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Undergraduate Student Highlights
Aviva Litovitz is the 1999 Chancellor's Gold Medal recipient. The Chancellor's Gold Medal comes in recognition of the greatest achievement by a McMaster undergraduate in scholarship and leadership. Aviva Litovitz is an Arts & Science student in Chemistry who consistently achieved high academic standing. Her academic awards include Hooker Scholarships each year she has been at McMaster. In addition, Aviva has actively participated in a number of volunteer programs. She was a peer counsellor for students with disabilities, an academic outreach peer for first year students, and a Speakeasy Program volunteer - a conversation partner for students learning english.
Laura Ennis is the 1998/99 Hypercube Scholar, which was awarded to her in the spring at the Chem 4G06 seminar day. The award is sponsored by Hypercube, Inc. and consists of a plaque and a copy of their computational chemistry package Hyperchem. Laura has enrolled in graduate studies here at Mac, under the supervision of Mike McGlinchey.
Two McMaster chemistry undergraduates were awarded 1998/99 Reactive Intermediates Student Exchange (RISE) Scholarships this past year. Aviva Litovitz spent the summer at Dalhousie University, while Ivan Piletic, a Chemistry Specialist, spent his summer at the University of Ottawa. Both Aviva and Ivan are now back at Mac and enrolled in the final year of their respective programs. We hosted University of Victoria chemistry student Robyn Ovans, who studied the chemistry of organogermanium reactive intermediates with Willie Leigh, our representative in the RISE program. RISE awards outstanding undergraduate chemistry students from 11 institutions across Canada with summer employment in the laboratory of a RISE participant at one of the other institutions. Aviva, Ivan and Robyn, like most of the other RISE Scholars across the country, were also awarded concurrent NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Associateships. The program ended with the annual RISE Workshop, which was held this year at the University of Alberta on August 28.
Sangeeta Chopra, a McMaster Chemical Engineering student, won the 1998-99 Monsaroff student paper competition. Her topic was "Artificial Vascular Graphs".
The Co-op Program
The first class of co-op students will complete their program this spring. Altogether, 15 students comprise the three current classes of co-op students. During 1998-99 these students were employed at the following locations:
Bio-Mega/Boehringer Ingelheim Research Inc., Laval, QC; Dow Chemical Canada, Sarnia, ON; CYTEC Canada , Niagara Falls, ON; Glaxo Wellcome Inc., Missisauga, ON; GlycoDesign Inc., Toronto, ON; Lafarge Lime Canada Inc., Dundas, ON; McGill Pulp & Paper Research Centre, Montreal, PQ; McMaster University, Department of Chemistry; McMaster University, Occupational & Environmental Health Laboratory; Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research, Pointe Claire-Dorval, PQ;National Research Council; Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute, London, ON; Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Etobicoke, ON; PAPRICAN, Pointe Claire, PQ; Sterling Pulp Chemicals Inc., Toronto, ON; Uniroyal Chemical Company, Guelph, ON; and Xerox Research Centre Canada, Mississauga, ON.
Students conducted work terms in research & development, product development and production in the polymer, pulp and paper, pharmaceutical, special chemical and water treatment industries.
McMaster Chemistry Undergraduate Society (MCUS) 1998-1999 Executive
President: Tyrone Chang
Vice-President: Alex Kuo
Treasurer:
Nicole Rampersad
Secretary:
Nicole Deschamps
Social Convener: Dino Alberico
4th year reps:
Christina Pagnucco
Han Chan
Poonam Jain
3rd year reps:
Aaron Lawrence
Andrea Szkurhan
Dina Popovic
2nd year reps:
Giacomo Angelini
Greg Potter
Marie Rosati
Faculty Advisor: Randy Dumont
Last year's MCUS organized events included the February "Atomic Explosion of Fun", a pot-pourri of sometimes noisy chemistry demonstrations including a glowing block of dry ice, tubes which barkes like dogs, and of course many varied explosions. This public extravaganza was presented by Brian McCarry and Mike Brook in the tradition of David Humphreys' "Magic of Molecules".
The MCUS also sponsored entertaining and educational talks by Alex Bain and Ph.D. student, Michael Gerken. Alex Bain used choreographed dance moves from Hollywood musicals , including those of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, to illustrate the intricacies of correlated spin dynamics. Michael Gerken depicted life in the midst of exotic, and spectacularly reactive, compounds of xenon and osmium in record-breaking oxidation states. He also described how not every exotic compound reported in the literature actually exists.
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