Chemistry and Biochemistry Celebrates Students at Honors Night

Photo Submitted

Leah Ramey, an Honors College chemistry major and recipient of the Barbara Wertheim Campbell Award.

The department of chemistry and biochemistry hosted its annual Honors Night April 21 at the UARK Ballroom on Dickson Street.

The evening began with Honors College chemistry majors making poster presentations of their research. Senior Honors College students in the department must make a poster presentation in addition to defending and writing a thesis.

Following the poster session, the department awarded more than $25,000 to scholarship and award recipients during a ceremony and dinner.

Chemistry and biochemistry awards and scholarships included:

• American Chemical Society Awards – Amy Carr, Samuel Dunn, Arshan Dehbozorgi, Stephen Dalby, Rebekah Langston, Kelsey Sparks and Molly Steen
• Barbara Wertheim Campbell Award – Joseph Courtney, David Hopkins, Ethan Latimer and Leah Ramey
• A. W. Cordes Teaching Awards – Geoffrey Keeler, Matthias Knust and Scott Morris
• Dupont Scholarships – Grant Meredith, Ashley Rosenberg, Molly Steen
• Arthur and Lois Fry Scholarship – Gayatri Suresh Kumar
• Octa N. High Scholar – Ethan McBride
• Coulter Jones Award – Anna Fielder, Casey Henderson, Ashley Martfeld and Julie Tran
• Frederick A. Kekulé Award – Michael Mullarkey and Colby Smith
• Kathy Noland Chemistry Award – Samuel McLelland
• William K. Noyce Scholarship – Ross Harmon, Jonathan Schmidt and Mary Smith
• Jacob Sacks Chemistry Award – Rachael Pellegrino
• Jacob Sacks Scholarship – Christopher DuVall, Shannon Mumma and Ettore Rastelli

Honorary Scholars

Emily Crossfield, Chris Duvall, Taylor Gohman, Lauren Hall, Ross Harmon, Hannah Henson, Sigrid Johannesen, Alta Johnson, Thomas Jones, Matthew McMahon, Devin O’Dea, Kaila Pianalto, Andrew Price, Derek Pyland, Sunshine Robertson, Spencer Shinabery, Christopher Sonntag, Jake Usery and Megan Wary

Additional information about scholarships and awards is available at http://chemistry.uark.edu/1678.htm

Honors College chemistry major poster presentations:

• Kristi Anderson “Isolation and Purification of 6191 in the Urine of Bernadelli-Seip Syndrome Patients” (Research mentor Bill Durham)
• Courtney Cagle “Biodiversity and Prevalence of Entamoeba in the American Cockroach, Periplaneta Americana” (Research mentor Jeff Silberman, Biological Sciences)
• Joseph Courtney “Comparison of Proline Substitutions at Positions 8 and 10 in WALP19” (Research mentor Roger Koeppe)
• Chris DuVall “Influence of Glycine Substitutions on Designed Proline-Containing Transmembrane Peptides” (Research mentor Roger Koeppe)
• Amir Francis “Membrane Interactions of Antimicrobial Retro-Lactoferricin Peptides by Solid-State NMR and Partitioning Assays” (Research mentor Denise Greathouse)
• Evan Gill “Crystal Structure of Staphylococcal Nuclease Mutant V23L/V66I” (Research mentor Joshua Sakon)
• Lauren Hall “The Conformational and Functional Role of Proline Residues in the Human Fibroblast Growth Factor-1” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Ali Haydar “Rational Design of Human Fibroblast Growth Factor-1 with Enhanced Stability” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Rory Henderson “The Involvement of PIP-2 in the Non-classical Secretion of FGF-1” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Hannah Henson “The structural and functional role of the sole tryptophan residue in the human acidic fibroblast growth factor” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Lawrence Hoyt “Cloning and Characterization of first FNT-III Domain from Anosmin-I Gene” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Sigrid Johannesen “Synthesis of 15 Amino Acid GTPase-binding region of Tuberous sclerosis 2 to Study its Interaction with the Ras GTPase Rheb” (Research mentor Paul Adams)
• Ethan Latimer “Structure Determination of Clostridium histolyticum S2a Collagen Binding Domain and Structure Determination of Staphylococcal Nuclease I92V/V92L” (Research mentor Joshua Sakon)
• Ashley Martfeld “Design of a novel S100A13 monomer to understand the non-classical release of FGF1” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Ethan McCormick “Comparative Molecular Phylogeny” (Research mentor Jeff Silberman, Biological Sciences)
• Morgan Merriman “Identification and Characterization of Heparin Binding Proteins” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Rhys Moore “Examining the Stability of the C2B Domain of Synaptotagmin I” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Shannon Mumma “Cross-linking Proteins with Peroxide and Iodide” (Research mentor Wes Stites
• Devin O’Dea “Identification of Glutamatergic Neurons in the Avian Brain with Emphasis on the Neuroendocrine System” (Research mentor Wayne Kuenzel Poultry Sciences)
• Mark Pickhardt “Purification and Characterization of recombinant L23 from Arabidopsis thaliana” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Leah Ramey “Proliferation and Metabolism of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Grown on Membrane Substrates” (Research mentor Sha Jin Biomedical Engineering)
• Richard Rieske “Understanding the role of the sole disulfide bond in the structure and function of the D2 domain of FGFR” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Sunshine Robertson “Comparative Proteomic Studies of Radiation Resistance in Pancreatic Cancer” (Research mentor Yuchun Du, Biological Sciences)
• Randy Roeser “Structure Determination of Col G S3a S3b and Structure Determination of Staphylococcal Nuclease I72L/I92L” (Research mentor Joshua Sakon)
• Omar Salem “Characterization of a Switch I mutant of the Ras protein Cdc42” (Research mentor Paul Adams)
• Jonathan Schmidt “Surface Plasmon Resonance Affinity Analysis of Cytokines with Heparin” (Research mentor Julie Stenken)
• Spencer Shinabery “Ruthenium(II) Photocatalyzed [3+2] Cycloaddition of Mono-and Bi-cyclic Cyclopropylamines with Olefins” (Research mentor Nan Zheng)
• Molly Steen “Analysis of Protein Folding Through Comparison of Fluorescence vs. Hydrogen/Deuterium-Exchange and Mass Spectrometry” (Research mentor Wes Stites)
• Nicholas Tingquist “Design of a Duet Vector to Characterize Ligand-Receptor Interactions” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• Daniel Vo “Understanding the Structure and Stability of FGF-1 in a Cellular Environment Using NMR Spectroscopy” (Research mentor Suresh Kumar)
• David Williams “Studies towards the Synthesis of Antascomicin B” (Research mentor Matt McIntosh)
• Jacob Wooldridge “Development of Methods for Rapid Analysis of Nutraceutical Plant Extracts” (Research mentor Jack Lay) 

Special thanks to the department of facilities management, the Garden Room, PMC Solutions, Smith Cabinet Shop and the UARK Ballroom.