College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Getting faster

New $2 million grant could result in chemical analysis method.
Chemistry is constantly reinventing itself according to Patricia Thiel, professor and chair of Iowa State's Department of Chemistry.

And Thiel says that her academic department is continuing to reinvent itself along with its discipline.

"There are always going to be new areas in chemistry that scientists are attracted to," she said. "One of the great things about this department is the willingness of the faculty to change with the times."

That flexibility has enabled Iowa State's Department of Chemistry to remain world class and one of the best chemistry departments in the nation.

"The trick," says Thiel, "will be to maintain or improve that stature in the future."

There are numerous indications of its present standing including:* According to the National Research Council (NRC), the department is the top ranked department on campus and among the top 15 percent of Ph.D. granting departments nationwide.

* The department receives more than $10 million a year in external funding.

* Faculty in the department are members or fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, the American Vacuum Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

* Departmental faculty are historic winners of prestigious awards from the American Chemical Society (ACS) including 2002 awards in chromatography (Edward Yeung, Distinguished Professor) and theoretical chemistry (Klaus Ruedenberg, professor emeritus).

* Recognitions owned by the faculty include Sloan Fellowships, Beckman Young Investigator Awards, the Kipping Award, Presidential Young Investigator and NSF Awards.

* Valerie Sheares, assistant professor, has been selected as one of the 12 American women judged to be rising stars in the field of chemistry by C&E News.

* Yeung has won an astonishing four R&D 100 Awards including one last fall. Fellow faculty members Jacob Petrich (2000) and Gerald Small (1998) won the same award.

* Almost 20 percent ( nine) of the Distinguished Professors at Iowa State hold faculty appointments in the Department of Chemistry, more than any other department on campus.

* Of the 32 tenured or tenure-track faculty members in the department, 12 are either Distinguished Professors or University Professors.

* The department teaches the third most student credit hours (SCHs) on campus. Last fall semester, a total of 15,613 SCHs were taught by faculty in the

Department of Chemistry."Science and research are the center of every Ph.D. earned in the department," Thiel said. "Collaborative research is also common throughout our department. We function pretty well as a department; we're not a dysfunctional group."

But the face of that department will begin to change over the next few years.

"We're looking at a lot of retirements, many of whom are brilliant chemists and outstanding teachers, over the next ten years and there will be fierce competition with other top chemistry departments for the very best people," Thiel said.

Looking ahead to the inevitable, a long-range task force was formed in fall 2000 to choose areas in which the department should try to hire faculty during the coming years.

In the end however, the committee decided not to recommend certain areas, neither current departmental strengths nor hot new disciplines.

"They decided we should just hire the best people we can possibly hire," Thiel said. "Research excellence is our top priority, with ability to teach essential courses, and teach them well, as a close second."

As a result potential hires interviewed last fall were not in the traditional chemistry areas.

"We interviewed people whom we might have passed up in previous years because their research areas cannot be defined according to the old scheme of things," Thiel said. "The best young chemists in the world are not just crossing disciplines, they are actually re-defining the core of the discipline. We can be part of that re-definition process, or we can let the world pass us by.

"I am very pleased that the department has chosen the former, by making excellence, rather than narrow speciality, the main research criterion for selecting candidates."

Thiel also credits other units on campus for the strength of the department, particularly the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory.

The Ames Lab sponsors research in materials, catalysis, environmental management, computational science and other areas. Most of the chemistry faculty is affiliated with the Ames Lab.

"The Ames Lab provides a broad underpinning of scientific expertise and equipment that you just don't find on other campuses," Thiel said. "The Ames Lab also creates an atmosphere conducive to frequent interdisciplinary contacts and it really works."