Sarah Phillips has recently accepted a position of Analytic Coffee Chemist at Smuckers Corporation in Orville, Ohio. For the past two years, Sarah has been the Organic Laboratory Coordinator at Hiram College. Congratulations Sarah!
Undergraduate student researcher Diane Dawley was awarded a Petro-Dex Corporation Scholarship in Chemistry at the recent Knight Awards Banquet – congrats Diane!
We also give the warmest congratulations to Dr. Rashid Altamimi! Dr. Altamimi successfully defended his PhD dissertation, titled “Synthesis and Photophysical Properties of Porphyrin-Containing Supramolecular Systems” on Tuesday November 28, 2010. Congratulations Rashid!
Congratulations are in order to Dr. Wongwit “Lek” Wongwitwichote! Dr. Wongwitwichote successfully defended his PhD dissertation, titled “Synthesis and Spectroscopy of Cofacial Distilbenes and Aggregated 9-Substituted Anthracenes” on Tuesday September 21, 2010. Once again, congratulations Lek!
front row: Natalie Romano, Hamideh Shokouhi Mehr, Rashid Altimimi
back row: Rajendra Achayra, DAM, Jojo Joseph, Wongwit Lek Wongwitwichote, Ryan Schafer
Tis the end of summer and we wish our Project SEED summer research student Delvon Carson the very best of luck as he finishes his senior year in high school and prepares for college. Delvon worked on the very successful synthesis and characterization of anthracenes substituted with liquid crystalline side-chains with Wongwit Lek Wongwitwichote.
Tis the end of summer and we wish our Project SEED summer research student Latoya Higginbottom the very best of luck as she finishes her senior year in high school and prepares for college. Latoya worked on the very successful synthesis and characterization of liquid crystalline charge-transfer complexes with Wongwit Lek Wongwitwichote.
Some pictures of Latoya, the boss, Wongwit and Rashid are shown below. We’ll miss you Latoya, but we wish you all the very best!!! 
Latoya Makin’ Stuff!
What’d you do this time Lek!?!
Latoya Hanging with the boss
We happily congratulate Ms. Sarah Phillips, who successfully completed her Masters thesis and accepted a position as Organic Laboratory Instructor at Hiram College. Way to go Sarah!
Congratulations are also in order for Dr. Timothy Smith. Tim successfully defended his PhD dissertation on July 21, 2009, and is now a postdoctoral fellow with Alpha Micron in Kent, OH.
Congratulations to you both!
Congratulations to Professor Susan J. Cramer who was recently promoted to Full Professor at Grove City College! Awesome work Susan, we’re obviously very proud of you 😉
It was a great pleasure to welcome and introduce Professor Matt Platz (Ohio State) at the University of Akron and Akron ACS annual Crano Memorial Lecture on April 15, 2009. Matt gave two talks, an afternoon talk on carbenes and nitrenes and an evening talk on his work in the area of blood transfusion chemistry. Both talks were of course well-received! Several pictures of DAM and Matt, as well as part of the current research group, are below.
Matt Platz & Dave Modarelli
Natalie Romano, Lek Wongwitwichote, Matt Platz, Dave Modarelli,
Jojo Joseph, Rajendra Acharya (l-r)
We also congratulate former undergraduate researcher Dave Matthews on his acceptance into the Pharmacy School at Ohio State – Congratulations Dave! We’re really happy for you!
We are happy to welcome Mr. Rajendra Acharya, Mr. Jojo Joseph, and Ms. Natalie Romano into the group. Rajendra received his BS from the Trichandra College of Tribhuvan University in 2000 and his MS degree from Tribhuvan University in 2003. Jojo received his BSc from Kannur University in Kerala in 2004 and his MSc from Mahatma Gandhi University in 2006. Jojo was also a research associate at Unilever in Bangalore for two years, and has filed two Indian patents so far in his career. Natalie received her BS from Penn State University – Erie; The Behrand College in 2008, performing undergraduate research with Prof. Jay Amicangelo. Natalie comes to us with two prior publications from her undergraduate work in JPC-A (2008 112, 3020-3030) and Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (2008, 10, 2695-2705). We’re looking forward to good things from these new group members!
Congratulations to Dr. John Harvey, who was married on September 20, 2008 at John’s family’s sweet horse farm – we wish him and his beautiful wife Janelle the very best always. Giddyup!
Congratulations to Ms. Sarah (Porinchak) Phillips – on October 11 Sarah and Grant Phillips were married – we wish them the very best always.
Pictures from the Group Holiday Party, December 2008…nice…
Does he EVER stop talking!?!
DAM doing what he does best, fall asleep in group functions!
For once, everyone is (mostly) smiling! (back row, l-r: Lek Wongwitwichote, Jojo Joseph,
Rashid Altimimi, Rajendra Acharya, Dr. Tuan Nguyen, Tim Smith, front row: Natalie Romano,
DAM, Sarah Phillips)
The Photophysical Team (back row, l-r: Jojo Joseph, DAM, Dr. Tuan Nguyen; front: Natalie Romano, Sarah Phillips)
The Synthetic Guys (back row, l-r: Rajendra Acharya, DAM, Tim Smith; front: Rashid Altimimi, Lek Wongwitwichote)
The Inmates:
(l-r: Lek, Tim)
(l-r: Rashid, Sarah)
(l-r: Jojo, Rajendra)
Natalie
The Warden!
CONGRATULATIONS to Greg and Jill Capitosti on the birth of their second son Benjamin, who was born on December 18th! Greg indicates they haven’t gotten much sleep lately, but he still thinks someone can beat OSU this weekend 😉 Coincidence?
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Elvin Alemán on the successful defense of your dissertation. Elvin gets the award for having the longest dissertation in the Modarelli group so far at 300 pages! Great work Elvin! Congratulations again Elvin, we’re all very proud of you!!! 
Elvin and the Boss similing…
CONGRATULATIONS to Rashid Altimimi and his wife, who recently had a new baby girl! We’re excited and happy for you both Rashid!
CONGRATULATIONS to Yulin Wu (MS, 2001). Yulin is currently a Scientist with GlaxoSmithKline, and was recently awarded Exceptional Scientist Award!!! Yulin tells me he likes me but he’s not quite ready to donate any of his prize money to my personal retirement fund 😉 Congratulations Yulin, we’re all very proud of you!!!
CONGRATULATIONS to Prof. Susan Cramer, who was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Chemistry at Grove City College – way to go Susan!!!We’d like to welcome Dr. John Harvey (Ph.D. University of Akron, Chemistry), who began a postdoctoral fellowship with DAM and Prof. Frank Harris (Polymer Science) in late November.
We also welcome Dr. Tuan A. Nguyen (Ph.D. University of Cincinnati, Physics), who will be performing time-resolved spectroscopic experiments starting February 2006! Needless to say, we are looking forward to great things from the new guys!!!
CONGRATULATIONS former SEED student David Binkley on his engagement to Nichole! Great news David!
CONGRATULATIONS TO Mr. & Mrs. Tim Smith!!! Tim and Denise got hitched on July 23 in Canton. Congrats and best wishes always Tim!!!
CONGRATULATIONS TO DR. Shana Garrison!!! Dr. Garrison defended her dissertation on Friday July 15, 2005. Congrats Shana!!!
Yulin Wu sends his regards from North Carolina where he is a scientist at Glaxo Smith-Kline. Yulin recently bought a house and sent this picture of his family in the living room, sans furniture when this was taken.
