurs invested $100each to convert the brine available in thenearby salt ponds of San Francisco Bayinto bleach. They opened an office in

Oakland, CA, where Clorox headquartersremains today.

Clorox now markets an extensive line ofconsumer goods and recently acquired theBurt’s Bees line of natural health care prod-ucts. “The Burt’s Bees products, because theycontain only natural ingredients, do notrequire animal testing,” says Alexander, “butmany of Clorox’s other consumer productsstill do. This summer the PDP students willwork with Clorox at their Pleasanton, CA,research facility to explore the latest testingoptions and to develop a plan for the com-pany to incorporate these best practices.”

Alexander’s students are looking forwardto the challenge. “The PDP is a great inter-disciplinary program,” says Aileen DeSoto.“It gives me exposure to fascinating students,staff and faculty from a number of areas inthe university—business, engineering andpublic health—and industry people, too.”

Says student Michael Lin, “PDP is a veryunique program. It helps us connect to theindustry and see how our engineeringknowledge can be applied in the real world.Even though this is only the second yearfor the program, Keith has really put every-thing together and gives us a very fruitfulmaster’s degree experience.”

“It’s been really rewarding to see this pro-gram come together and watch it take flight,”says Alexander. “There weren’t any blue-prints. But I’ve learned in my life that ifyou need to step on 10 stones to cross theriver, you don’t necessarily need to see thewhole pathway. Rarely is the whole plan infront of you.

“In every stage of my life, when I needed tofind a new stepping stone, someone wasthere to guide me. Almost all of my guideswere teachers. With the Product DevelopmentProgram, I guess I’m repaying the favor.”


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New uses,new needs

Revenue

Productdevelopment

capabilityand effort

Newproducts

Industrydemand

Sales

Price premiumfor uniqueness

Price premiumfor unique

new products

Price

(left to right) Michael Lin, Cheok I Cheong, Keith Alexander, AileenDeSoto, and Dewi Christian Leo meet in the PDP classroom.

PDP director Keith Alexander at commencement with students (left to right)Cheok I Cheong, Aileen DeSoto, and Dewi Christian Leo.

In many industries effective new product development capabilitydrives overall corporate profitability.


Changes in the collegeChange is afoot in the college administra-tion. Clayton Heathcock—emeritus chem-istry professor, former college dean, andthe UC Berkeley chief scientist for QB3—has been serving as interim dean duringthe search for a new dean, whose identity isexpected to be announced in July.

In a move that will allow the dean to focuson the most critical issues, Heathcock hasappointed chemical engineering professorDouglas Clark to be the Executive AssociateDean of the college, with primary responsi-bility for analytical facilities, network services,business and finance, and engineering services.The dean will have final authority in theseareas and will also have primary authorityin academic affairs and college relations.

Two new assistant deans—Assistant Deanfor Administration and Finance SuzannePierce and Assistant Dean for Engineeringand Facilities Alexander Shtromberg—nowwork with the dean; they join AssistantDean for College Relations, Jane Scheiber,to form the top administration of the college.

In addition, chemistry professor MarcinMajda will be the new Associate Dean forUndergraduate Affairs, effective July 1. Majdacomes well prepared to handle this position,having served as vice-chair of the department’sphysical chemistry program from 2001 to 2007.

Majda will succeed emeritus chemistry pro-fessor Herbert Strauss, who has served in

c o l l e g e o f c h e m i s t r y u p d a t e s

Spring 08 Catalyst

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Recent awards to Collegeof Chemistry faculty:JOHN ARNOLD: Dreyfus Foundation 2008Special Grant in the Chemical Sciences

ROBERT BERGMAN: 2008 Richards Medal,Northeastern Section of the AmericanChemical Society

CAROLYN BERTOZZI:

Royal Society ofChemistry Best of 2007 list

JAMIE DOUDNA CATE: 2008 Irving SigalYoung Investigator Award of the ProteinSociety

ENRIQUE IGLESIA: Election to theNational Academy of Engineering

JOHN KURIYAN: Election to the AmericanAcademy of Arts & Sciences

YUAN TSEH LEE: 2008 Othmer GoldMedal of the Chemical Heritage Foundation

MICHAEL MARLETTA: 2008 MurrayGoodman Memorial Prize, established byBiopolymers and John Wiley & Sons

JOHN NEWMAN: 2008 Vittorio de NoraAward in Electrochemical Engineering andTechnology, Electrochemical Society

RICHARD SAYKALLY: International SolvayChair in Chemistry, International SolvayInstitutes of Belgium

RACHEL A. SEGALMAN: MDV InnovatorsAward from Mohr Davidow Ventures

ANDREW STREITWIESER: DreyfusFoundation 2008 Senior Scientist Mentor

DEAN TOSTE: 2008 Thieme IUPAC Prize;Royal Society of Chemistry Best of 2007 list

TING XU: 3M Company Untenured FacultyGrant

this role for 13 years. In a tribute to Straussupon his receipt of the Berkeley FacultyService Award in May, Heathcock notedthat Strauss has shown extraordinary dedi-cation over the course of 40 years—notonly to his internationally renowned researchand to the scientific community in general,but also to ensuring that each undergraduatereceives the most rewarding and fulfillingeducation that he or she possibly can.Added chemistry professor and former deanCharles Harris, “Herbert Strauss representswhat is best about Berkeley.”

New program focuses onsustainabilityIn late 2007 the College of Chemistry, inpartnership with the Haas School ofBusiness and with funding from the DowChemical Company Foundation, created theSustainable Products and Solutions (SPS)Program. Aimed at providing students andfaculty with educational and researchopportunities in the area of sustainability,the SPS Program awarded its first grants,totaling nearly $2 million, in May.

College faculty members and studentsinvolved in the winning grants includeMichelle Chang, Douglas Clark, DeannaD’Alessandro, Matthew Francis, Jeff Long,Marty Mulvihill, Kara Nelson, Erica Parra,and Peter Vollhardt.

Somorjai receives 2008Priestley AwardUniversity Professor Gabor A. Somorjai(Ph.D. ’60, Chem) of the Department ofChemistry has received the 2008 PriestleyMedal, the highest honor bestowed by theAmerican Chemical Society, for his contribu-tions to surface science and catalysis formore than 40 years.Somorjai received theaward during a specialevent at the society’sspring meeting in NewOrleans.

Using

artificialsugar

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Associate Dean Herbert Strauss (l.) receives theBerkeley Faculty Service Award from David Wake,Chair of the Berkeley Senate’s Awards Committee.

A detailed view of Gabor Somorjai’sPriestley Medal, the highest honorbestowed by the American ChemicalSociety.


u n i v e r s i t y u p d a t e s


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The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), the world’s largest public/privateconsortium dedicated to the application of bioscience and biotechnology tech-niques to the energy industry, has announced an initial set of 49 research projects toreceive funding during the first year of EBI’s ten-year program. These projects will besupported through approximately $20 million of the total $500 million provided duringthe coming decade by the international energy company BP.

EBI’s goal is to develop methods and technologies that will enable the transition from afossil fuel-based energy economy to a balanced economy relying more upon renewablesand biofuels with greatly reduced environmental impacts.

Projects are being funded at all three of the public partner institutions—UC Berkeley; theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Eight projects, all in the area of biomass depolymerization, will be led by College ofChemistry faculty–Alex Bell, Jamie Cate, Michelle Chang, Douglas Clark, JonathanEllman, Alexander Katz, Michael Marletta, Clayton Radke, and Dean Toste.

New president takesthe helm at UC

Mark G. Yudof, theformer head of theUniversity of Texas sys-tem and a recognizedleader in American highereducation, became the

19th president of the University ofCalifornia on June 16, succeeding RobertC. Dynes.

Yudof, 63, is the first UC president to behired from outside the system since 1899.With a law degree from the University ofPennsylvania, he joined the faculty of theUniversity of Texas School of Law in 1971and became a recognized expert in the fieldsof constitutional law, freedom of expres-sion and education law. Since 1997, Yudofhas headed two complex, multi-campusuniversity systems—first Minnesota andthen, from 2002–07, Texas, one of thelargest university systems in the country.

Yudof has said that, in addition to academicexcellence and student opportunity, hispriorities will include continuation of theeffort to review and refine the roles andresponsibilities of systemwide administra-tion, the importance of accountabilitymechanisms at the systemwide and campuslevels, and a strong emphasis on commu-nication.

“The University of California is importantto every family in California,” he says. “Wemust earn the confidence of the people ofCalifornia every day, and part of that effortinvolves demonstrating how our work issolving problems that are important in theirlives—in health, in the environment, inagriculture and nutrition, and in countlessother areas.”

UC system faces budget shortfall from state

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal for 2008–09 calls for deep cuts in funding to the UC system, following his declarationof a statewide fiscal emergency. The precise size of the budget cuts will not be known until summer. Faced, however, with a likely short-fall of more than $230 million, the UC regents voted in May to increase student tuition by 7.4 percent for the 2008–09 academic year,raising the annual fees for undergraduates to $7,126. The regents also approved a budget cut of 10 percent at the Office of the Presidentas part of a systemwide effort to reduce administrative spending.

$20 million awarded forstem cell research facilities

The California Institute for RegenerativeMedicine (CIRM) has awarded $20.18million to Berkeley to build centralizedstem cell laboratories in Li Ka Shing Hall,a new campus biomedical research buildingunder construction on the site of the oldWarren Hall.

The grant to Berkeley was one of 12 grants,totaling $271 million, to fund constructionprojects for major facilities where stem cellresearch will be conducted—one of thelargest building programs ever dedicatedfor a new field of medical science.

The funding was authorized in 2004 whenCalifornia voters approved Proposition 71,which committed $3 billion in bond funds

over 10 years to stem cell research, in par-ticular to embryonic stem cell work notsupported by the federal government.

“We currently have a very vibrant stem celleffort on campus, but it is very decentralized,with 28 researchers spread out in 8 differentbuildings,” said chemical engineering pro-fessor David Schaffer, who is associatedirector of the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, amultidisciplinary group of researchers whouse adult or embryonic stem cells. “TheCIRM grant will allow geographic central-ization that is crucial to fostering collabora-tion and interaction among campus inves-tigators, and will allow us to invite visitingscholars to enhance research on campus.”Chemistry professor Carolyn Bertozzi(Ph.D. ’93, Chem) is also a principal inves-tigator at the Berkeley Stem Cell Center.

Energy Biosciences Institutefunds first 49 projects

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Name and address of someone who will always know how to contact you:

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degree(s) year department

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name of organization academic department or company division

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street city state zip phone email

signature granting permission

name

position job function start date

CatalystAlumni Questionnaire

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DR CN

AC AA

DE CR

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university of california berkeleyCollege of ChemistryCollege Relations Office420 latimer hall #1460berkeley, ca 94720-1460

f i r s tc l a s spostageh e r e

FOLD

FOLD

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We would like to welcome back ProfessorClayton Heathcock as interim dean until anew dean is announced. Dean Heathcockhas been a real asset to the college and weappreciate all of his efforts. As always, it hasbeen wonderful working with our dedicatedalumni who participate on the steering team:G.V. Basbas, Gordon Chu, Laurie Dockter,Mark Ellsworth, Lara Gundel, Deanne Krenz,Marissa Drouillard, Larry Perry, Daisy Quan,Steve Sciamanna, Lindy Vejar, and DeanDraemel, who recently joined our team.Thanks to all for your ideas, enthusiasmand participation!

We have had some great activities since mylast article!Our fourth annual “Springfest” was held

at Jupiter Beerhouse on May 1, 2008, tocelebrate the newly graduating students inthe College of Chemistry. More than 150students, faculty and alumni attended.This was a great opportunity to celebrateand offer kudos to the students for their

Dear fellow alumni,accomplishments. Doug Clark (ExecutiveAssociate Dean, Professor of ChemicalEngineering) opened the celebration withcongratulations to the students for theirachievements. Cal pride filled the room asProfessor Clark spoke of our first-placerankings nationally for both the chemistryand the chemical engineering departments.This provided a great opportunity for me tofollow up with how our newest alumni canhelp the college maintain this status bystaying involved through volunteering forstudent/alumni activities, attending eventsand making financial donations.

Cal Day, the campus-wide open house fornewly admitted students and their parentsand the general community, was held onApril 12, 2008. Chemistry lecturerMichelle Douskey and lab demonstrationsupervisor Lonnie Martin did a great job inpresenting “Molecules, Materials & Us.”Associate Dean Herb Strauss and theundergraduate advisers gave a presentation

on the college’s undergraduate programs.Student groups had tables in the Latimerlobby to meet and talk to the prospectiveand newly admitted students and their par-ents about their affiliated science groups.

In early spring, the “Cupola Era Alumni”met for their annual luncheon in the GreatHall at The Faculty Club. This was anextremely popular event with 75 alumni,faculty and staff attending to hear Nobellaureate professor Yuan T. Lee give a pres-entation on “Humanity at the Crossroads.”This lecture was very stimulating and cer-tainly gave those who attended much tothink about in terms of the future.

In November, “The Alumni of the G. N.Lewis Era” luncheon was held at The FacultyClub. Chemical Engineering ProfessorHarvey Blanch presented a talk entitled,“Where Do We Go From Here? AlternativeTransportation Fuels Derived From Biomass,”to a group of 35 alumni, friends and staff.Many of these alumni have been participat-ing in this luncheon for years, and it isalways great for them to get together annu-ally to sustain a long-held tradition.

Stay tuned for upcoming events in the fall.We will kick off the season with our secondannual “Fast Forward to Your Future” careerevent in September, after the students havesettled into their schedules. We need yourhelp! This program combines the expertiseand involvement of willing alumni to assistcurrent students in the College of Chemistrythrough panel discussions of career experi-ences, followed by a networking reception.Please contact Camille Olufson at510/643.7379 or by email at [email protected] to participate as a panelist inthis beneficial program for the students!

Our alumni are a valuable resource, andwe are most appreciative when you offeryour time and knowledge. I hope that wecan continue to get more folks involved inthe various programs and activities that theassociation offers. Please let us know whattypes of programs and events would bemost appealing and beneficial for you.Until next time!

Goooo Bears!

by rebecca zuckerman

REBECCA ZUCKERMANPh.D. 2000, Chem

a l u m n i a s s o c i a t i o n n e w s

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Chemistry lecturer MichelleDouskey, demonstrationsupervisor Lonnie Martin,and Associate Dean HerbStrauss keep things cool asthey prepare for Cal Day.

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Don R. de Halas (B.S. Chem)completed his Ph.D. at theUniversity of Oregon in 1960,

and, in the course of his career in thenuclear power industry, chaired the MaterialsScience and Technology Division of theAmerican Nuclear Society from 1969–70.He now enjoys retirement in Colorado,where he recently completed a 470-milehike on the Colorado Trail and climbed a13,000-plus-foot peak.

Alwin S. Milian (Ph.D. Chem)retired in 1985 from DuPont asa senior consultant in the comput-

ing division. During his 28 years at DuPont,he was primarily involved in the synthesesand reactions of hexafluoropropylene epoxideand derived products. After retirement, heand seven other DuPont retirees formedCECON Group, of which he was presidentuntil his final retirement in 2004. He nowmakes his home in Winter Haven, FL.

Since he took full retirementafter 29 years of teaching atCalifornia State University East

Bay (CSUEB) in Hayward, Richard E. Bozak

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’52(Ph.D. Chem) has more time to performwith his jazz ensemble, which recentlyplayed at Berkeley’s Claremont Club. Healso continues to do research in synthetic,cross-conjugated dienone (dubbed“CSUH56”), collaborating with wetchemists at CSUEB and biochemists inHungary and at Johns Hopkins University.Dick was among the alums who attendedthis year’s Springfest—a celebration forthe college’s graduating students.

Fred E. Stafford (Ph.D. Chem)wrote that he was planning atour of Israel, Egypt, and Turkey

after his retirement last January from theUniversity of Chicago. He had served assenior director for special projects in theOffice of the Vice President for Researchand for National Laboratories, and he con-tinues to mentor students and faculty incommunicating their research and incareer development.

Geoffrey E. Dolbear (B.A.Chem), who is president of G.E.Dolbear & Associates, a techni-

cal consulting firm, relocated his business

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T.Z. Chu (B.S. Chem) recently sent in this reminder of his student days.Chancellor Clark Kerr recognized the25th anniversary of the UniversityStudents’ Cooperative Association in1958 by inviting Eleanor Roosevelt tobe the keynote speaker at a specialmeeting in the Hearst Gymnasium.T.Z. was president of the USCA andwas invited to the dinner precedingher speech. “I was seated next to Mrs.Roosevelt and I remember to this dayher enormous graciousness and gen-erosity of spirit,” he writes. “Unlike

fraternities and sororities of that era, USCA membership was highly diverse in race,national origin, relative age, and experience prior to attending college. My own experienceswith USCA’s open first-come-first-serve admission policy and its culture of self-help andself-administration were also important factors in my later career.” (For the full story, seeusca.org/alumni/news/s08mem.php.)

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and his family from Diamond Bar, CA, toKaty, TX, outside Houston. He plans tocontinue consulting for businesses associ-ated with energy, especially oil refining, “aslong as it is interesting and fun.”

Hal B. Cooper (B.S. ChemE) ischair of the board of directorsfor CEFCO LLC, a new company

with a patented process for capturing coal-fired power plant emissions such as sulfuroxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, andtrace metals, and converting them to usablechemicals, fertilizers, and metallic byproducts.The company is located in Dallas, TX, buthe and his wife, Carol, live in Kirkland, WA.

Gordon W. Gribble (B.S. Chem),professor of chemistry atDartmouth College, spent his

2006–07 sabbatical year at GettysburgCollege, where he wrote a monograph,Naturally Occurring OrganohalogenCompounds—a Comprehensive Survey. Heand his wife, Louise, returned to theirhome in Hanover, NH, for the 2007–08academic year.

After graduating from Berkeley,Jaroslav R. “Jerry” Walter (B.A.Chem) took a job at the

Richmond Field Station under the super-vision of Gerhard Klein to save for medicalschool. When Jerry’s parents managed toemigrate from their native Czechoslovakiato Vienna, he earned his passage to Europeby working on a Norwegian ship. Financiallyunable to return to the U.S. after theirreunion, he worked for the U.S. Army inFrankfurt while studying medicine inGöttingen. He completed his medical stud-ies in London in 1972. Currently living inPrague, Jerry is working on a method hecalls “numeric chemistry,” which hedescribes as a new way of consideringchemical substances by analyzing theirelectronic structures. To paraphrase hisdescription, the electromagnetic propertiesare important to the electrons and their

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further division into substructures. Certaincombinations of these substructures arecapable of oscillation and, if the oscillatingcircle is closed, it results in a greater stabilityof the substance; if it is open, the reactivitytoward other substances is enhanced. Hebelieves that numeric chemistry “agreeswith biological and pharmaceutical effects,brings a new perspective to science, andcould become the most effective instrumentfor molecular design.” He is interested inmaking contact with fellow chemistryalumni who like mathematics and mightbe interested in discussing this new methodwith him. Walter would also like to discussa technique he has developed for cancerdiagnosis using spectralphotometry, whichhe believes has an accuracy rate of 96 percent.His email is [email protected].

The University of Virginiaannounced that Lester S.Andrews (Ph.D. Chem) received a

Distinguished Scientist Award for 2007–08for his extensive contributions to the field ofphysical chemistry. The award recognizesUniversity of Virginia faculty members inthe sciences, medicine, and engineering whohave made extensive and lasting contribu-

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tions to their discipline. He is cited forestablishing an “institutional tradition ofworld-class innovation in physical chemistryand spectroscopy that now attracts the verybest investigators of each new generation.”Best known for his matrix-isolation spec-troscopy research, an experimental methodof studying the individual molecules ofchemical compounds at very low tempera-tures, “he has worked with every non-radioactive element in the periodic tableand his work has fundamentally changedthe understanding of chemical bonding inmany elements, providing key insights forgenerations of chemists to come.” Havingserved on the chemistry faculty for over

40 years, he has produced more than 720publications and earned a “Web of Science”citation index of 59. He and his colleaguesrecently created the first uranium-carbontriple-bonded molecule, which the Proceedingsof the National Academy of Sciences recog-nized as contributing important insights touranium chemistry. He is also known asan excellent clarinet player who performswith the Charlottesville Municipal bandand with the University of VirginiaKlezmer Ensemble.

Philip G. Kosky (Ph.D. ChemE) retired asDistinguished GE Research Professor ofEngineering at Union College in Schenectady,NY. He says he will “really miss Union andparticularly teaching open minds.” He stilldevotes time to reprints and a possiblesecond edition of a freshman text he co-authored, Exploring Engineering, which theProfessional and Scholarly Book Divisionof the American Association of Publishersnamed the “Best New UndergraduateTextbook of the Year.” He and his wife, Mary,have moved to Cumming, GA, to be closeto one of their daughters and her family.

While teaching at the Universityof Aukland, New Zealand, LiamR. “Bob” Mann (Ph.D. Chem)

switched from biochemistry into appliedecology in the 1970s, which, he says, “evokeda few purger attempts from the captains ofindustry.” Although these attempts failed,illness eventually led to his early retirement.He remains active, however, in developing

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JoAnne Stubbe (Ph.D. Chem) received the 2008 Emil Thomas Kaiser Award of theProtein Society in recognition of her outstanding contribu-tions to the understanding of the involvement of cellenzymes in the production and breakdown of DNA. She isalso being honored for her conceptual breakthrough in find-ing the production of a thiyl radical in the ribonucleotidereductase from Lactobacillus leichmanni, and for designingcompounds that are analogs of the natural substrates for

these enzymes. One of these compounds has proven effective in treating pancreatic and pos-sibly other cancers. She is the Novartis Professor of Chemistry and professor of biology at MIT.

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Dean’s Dinner : (left) The Great Hall of The Faculty Club was the location for the 2008 Dean’s Dinner.(top right) Alums Art Dunlop and John Skinner get reacquainted. (bottom right) Tim and Roberta Montgomerylook forward to the evening’s festivities.

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inventions in solar water heating, solar airconditioning, and other fields, as well asblogging and writing articles on environ-mental matters. He and his wife, Lynelle,live in Whangaparaoa, New Zealand.

Edward F. Kleinman (Ph.D.Chem) retired last summerfrom Pfizer after a 30-year

career as a medicinal chemist. Following afew months of relaxation playing golf andgoing to the beach, he is planning to teach,consult, and study the piano. He and hiswife, Dorothy, live in Pawcatuck, CT.

Susan B. Solomon (Ph.D., M.S.’79, Chem), a senior scientist atthe National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration, was awardedmembership in the American PhilosophicalSociety, the oldest learned society in theUnited States, founded in 1743 by BenjaminFranklin. She also received the 2004 BluePlanet Prize for pioneering work in identi-fying the mechanism that produces theAntarctic ozone hole and for her contribu-tions towards the protection of the ozonelayer. Her work formed the basis of theU.N. Montreal Protocol, an internationalagreement to protect the ozone layer byregulating damaging chemicals.

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Jacobsen catalytic enantioselective epoxida-tion of unfunctionalized olefins. Hisresearch has focused on the design ofhighly selective catalytic systems that arepractical and widely applicable in organicsynthesis, in particular the synthesis ofvaluable biologically active compounds.

After 3 years in command of U.S.S.Springfield (SSN-761), a submarine home-ported in Groton, CT, Peter W. Miller (B.S.Chem) is now stationed in Naples, Italy,dealing with submarine operations in theregion as well as new engagements in Africa.He was sorry to miss Ken Raymond’s ACSshindig in the spring but hopes to visit thecampus between duty stations to catch upwith his research director.

In April, MIT appointed KarenK. Gleason (Ph.D. ChemE), theAlexander and I. Michael

Kasser Professor of Chemical Engineering,as the first associate dean of engineeringfor research. She joined the MIT faculty in1987 and has become an internationallyrecognized expert in chemical vapor depo-sition (CVD) of polymer thin films by plas-ma enhanced and hot-filament methods.Her research has led to new methods oftailoring coatings for new functionality ona wide variety of both new and traditionalsubstrates for diverse applications. She isalso known for her development of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spec-troscopy (NMR) and its applications inmicroscopic characterization of solid-statematerials. Her husband is Edward F.Gleason (Ph.D. ’87, ChemE).

John F. Hartwig (Ph.D. Chem),who is the Kenneth L. RinehartJr. Professor of Chemistry at the

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,has been selected to receive theInternational Catalysis Award. The awardrecognizes and encourages individual con-tributions by a young person in the field ofcatalysis. As the recipient of the award, he

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Caltech’s Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering andBiochemistry, Frances H. Arnold (Ph.D. ChemE), has beenelected to the National Academy of Sciences. Already amember of the National Academy of Engineering and theInstitute of Medicine, she is one of only eight living indi-viduals elected to all three branches of the NationalAcademies, and the only woman. The NAS recognizes hercontributions to integrating fundamentals in molecular

biology, genetics, and bioengineering, and for research that revolutionized protein engi-neering and its applications to biotechnology. Her work pioneered the use of "directedevolution" to improve proteins and other biological molecules for commercial applica-tions. Her methods have been adopted by hundreds of laboratories around the world andare applicable to a broad range of fundamental and practical problems.

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Kelly J. Brodbeck (B.S. ChemE)was appointed CEO of Vaporein 2004. The company, based in

Alameda, CA, specializes in medical devicesfor respiratory breathing gas humidificationand drug delivery. He and his wife, Lesli, livein Danville with their teens, Erich and Erin.

Early in 2008, Steven D.Schwartz (Ph.D. Chem), aprofessor of biophysics and

biochemistry at the Albert Einstein Collegeof Medicine of Yeshiva University inBronx, NY, was elected a fellow of theAmerican Association for Advancement ofScience. His wife, Jil Tardiff, is also on thefaculty of Einstein. Their oldest child willbe a freshman at the University of Chicagothis fall. Steve would like to hear fromother Ph.D. alums of his era:[email protected].

The Sheldon Emery Professor ofChemistry at Harvard University,Eric N. Jacobsen (Ph.D. Chem)

was awarded the ACS’s Herbert C. BrownAward for Creative Research in SyntheticMethods. The award recognizes, amongother accomplishments, his developmentof the Jacobsen Mn(salen) catalyst and the

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will present a plenary lecture at theInternational Congress on Catalysis (ICC)in Seoul, Korea, this July. His chair honorsour late alumnus, Kenneth Rinehart (Ph.D.’54, Chem). Hartwig’s wife, Anne M.Baranger (Ph.D. ’93, Chem), is an associateprofessor of Chemistry at UI and a visitingprofessor of chemistry at WesleyanUniversity this year.

Alex Weaver (Ph.D. Chem)recently graduated from med-ical school at the University of

Colorado in Denver. He will be doing histhree-year residency training in familymedicine at St. Anthony Hospital inWestminster, CO.

In September 2007, Sabrina G.Sobel (Ph.D. Chem) becamechair of the chemistry depart-

ment at Hofstra University in Hempstead,NY, where she has been teaching since1992.

Phillips Andover Academyrecently announced that theAmerican Chemical Society

inducted Paul D. Cernota (Ph.D. Chem)into the Aula Laudis Society, the ACS’sHall of Fame for outstanding teachers ofchemistry. A popular teacher at Andoversince 1999, he also sings with the distin-guished Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, withwhom he will tour Berlin, Prague, andWroclaw, Poland, this summer.

David Gracias (Ph.D. Chem), an assistantprofessor in chemical and biomolecularengineering at Johns Hopkins University,was selected as one of twelve recipients ofthe 2008 DuPont Young Professor Award.This 40-year old award at DuPont is meantto support young promising untenuredfaculty. The research theme in the Graciasgroup focuses on the science of miniatur-ization with applications in electronics andmedicine and is also funded by the NSF,NIH and the DOD. Gracias has already

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’93received an NSF Career Award, a BeckmanYoung Investigator Award, a Camille-DreyfusTeacher Scholar Award and a MarylandOutstanding Young Engineer Award. Hisresearch director was Gabor Samorjai.

Martin K. Beyer (Postdoc Chem),a former postdoc with JulieLeary, was appointed professor

of physical chemistry at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, Germany, inOctober 2007. For two years prior, he wasa Heisenberg fellow at TechnischeUniversität Berlin. He and his wife,Brigitte S. Fox-Beyer, live in Kiel.

This past August, Sara P. Gaucher (Ph.D.Chem) joined Amyris Biotechnologies inEmeryville, CA, as a scientist in its analyti-cal chemistry department.

Ellia Ciammaichella (B.S. ChemEand Chem) completed a J.D. atGeorge Washington University

Law School and joined Foley and Lardnerin Palo Alto, CA, as an associate attorneylast November.

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Leigh Warren (Ph.D. Chem)completed her J.D. in 2006 atColumbia University School of

Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske StoneScholar and the articles editor for TheColumbia Science and Technology Law Review.In 2007, she joined the Washington DCoffice of the law firm of Cooley GodwardKronish LLP as an associate in the patentcounseling and prosecution group and amember of the firm’s litigation department.Her practice focuses on patent prosecutionand counseling in a variety of chemicaltechnologies, including pharmaceuticals,polymers, and insecticides, and she appliesher scientific experience in patent infringe-ment litigation involving abbreviated newdrug applications under the Hatch-WaxmanAct. In service to the community, shevolunteers as a judge for the Giles S. RichIntellectual Property Law Moot CourtCompetition. Before going into law, sheworked as a synthetic chemist in the pesti-cide discovery division of FMC Corporationand as an analytical chemist at RocheDiagnostic Systems.

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Mazhar Ali, Mitch Garcia and Noel Chang, members of chemistry professor Heino Nitsche’sgroup, find a quiet corner at the Springfest celebration at Jupiter Beerhouse.


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A baby girl was born in May2007 to YounJoon Jung (PostdocChem) and his wife, Sun-Young

Oh. He is an assistant professor of chem-istry at Seoul National University, and hiswife is an assistant professor in SNU’sDepartment of English LanguageEducation.

Jiri Vala (Postdoc Chem) holds the positionof Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)Research Fellow and lecturer in the NationalUniversity of Ireland’s department ofmathematical physics. His research focusis topological phases and topological quan-tum computation, and he is supervisinggraduate students working on MP472“quantum information processing.” Healso holds a President of Ireland YoungResearcher Award for 2005–10.

Calvin P. daRosa (Ph.D. ChemE)started work last January as anapplications engineer at KLA

Tencor Corporation’s wafer inspection groupin Milpitas, CA. He and his wife, KerryKumabe, make their home in Berkeley.

At the Laboratoire de Réactivité et Chimiedes Solides, where he is a researcher for

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the Université de Picardie Jules VerneCNRS, Charles Delacourt (Postdoc ChemE)is working on modeling Li-ion batteries forHEV and P-HEV application.

Qiwen He (Postdoc Chem) is working as aprincipal scientist at Novartis in Changshu,China, doing process chemistry. He andhis wife, Fan Qi, live in Hangzhou.

Chi Ching Joyce Leung (B.S. ChemBio) islooking forward to starting the chemistryPh.D. program at the University of Texas,Austin. Since July 2007, she has been aresearch associate at Nanosyn in MenloPark, CA, synthesizing organic compoundsfor pharmaceutical companies.

Alyssa M. Redding (Ph.D. ChemE) startedher postdoctoral research in the physicalbiosciences division of Lawrence BerkeleyNational Laboratory last January. She lives inConcord with her husband, Terry Redding.

Ladan Lynn Foose (Ph.D.ChemE) is moving to LosAngeles after graduation to be

near her family and friends and to start anexciting new job as a consultant with theBoston Consulting Group.

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Faculty, Studentsand Friends

E. MORSE “BUD” BLUE

During a long career at Standard Oil/Chevron, E. Morse “Bud” Blue (B.S. ’34,Chem), developed such processes as cas-caded pretreater for removal of nitrogen; atwo-stage process for hydrodenitro-geniza-tion of naphtha; two-stage pretreatment ofreformer charge naphtha; and catalytichydrogenation process employing areduced nickel-molybdenum-aluminacatalyst—all of which were patented. In1959, while still at Chevron, he joined ourDepartment of Chemical Engineering as alecturer, and for the next 40 years he taughtthe plant and process design course. Onealumnus described Bud as a rigorousteacher who brought students from theacademic womb into the real world, andadded that the midwife analogy was a goodone because it included the slap on thebehind. Even after he concluded his teach-ing career, Bud remained closely affiliatedwith the department and the college as agenerous donor, a member of the capitalcampaign committee, a tireless volunteer, acharter member of the alumni associationand alumni steering team, and a leader ofthe G. N. Lewis Era alumni group. Budpassed away, at the age of 95, on February

Andrew Marcus, a member ofProfessor Richmond Sarpong’sresearch group, explains a rotaryevaporator to a group of eighth-grade students from the OaklandMilitary Institute, a public charterschool in the city of Oakland. Thestudents were guests of the col-lege’s Scholar’s Program.

In Memoriam

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s

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15, 2008, predeceased by his first wife,Harriet; his daughter, Bonnie; and hissecond wife, Molly. He is survived by hissons, William, Thomas, David, andCharles; his daughter, Joy; ten grandchil-dren; and nine great-grandchildren.

AHAMINDRA JAIN

Lecturer in the Department of Chemistryfrom 2000–06, Ahamindra Jain was a keyfigure in the college’s undergraduateorganic chemistry program. After leaving

Berkeley, he was a lecturer in Harvard’sdepartment of chemistry and chemicalbiology. We were greatly saddened to learnthat he passed away on May 10, 2008, aftera battle with cancer, leaving behind hiswidow, Richa, and their two young children.All who worked and studied with him willremember his warmth, his energy, and hisenthusiasm.

JOHN W. OTVOS

A long-time friend of the college and amainstay of the G. N. Lewis Era group,John W. Otvos passed away on January 25,2008. With a B.S. from Harvard and aPh.D. from Caltech, he worked for ShellDevelopment Company in Emeryville for30 years before joining the LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory, where heworked for another 20 years as a seniorstaff scientist, collaborating with Melvin

Calvin for a period. His wife, Margie, passedaway a few months later. He is survived byhis children, Jim Otvos and Linda Turner.

PAUL PLOUFFE

Paul Plouffe, thehighly appreciatedand much lovedteacher of theDepartment ofChemicalEngineering’sundergraduatecommunications

program, ChemE 185, passed away onNovember 11, 2007. A multitalented intel-lectual, he earned his B.A. and M.A. degreesfrom Boston College in classics and philos-ophy and a Certificat d’Études Supérieuresfrom the University of Paris. He studiedfilm production at USC before earning hisPh.D. in comparative literature and film atUC Berkeley in 1979. He co-authored TheCulture of Science: Essays and Issues forWriters, and Science and its Ways of Knowing,and he taught film and literature coursesthroughout the Bay Area, as well as writingthree screenplays. He was literate in Latin,Greek, French, Spanish and Italian, fluentin French, and conversant in Italian. Asa teacher in the chemical engineeringdepartment for 24 years, he gave hisstudents inspiration, thought, and support,making him a resource for identifyingworthy scholarship recipients and for manyother departmental activities, as well asearning him the 1999 Department ofChemical Engineering Teaching Awardand the UC Berkeley AIChE student chap-ter’s “Most Appreciated Faculty Member”award in 1994, 1996, 1999, and 2000.

MOSHE STERNBERG

At the time of his death on January 25,2008, Moshe Sternberg was an adjunctprofessor in the Department of Chemical

Engineering, a senior adviser for Bayer,and the chair of the Bayer/Canadian BloodServices R&D Fund. Educated in Romaniaand Israel, he had a 33-year career with Bayer(formerly Miles Laboratory), retiring asSenior Vice President for Research andDevelopment, Biologicals, and Biotechnology.He then joined the Berkeley faculty as anadjunct professor, sharing his expertise in

biotechnology by teaching the graduatebiochemical engineering course. He issurvived by his wife, Ella, son, Theodore,daughter, Talia Pierluissi, and four grand-children.

DANIEL J. “DAN” LUCAS (Ph.D.Candidate, Chem) was a first-year graduatestudent working with Charles Harris’sgroup when he tragically passed away onApril 16, 2008. Fellow group membersremember him as a driven scientist whotook a strong interest in his lab groupproject. He earned a B.S. in chemistryfrom the University of North Carolina atAsheville and came to Berkeley in 2007 topursue his interest in physical chemistry,initially doing research in the lab of StephenLeone. The faculty, staff, and students whoknew and appreciated him mourn his pass-ing. As a living memorial to Dan, a treewill be planted in the college complex.


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AlumniColeman E. Campbell (B.S.Chem) was retired from a careerat NL Industries and living in

San Carlos, CA, with his wife, Kerttu, atthe time of his death on November 5, 2007.

Glenn L. Allen (B.S. Chem)spent his career at GreatWestern Electrochemical

Company (later to become Dow Chemical),where he contributed to the developmentof carbon tetrachloride and tetrachloroeth-ylene, which became the solvents of choicefor dry-cleaning. The former, when com-bined with fluorine, made a refrigerantthat was the industry standard for manyyears. After retirement in 1968, he devotedhis time to environmental causes such asre-establishing river-bottom hardwoodforests along the Mississippi River, con-tributing to exhibits in the Monterey BayAquarium, and supporting research on themigration of monarch butterflies. He andhis wife, Margaret, made their home inWalnut Creek, CA, where he passed awayon November 13, 2007.

Nobel laureate Willis EugeneLamb Jr. (B.S. Chem; Ph.D. ’38,Physics) taught in Columbia

University’s physics department, where hedid research in their radiation laboratory,focusing primarily on detecting the shift inenergy levels of the hydrogen atom in dif-ferent states, which would come to becalled the “Lamb shift.” The Nobel Prizewas given to him in 1955 for this discovery,which led to a fundamental reconsidera-tion of the underlying concepts in applyingquantum theory to electromagnetism. Heheld teaching positions at Stanford, Oxfordand Yale universities before joining theUniversity of Arizona faculty in 1974. Hereceived the National Medal of Science in2000 and retired in 2003. He died onMay 15, 2008, in Tucson, at the age of 94.

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Roy W. Cohn (B.S. Chem)devoted his 50-year career inthe paint industry to O’Brien

Corporation and retired as their vicepresident. A resident of Berkeley, hepassed away on November 1, 2007, at theage of 93, survived by his wife of 67 years,Betty Black Cohn, and a son and grandson.

Robert B. Dean (B.A. Chem) earned hisPh.D. from Cambridge University. At theonset of WWII, he was doing research atthe University of Rochester, where hedeveloped the theory that living cellsactively pump sodium out of the cell usinga pump that must exist in the cell mem-brane. When first presented, the theorywas dismissed out-of-hand but eventuallyled to greater understanding of the conceptof transport of ions across cell membranes.His pioneering work led to various posi-tions in academia and industry and, in1964, he began work for several agencies,including the Public Health Services (laterthe Environmental Protection Agency), theInternational Solid Waste Organization,and the World Health Organization. Hepassed away on December 30, 2007.

Harold B. Smith (B.S. Chem)worked for the Garratt CallahanCompany as a water treatment

engineer. In retirement, he and his wife,Helen, lived in southern California untilhis passing on February 3, 2006.

Following graduation, John B. Wilkes (B.S.Chem) did research in private industry butjoined the army when the U.S. enteredWWII and was sent to Aberdeen ProvingGrounds as a captain in the OrdinanceTechnical Intelligence Team. He served incombat zones throughout the South Pacificand received, among other medals, theBronze Star. Following the war, he earnedhis Ph.D. in chemistry at StanfordUniversity and joined Chevron Research inRichmond, where he spent his career, with56 patents valued at millions of dollars.He was an active member of the American

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Association for the Advancement of Scienceand a staunch Cal and Stanford backer withseason football tickets to both schools. Hetaught folk dancing and contributed gener-ously to UC Berkeley and Stanford, as wellas participating in other philanthropic andvolunteer activities. He died at 92, onFebruary 15, 2008, in a Burlingame hospitalafter a brief illness. Eunice, his wife of 59years, predeceased him; his two sons,Michael and George, survive him.

Floyd B. “Bruce” Longtin (Ph.D.Chem) taught at Illinois Tech inChicago until 1949. The follow-

ing year he joined DuPont, starting inChicago, then New Jersey, and finally attheir Savannah River Plant in SouthCarolina, supporting the production ofmaterials for atomic weapons. After retir-ing in 1978, he returned to teaching at theUniversity of South Carolina. He passedaway on October 5, 2007, at the age of 94,leaving his wife, Cecilia, three sons, threedaughters, and 13 grandchildren.

Wilfred “Wil” Garfinkle (B.S.Chem) passed away onNovember 14, 2007, survived

by his wife of 66 years, Wilma, four sons,nine grandchildren, and five great-grand-children. During World War II, he servedin the army near Fort Ord, and later in thenavy at the Monterey Presidio. In 1946, hejoined his father’s Alameda, CA, business,Clamp-Swing Pricing Company, and passedthe reins to his sons when he retired in1998. A life-long member of Temple Israelin Alameda, he served as their volunteercantor for 30 years. An Eagle Scout, he alsoremained active in the Boy Scouts ofAmerica’s Alameda Chapter throughouthis life.

After graduating, Kenneth M.Berg (B.A. Chem) served as aflight instructor and patrol plane

commander in the navy, and later as aresearch chemist in industry. From the ’50s

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onward, he worked as a marketing consult-ant, project development engineer, insuranceconsultant and finally, real estate broker inMiami, FL. He authored two books, HisName was Andrew and The Saga of the Hog’sHead. He passed away on November 1,2007, survived by his wife, Jacqueline.

Paul B. Thompson (B.S. Chem) spent hiscareer at Caltex Petroleum and retired as aregional director. He and his surviving wife,Haviland Coyle (B.S. ’41, Chem), were sup-porters of the college and regular attendeesat the G. N. Lewis Era luncheons. Theymade their home in Los Gatos, CA. Hepassed away in April 2008.

Allen C. Triay (B.S. Chem) worked forRockwell International and lived inFullerton, CA. He died on December 8,2007, survived by his wife, Paulette.

Leonard E. Watkins (B.S. Chem) passedaway on September 9, 2007, having livedin San Marcos, CA. His wife, Juliette,survives him.

Edward D. Goldberg (B.S.Chem) after serving in the navyduring WWII, obtained his

Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Hejoined the chemistry faculty at ScrippsInstitution of Oceanography in San Diegoin 1949, where he focused his research onthe effects of human-introduced pollutantson marine environments. He was consid-ered one of the premier marine geochemistsand chemical oceanographers investigatingglobal ocean pollution problems. His findingsinfluenced the state of California and theU.S. Navy to tighten controls on the use oftoxic marine paints, and he won a TylerPrize for Environmental Achievement in1989. Greatly appreciated by colleaguesand students alike, he was a regular donorto the College of Chemistry. He passedaway on March 7, 2008, survived by hiswife, Kathe Bertine Goldberg, a retiredprofessor of geosciences at San Diego StateUniversity; a son, three daughters, andthree grandchildren.

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James W. L. “Jim” Leonard (B.S.Chem), a Concord, CA, residentwho regularly attended G. N.

Lewis Era luncheons with his wife, Laura,passed away on June 18, 2007. He hadbeen on Cal’s swimming and water poloteams as a student.

Geza S. Ronay (B.A. Chem), who resided inOakland since emigrating from Hungaryin 1927, worked for Shell DevelopmentCompany in Emeryville for 40 years. He wasan active member of the First PresbyterianChurch, the Oakland YMCA, the AmericanChemical Society, and the UC BerkeleyAlumni Association. A donor to the college,he was a faithful attendee at G. N. LewisEra luncheons and other events. He passedaway in Oakland on April 2, 2008, prede-ceased by his wife, Katherine, and survivedby two daughters, four grandchildren, andtwo great-grandchildren.

William R. Elswick (M.S.ChemE), who piloted his ownCessna Dragonfly, was president

and owner of the East Brook Corporation,an investment advisory service in Oxnard,CA. He died on October 31, 2007.

Horace H. Hopkins (Ph.D.Chem) had a career in nuclearengineering with the

Westinghouse Hanford Company inWashington State. After retirement, he andhis wife, Lois, lived in Puyallup, WA, andhe volunteered as a math tutor. He passedaway on April 23, 2008, survived by his wife.

Roland Jang (M.S., B.S. ’48,ChemE) died on February 22,2008. He had resided in

Hillsborough, CA.

Donald F. Mastick (Ph.D., B.S. ’42, Chem)served as an editor for the U.S. AtomicEnergy Commission’s Annual Review ofNuclear Science and later owned a smallcompany with his wife, Irene, which theysold to retire in Santa Barbara, CA. Hedied on September 8, 2007.

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James F. Murphy (Ph.D. Chem) was thegeneral manager for Productive Computerin Benicia, CA, and made his home in SanFrancisco. He passed away on October 27,2007.

During the ’50s, Robert L. Tromp (B.S.Chem) was a radiochemist for theLawrence Livermore National Lab. Heearned an M.S. from the University ofIdaho in 1963 and then went on to a 33-year career at the Idaho NationalEngineering Laboratory. In retirement, heand his wife, Annette, lived in Idaho Falls,ID, where he passed away on March 31,2008, survived by his wife, one daughter,four sons, and 17 grandchildren.

After completing his doctoralwork with Glenn Seaborg,Richard M. Diamond (Ph.D.

Chem) served on the faculty at Harvardand Cornell universities before returningto California to work at the LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory. During his37 years at the Lab, he helped revolutionizeresearch into the interior structure ofatomic nuclei. In the process, he and col-league Frank S. Stephens (Ph.D. ’55, Chem)developed the High-Energy ResolutionArray, which measured cascades of gammarays from nuclear reactions. They alsodeveloped a concept for a major nuclearresearch instrument now called the “gam-masphere” which, in its current version atthe Argonne National Laboratory, is usedby researchers worldwide. Their workearned them both the prestigious BonnerPrize from the American Physical Societyin 1980 and, in 1993, Diamond receivedthe Glenn T. Seaborg Award for NuclearChemistry from the American ChemicalSociety. Although he retired from LBNL in1995, Diamond continued his researchthere almost until the time of his death onSept. 14, 2007, at the age of 83. His formerwife, Berkeley professor Marian CleevesDiamond, and their two daughters and twosons survive him.

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William H. Eustis (Ph.D., B.S. ’43, M.S. ’49,Chem) was a chemistry instructor for theYakima Valley Community College. Inretirement, he and his wife, Orma, madetheir home in Selah, WA, where he passedaway on October 14, 2007.

Richard L. Kowalkowski (B.S. Chem) servedwith the U.S. Army’s post-war occupationforces in Korea, then joined the Holy CrossBrothers in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, for sixyears before coming to San Francisco,where he lived and worked as a chemistuntil his death on April 1, 2008.

After receiving his degree, Hari D. Sharma(Ph.D. Chem), returned to his native India,where he rose to be head of the radiochem-istry and isotope division of the AtomicEnergy Commission of India. His concernabout the non-peaceful direction of India’snuclear program in the early ’60s led himto move with his family to Canada, wherehe became a popular professor of chemistryat the University of Waterloo in Ontario.His research focused on the effects of radi-ation on humans and the environment.For a decade following the Chernobylnuclear accident, he analyzed the radio-activity in Scandinavian mushrooms. Heresearched the radiation exposure ofAmerican workers in the WWII nuclearprogram and, most recently, led a contro-versial study that measured radiation levelsin veterans and Iraqi women and childrencaused by the use of munitions made ofdepleted uranium (DU) that aerosolize andcombust on impact, the use of which hecalled “a crime against humanity.” He diedon October 18, 2007, survived by his wifeof 56 years, Gudrun, a son, a daughter, andfive grandchildren.

Dwight C. Conway (B.S. Chem)earned a Ph.D. in 1956 fromthe University of Chicago, fol-

lowed by postdoctoral research at PurdueUniversity and a subsequent assistant pro-fessorship there. In 1963, he joined thechemistry faculty at Texas A&M University,

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where he received numerous awards forexcellence in teaching. In 2006, he and hiswife, Diane, assistant dean of the MaysBusiness School, retired to Indianapolis,IN, where he passed away on December 5,2007, survived by his wife and their son,Patrick.

Philip L. Hanst (M.S. Chem) completed hisPh.D. in physical chemistry in 1958 atOhio State University. He held positions atAVCO in Wilmington, MA, the NationalAeronautics and Space AdministrationOptics and Microwave Laboratory inCambridge, MA, and the EnvironmentalProtection Agency in Research TrianglePark, NC. He founded and was presidentof Infrared Analysis in Anaheim, CA,which manufactures and sells instrumen-tation and software for the analysis of tracegases and provides consultation andresearch services for air pollution measure-ment and air pollution chemistry. A resi-dent of Durham, NC, he passed away onDecember 28, 2007.

Joanne V. Pluess Collins (B.S.Chem) passed away on March16, 2008. She and her husband,

Allan “Wayne” Collins (B.S. ’56, Civil Eng),who survives her, made their home inPhoenix, AZ.

Eileen T. Handelman (Ph.D.Chem) was co-founder of BardCollege at Simon’s Rock in

Great Barrington, MA. She was its formerdean and a teacher of science and mathe-matics there for 23 years. As part of thecollege’s 25th anniversary in 1991, anannual scholarship for students in the nat-ural sciences and mathematics was estab-lished in her honor. She died on August16, 2007, survived by her husband, Robert.

Raymond Sullivan (B.S. Chem)received his Ph.D. from theUniversity of Colorado at

Boulder in 1964 and worked for the Texas

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State Aquarium. He passed away onNovember 7, 2007, survived by his wife,Kathy.

Following his retirement fromLawrence Livermore NationalLab, Jack H. Elliott (B.A. Chem)

remained active in the Northern CaliforniaChapter of the Health Physics Society, aneducational organization that supports thesafe use of radiation in research, medicine,and industry. He passed away onDecember 26, 2007.

Ladislav H. “Laddie” Berka(M.S. Chem) earned his Ph.D.in chemistry from the

University of Connecticut in 1965 andjoined the faculty of the chemistry andchemical engineering departments atWorcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) inWorcester, MA. He had a special interestin forensic science and served as editor ofthe “Forensic Science Column” in the jour-nal of the New England Association ofChemistry Teachers, as well as organizingthe forensic science colloquia at WPI formany years. His research on fingerprintsled to a couple of patents. At the time ofhis death on February 7, 2008, he was anemeritus research professor and still activeat WPI. His wife, Barbara, their two daugh-ters and three granddaughters survive him.

Luis H. Castro-Conde (B.S. ChemE) con-sulted for the U.S. Borax ResearchCorporation and held patents for bleachingwash agents. He passed away onSeptember 21, 2007, in Lancaster, CA.

Judith G. (Kiraly) Gilmore (B.S. Chem) ofOrinda, CA, passed away on April 11,2008. She and her husband, John T. “Jack”Gilmore (Ph.D. ’60, Chem), who survivesher, have been long-time donors to theCollege of Chemistry.

While working as a chemist atthe old National Bureau ofStandards, Ian R. Bartky (Ph.D.

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Chem) developed an interest in the subjectof time standardization. During the oilembargo of 1973–74, a House commercecommittee asked him to determinewhether Daylight Saving Time should beextended into winter to save energy. Hisresearch concluded that the extensionwould not save much energy, but it ledhim to look further into horology, the sci-ence of measuring time. In retirement, heauthored two books: Selling the True Time:Nineteenth-Century Timekeeping in America,hailed as the first comprehensive history oftimekeeping in America; and One Time FitsAll: The Campaigns for Global Uniformity.He died on December 18, 2007, survivedby his wife of 47 years, Elizabeth Hodgins,with whom he was a donor to the college,and a son and a daughter.

Richard E. Moore (Ph.D. Chem),professor emeritus of chemistryat the University of Hawaii,

Honolulu, passed away on December 10,2007, after a battle with multiple myelomaand pneumonia. He did postdoctoralresearch at the University of Hawaii in thedeveloping field of marine natural prod-ucts and joined their faculty in 1966. Hisresearch there led to the discovery of anti-cancer agents derived from cyanobacteria.He retired in 2003 after 42 years of service,during which he published nearly 300papers and filed more than 100 patentapplications. Marilyn, his wife of 47 years,four children, and nine grandchildrensurvive him.

Edward B. Barrios (B.S. Chem)passed away on December 18,2007, having lived in Fort

Collins, CO.

Dennis D. Davis (Ph.D. Chem) was a pro-fessor of chemistry at New Mexico StateUniversity. He died October 26, 2007.

David W. Green (Ph.D. Chem)was killed in a car accident on’68

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December 27, 2007. He did postdoctoralresearch at the University of Chicago andworked as a chemist at Argonne NationalLab. He also served periodically as anadjunct faculty member at Albion Collegein Albion, MI, his undergraduate almamater. While at Argonne, he rose to theposition of manager of the analyticalchemistry labs in the chemical technologydivision, and he was a long-time editor ofManaging the Modern Laboratory, thejournal of the Analytical LaboratoryManagement Association. On the Web,students and co-workers at Albion andArgonne expressed an outpouring ofappreciation for his teaching, his integrity,his work, and his wonderful sense of humor.

John Gahimer (M.S. ChemE) ofSt. Charles, MO, died on April29, 2008. His scientific career

included positions with Battelle, the U.S.Department of Energy, DuPont, Celanese,and the Institute of Gas Technology,Chicago. He also worked as a real estateagent with Coldwell Banker. His wife,Karen, of St. Charles, MO, two daughtersand two grandchildren survive him.

Alain W. C. Tsang (B.S. ChemE),a donor to the college, was aresident of Hong Kong working

with Finland Investment. He passed awayon September 24, 2007.

Paul E. Duerksen (B.S. Chem)was a quality assurance coordi-nator for SVL Analytical in

Kellogg, ID, and a resident of Silverdale,WA. He died on November 13, 2007.

Patrick Wong (B.S. ChemE), aresident of Orinda, CA, and anofficer of the California State

Highway Patrol, passed away on October 4,2007.

After completing post-doctoral work at Berkeley,Robert Scarborough

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(Postdoc Chem)moved to Half Moon Bay,CA, worked at California Biotechnologyand COR Therapeutics developing drugsand, in 2003, co-founded PortolaPharmaceuticals in South San Francisco.During his 25-year career, he was the leadscientist in the development of Natrecor,used to treat patients with acute heart fail-ure, and Integrilin, a drug that preventsheart attacks during heart procedures.Three more drugs he helped discover werein clinical trials at the time of his death onJune 25, 2006. He is survived by hisparents and sisters; his wife, Carroll AnnaCrew; and their son, Ian.

After leaving Berkeley,Christopher R. Schmid (PostdocChem) took a position as a

process chemist in the Chemical ProductResearch & Development group at Eli Lillyin Indianapolis, IN. His work contributed tothe synthesis of the pharmaceutical productsGemzar and Evista and more than a dozendevelopment drug candidates. He was pro-moted to research adviser at Lilly, publishedmore than 15 papers, and held severalpatents. He served as an associate editor ofOrganic Process Research & Development andwas a founding member of its editorialboard. He also co-founded the ChristianLeaders for Africa and was active in theLight of the World Ministries. He died oflymphoma on Dec. 26, 2007, inIndianapolis.

Upon completion of his work atBerkeley, Martin Kohler (PostdocChem) took a position as a deputy

department head of the Department ofAnalytical Chemistry with the Swiss FederalInstitute for Materials Testing and Research(EMPA) in Dübendorf, Switzerland. In May2007, the government of the Swiss Kantonof Solothurn announced his appointmentas the head of food control for the healthoffice. He died on November 26, 2007.

compiled by dorothy read

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C O L L E G E O F C H E M I S T R Y , U C B E R K E L E Y

M A Y 2 4 , 2 0 0 8 • 7 : 0 0 P M • Z E L L E R B A C H H A L L

John Prausnitz, winner of the National Medal of Science in2005, has been an outstanding teacher and researcher atBerkeley for more than 50 years. In 1955 he joined theDepartment of Chemical Engineering at Berkeley as assistantprofessor, rising to the rank of professor in 1963. He wasappointed a professor of the Graduate School upon his retire-ment in 2004.

He is one of a very few scholars to be elected to the NationalAcademy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineeringand the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He hasreceived honorary Doctor of Engineering degrees from threeuniversities in Europe and an honorary Doctor of Sciencefrom Princeton.

“The atmosphere on this campus pleads for a balance between scienceand humanistic knowledge. Berkeley believes that the humanities arean essential part of that legitimate inquiry which must be pursued toattain a high quality of life.”

“I am saying that Berkeley believes in vitality, optimism and beautyjust as it believes in science and humanities. I am saying thatBerkeley affirms all aspects of life that make life worthwhile. Bywitnessing and being a part of that affirmation, you have received anelement of education of which you have, perhaps, been unaware.”

“Graduation is primarily a celebration of joy, of looking back with sat-isfaction on past achievements and of looking ahead with anticipationtoward mastering new challenges. There is no rational reason for put-ting on a cap and gown, for exchanging congratulations, for eatingcake, for presenting bouquets of flowers, for smiling at the camera.”

“When you leave Berkeley, you will carry with you a sense of valuesbased on Berkeley’s tacit dimension: the respect for truth based onevidence, the respect for broad knowledge that goes beyond scientificinquiry and most of all, the respect for nature, the importance of funand humor and beauty and imagination, the conviction that lifeshould be lived fully.”

for full text of speech, please see:

chemistry.berkeley.edu/commencement/address/2008_address.html

Berkeley: The Tacit DimensionEXCERPTS FROM COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS BY JOHN PRAUSNITZ

’08 commencement

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Catalystuniversity of california berkeleyCollege of Chemistry420 latimer hall #1460berkeley, ca 94720-1460

Upcoming 2008 Alumni Events

Fast Forward to Your FutureSeptember 25 5:30–7:30 p.m.

180 Tan Kah Kee Hall, Berkeley CampusAlumni from chemistry, chemical biology andchemical engineering are needed to participateat this worthwhile student event! There will bethree professional panels that will include alumnidiscussing their career fields and giving studentsthe chance to ask questions as they explore theircareer options. A reception and time for net-working will follow the panel discussions. Formore information and to volunteer to participateas a panelist, contact Camille Olufson [email protected] or by phone 510/643.7379.

Homecoming WeekendOctober 3 11:00 a.m.–noon

Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center,Berkeley CampusChemical engineering professor David V. Schafferwill present a talk entitled “Engineering theFuture: New Stem Cell and Gene Therapies.”New molecular therapies based on stem cells andgene delivery have significant potential to createcures for numerous devastating illnesses, such asAlzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, anddiabetes. Before these approaches can succeed,however, a number of engineering challenges mustbe overcome. Schaffer will discuss how his workapplies principles of molecular and cellular engi-neering to overcome these challenges and helpstranslate research potential into clinical reality.

October 4 9:00–10:00 a.m.Location TBA, Berkeley Campus“Travels from the Human Genome to Mars” willbe presented by Professor Richard A. Mathies ofthe chemistry department.Microfabrication, a common tool for electronicsmanufacture in the Silicon Valley, is now beingused to fashion microfluidic chips or wafers thatcan perform sensitive biochemical analyses onliquid samples thousands of times smaller thana drop. This microanalysis technology, developedinitially to meet the demands of the HumanGenome Project, is now being used in a wide

variety of applications including infectious diseasedetection, genotyping, and forensic identification.The most “far-out” application is the developmentof an instrument that will travel to Mars to testfor chemical signs of extraterrestrial life.

Prior to the lecture, attend a complimentary con-tinental breakfast in the Latimer Lobby from8:30–9:00 a.m.

“Free Radicals” and “CHEMillennium” Alumni Era BrunchOctober 4 10:30 a.m.–noon

Seaborg Room, The Faculty ClubJoin us for a brunch with fellow classmates andalumni from the graduating years of 1963–99.The college’s new dean will emcee this eventand will discuss his/her vision and goals forthe next few years. To register online, go tochemistry.berkeley.edu/alumni/events.html.Reserved parking will be available. Children arewelcome at this casual event! Following thebrunch, watch the Bears roll over the Sun Devils!

AIChE Reception for Alumni and FriendsNovember 18 7:00–8:30 p.m.

Location TBA, Philadelphia, PAJoin Chemical Engineering Chair Jeff Reimer atthis annual alumni and friends reception held inconnection with the AIChE annual meeting. Checkonline for more details as the date approaches.

“Alumni of the G.N. Lewis Era” LuncheonNovember 15 12:00–2:00 p.m.

Heyns Room, The Faculty ClubSave the date! Alumni and friends from the pre-1945 graduating years are invited to attend thisannual luncheon. Look for a separate mailing inearly fall.

MIT-Stanford-UC Berkeley Nanotechnology ForumsCheck the homepage at http://mitstanfordberkeleynano.org/ for more information onthese monthly nanotech forums.

+ For a list of College of Chemistry seminars, please go tochemistry.berkeley.edu and select Seminars & Events.

+ For alumni events, see chemistry.berkeley.edu/alumni/events.html.background image: rayograph courtesy of michelle douskey

nonprofit org.u.s. postage paiduniversity of california

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