News & Events

December 20, 2022: This semester, two of our graduate students successfully defended their theses and are graduating from our program.  Congratulations to Fredrick Farrar (Minehan lab) and Mathias Perone (Schrodi lab), both of whom have earned their MS Chemistry degrees! We wish you much success in your future endeavors!

December 13, 2022: The department held a lunch to honor and say farewell to Professor Yann Schrodi, who retired at the end of the Fall semester. Dr Schrodi, who joined our department as an inorganic chemist in 2007, has decided to move on to other pursuits. Thanks for everything you have done for the students and the department, Yann - we will miss you!

November 8, 2022: Dr. Miao has published his latest research, titled "Chemical templates that assemble the metal superhydrides" in the journal Chem. The article is also featured in a CSUN Today story about Dr Miao, which additionally celebrates his Dreyfus award (see Nov 6 news). The department is proud of the deserved press about his work.

November 7, 2022: Dr. Eller has published his first research paper since joining our department, with CSUN graduate student Jander Cruz as first author! The manuscript, titled "Evaluating nanoscale molecular homogeneity in extreme ultraviolet resists with nanoprojectile secondary ion mass spectrometry" is published in the November issue of the Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials, and Metrology. Congratulations, Dr Eller! 

November 6, 2022: Dr. Miao has been awarded the prestigious Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, only one of eight faculty to be awarded this year nation-wide! The award worth $75,000 and is based on Dr Miao's accomplishments in scholarly research with undergraduates, as well as a compelling commitment to teaching. Congratulations, Dr. Miao!

October 19-22, 2022: Our students were once again presenting their research at venues outside CSUN! Nicole Babayans (Melikyan lab) gave a 20 minute talk, titled "Acquiring a predictive power in cobalt-assisted, acid-induced C-C bond forming reactions" at the ACS Western Regional Meeting in Las Vegas.  Her talk was well-attended, and she received several questions from interested members of the audience after she finished.

August 21-25, 2022: Several students and faculty attended the ACS National Fall Meeting in Chicago. Poster presenters included graduate students Ryan Boggess and Leticia Reque from the Tamae lab and Matthew Green from the Teprovich lab, all of which had good traffic around their posters and lots of interest in their research. We want to highlight Leticia, in particular, because she won the Outstanding Poster Award from the Division of Chemical Toxicology.  Congratulations, Leticia!

August 1, 2022: Dr Abrol has published his latest manuscript, in collaboration with former graduate student Bridget Kawamala, who is first author. The paper, titled "Three-stage model of helical membrane protein folding: Role of membrane-water interface as the intermediate stage vestibule for TM helices during their in membrano assembly" is currently available online and will also appear in the October print edition of Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.

July 25, 2022: The Department is deeply saddened to hear about the passing of former graduate student Misael Sanchez.  Misa graduated with an MS in Biochemistry in December 2020 after working with Dr. Jessica Vey and continued on to a research position in the biotech industry.  The Department extends its heartfelt condolences to his family.

July 1, 2022: Dr Boulesbaa has published his latest manuscript, along with former CSUN graduate student Zeynep Eroglu and former undergraduates Dillon Contreras, Joie Yuson and Pouya Bahrami as co-authors. The article is titled "Ultrafast electron transfer at the interface of gold nanoparticles and methylene blue molecular adsorbates" and is published in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

June 24, 2022: Congratulations to Dr Eller, who has been awarded a LEAPS-MPS (Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences) award from the NSF! The award, for the project titled "Nano-Projectile Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry for accurate molecular analysis at the nanoscale", is worth almost $250,000 over two years. Dr Eller will develop new analytical methods for nanoscale molecular analysis based on secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), and will also involve and support numerous research students. It is very important to the continued and growing academic excellence of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at CSUN and helps to provide the very best in educational opportunities for our students. Well done, Michael!

June 13, 2022: Dr Yi has published a new manuscript of her research, along with co-authors Alex Gilewski (a former MS program student) and Mikhail Litvak (an undergraduate). The article was accepted by the journal Chemistry Education Research and Practice, which is published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The study presents a novel model of pairing a metacognitive exercise with measures of linked concepts that are aligned with learning objectives in college introductory chemistry courses. The model shows promising signs of improving student performance and metacognitive thinking and behaviors. The article is currently available online.

June, 2022: Congratulations to Dr Boulesbaa, who has been renewed for a second year on his $25,000 grant from Pasadena City College, titled "Utilization of Undergraduate Research to Promote Equity and Completion in Micro Nano Technology Professional Workforce Education". Good work, Aziz!

June 1, 2022: Congratulations to graduate student Janelli Pineda (Fischhaber lab), who was awarded a $1500 travel grant from CSUPERB! This grant will support a trip she will take next summer to a collaborator's lab at Columbia University Health Sciences Center in New York City. Well done, Janelli!

May 20, 2022: This afternoon we held our departmental awards ceremony, in advance of commencement in the evening, for the first time in three years! Undergraduate students Cynthia Avedian, Erick Gonzalez, Jonathan Hakimian, Oscar Arevalo Soto, Edward Bryan Huseman, Joie Yuson, Walter Torres, Vanessa Estrada and Christi Thomas have been given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors. Graduate student Jander Cruz was given the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award, and graduate students Isabella Crisostomo and Leticia Reque were co-honorees for the Sandra L. Jewett Scholarship in Biochemistry. More details about the awards and awardees can be found on our department's Student Awards webpage. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 13, 2022: This semester we had one student successfully complete her MS Biochemistry degree. Congratulations to Hafridha Hadi, from the Fischhaber lab!  Hafridha has already landed a great job in the biotech industry - good luck your next chapter, Hafridha!

April 25, 2022: Three of our faculty have been awarded RSCA grants from CSUN for their research! Dr Jeffery Charonnat was awarded a $5,000 min-grant, and Drs. Miao and Ye were each awarded 3 units of release time for the upcoming academic year.  Congratulations to everyone!

April 7, 2022: The Teprovich group has published an article titled “Closo-borate gel polymer electrolytes with remarkable electrochemical stability and a wide operating temperature window” in the journal Advanced Science.  Matthew Green (current graduate student), Katty Kaydanik (former graduate student), and Miguel Orozco (former undergraduate student) are all coauthors on the manuscript.  This research is funded by the NSF’s LEAPS-MPS program (award No. 2137973).  This work features a gel polymer electrolyte that enables a lithium ion battery (LIB) to operate at -35 °C and allows for the fabrication of a flexible LIB.  The article can be accessed online.

April 1, 2022: Numerous students from our department presented their research projects at CSUNposium, which was held virtually again this year. Several of our participants won awards in their respective categories. Congratulations to graduate students Matthew Green (Teprovich lab) and Jander Cruz (Eller lab), who won first and second place, respectively, in their 10-minute oral presentations group! First place honors also go to undergraduate student Christi Thomas (Medh lab) for her poster. Congratulations to all of our students for their efforts!

Dec 20, 2021: Dr Abrol has published a chapter in the latest volume of the journal Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology, titled "Development of enhanced conformational sampling methods to probe the activation landscape of GPCRs". His two co-authors, Erik Serrano and Luis Jaimes Santiago are former undergraduate researchers from the Abrol group.

September 27, 2021: Dr. Fischhaber has published her latest manuscript in Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports. The paper, titled "SAW1 is increasingly required to recruit Rad10 as SSA flap-length increases from 20 to 50 bases in single-strand annealing in S. cerevisiae" is co-authored by former graduate students Jane Odango, Juan Camberos and Fred Fregoso. The paper will be published in the December 2021 issue of the journal, but is available now online.

September 21, 2021: Dr. Miao has received confirmation that his Major Research Instrumentation grant has been funded by the NSF!  The grant, awarded to PI Miao along with co-PIs from our department Drs. Eloranta, Boulesbaa and Teprovich as well as co-PI Lau from Physics, funds the project titled "Acquisition of a GPU/CPU computing cluster for research and education in computational chemistry and materials" and is worth just over $455,000. The grant will provide important computing infrastructure for researchers in the College of Science and Math.  Congratulations to the PI and co-PIs!

September 10, 2021: Dr. Crowhurst has been awarded a SCORE-SC3 grant from the National Institutes of Health. It is a four-year grant, worth $435,000, for the project titled "Synergy between acid stress chaperones HdeA and HdeB with clients and their key sites of activity". The grant money not only funds the research in her lab; money is also budgeted to support student researchers in her lab. Congratulations, Dr. Crowhurst!

September 7, 2021: Dr. Teprovich has been awarded a Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) research grant from the National Science Foundation.  The two-year grant, worth $248,526, will support his proposal titled “Investigating Ion-transport and Dynamics in Composite Materials Containing Large Boron-rich Anion (LBRA) Salts.”  Preliminary results included in the proposal were collected by current graduate students Matthew Green and Katty Kaydanik and former undergraduate student Miguel Orozco.  Congratulations, Dr Teprovich!

June 30, 2021: Dr. Crowhurst has published another manuscript, with co-authors Imex Aguirre-Cardenas, a former undergraduate in the lab, and Dane Geddes-Buehre, a former MS student. The paper, titled "Removal of disulfide from acid stress chaperone HdeA does not wholly eliminate structure or function at low pH" is published in Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports, September 2021 edition, and is available as an Open Access article online. 

June 4, 2021: Dr Miao has published his latest manuscript, titled "Multistep Dissociation of Fluorine Molecules under Extreme Compression" along with international collaborators, in the journal Physical Review Letters. Using a large-scale crystal structure search method based on first principles calculations, he and his collaborators found that, before reaching an atomic phase, F solid transforms first into a structure consisting of  F2 molecules and F polymer chains and then into a structure consisting of F polymer chains and F atoms, a distinctive evolution with pressure that has not been seen in any other elements.

June 1, 2021: We have received confirmation that Dr. Crowhurst has been promoted to full Professor and Dr. Miao has been granted tenure to accompany his promotion to Associate Professor last year. Both positions will be effective as of the start of the 2021-2022 academic year.  Congratulations, Drs. Crowhurst and Miao!

May 2021: Dr Eller has published his first paper since he joined the faculty at CSUN! The paper, a collaborative effort with scientists in Texas and Minnesota, is titled "Nanoprojectile Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry for Analysis of Extracellular Vesicles" and was published this month in the journal Analytical Chemistry. Congratulations, Dr. Eller!

May 24, 2021: Today the College of Science and Mathematics held its virtual graduation ceremony (see link above). After its completion, the Department held our own celebration of our graduating students as well as award winners - please watch the recording and celebrate with us! 

May 18, 2021: Congratulations to Jane Odango, who has been named one of the awardees for the campus' Distinguished Thesis/Graduate Project Competition.  This is a campus-wide competition, and only four students are given the award each year.  Jane did her thesis research in the lab of Dr Fischhaber.  Great work, Jane! 

May 14, 2021: This semester five of our Master's students successfully completed their degrees!  Jane Odango (Fischhaber lab) earned her MS Biochemistry degree, while Anthony Bernot (Teprovich lab), Osma Gomez (Teprovich lab), Daniel Gonzalez (Eloranta lab) and Dalar Khodagholian (Miao lab) earned MS Chemistry degrees. All of our graduates have already landed either jobs in industry or acceptance to PhD programs.  Congratulations to all of you!

May 3, 2021: Dr Ye has published a paper in the journal Chemistry Education Research and Practice. The paper, written with former undergraduate student Candido Moreno and current graduate student Duyen Pham is titled "Chemistry self-efficacy in lower-division chemistry courses: changes after a semester of instruction and gaps still remain between student groups" and is available online.

May 3, 2021: Undergraduate students Guliayi Ainiwaer, Blanca Aparicio, Arlet Artoonian, Pouya Bahrami, Nanor Bedrosian, Justina Gorgy, Akemi Hinzer and Joie Yuson have been given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors. Graduate student Osma Gomez has also been given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

April 30, 2021: Drs. Andersen, Eller, Kelson and Miao have each been awarded a RSCA minigrant! Each minigrant is worth either 3 units release time or $5,000, to be used during the 2021-2022 academic year. Congratulations to all of you!

February 1, 2021: Profs. Teprovich and Boulesbaa have received an additional $30,000 in funding through their ongoing contract with DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) for a project titled "Nanocomposite Spectroscopy Characterization for Solar Batteries.” Congratulations, Joe and Aziz!

January 10, 2021: Congratulations to Jane Odango, who was awarded the prestigious Crellin Pauling Student Teaching Award at the virtual CSUPERB Symposium! The award, which includes a $2000 scholarship, celebrates her work as a teaching assistant in our lower division Chemistry labs. A story about Jane and her award can be found in CSUN Today. Congratulations, Jane!

January, 2021: Dr Eller has been awarded a research grant from the Semiconductor Research Corporation!  The grant, worth $83,500, is to support his proposal, titled "Nano-projectile SIMS for evaluating molecular homogeneity in ultra-small domains".  Congratulations, Dr Eller!

December 11, 2020: This semester four of our graduate students successfully presented their thesis research and completed their degrees.  Jonathon Benson and Misael Sanchez earned MS Biochemistry, and Matthew Ledesma and Parijat Sharma earned MS Chemistry degrees.  Congratulations to all of you! 

December 7, 2020: The Crowhurst lab has published an article in the journal BBA Proteins and Proteomics with former graduate students Marlyn Widjaja and Jonathon Benson and former undergraduate student Jafaeth Gomez. The research paper, titled "Detection of key sites of dimer dissociation and unfolding initiation during activation of acid-stress chaperone HdeA at low pH" is available online and will be formally published in the February 2021 issue of the journal. 

October, 2020: The Boulesbaa lab has been awarded a $50,000 BUILD PODER pilot project grant for a project titled "Evaluation and research on utilization of targeted nanoparticles for use as cancer therapies". Congratulations to Aziz Boulesbaa!

September 20, 2020: Dr. Miao, along with collaborators at CSUN as well as in Buffalo and China have published a review article, titled "Chemistry under high pressure" in Nature Reviews Chemistry. The article is now available online.

July 20, 2020: Dr Boulesbaa has published his first paper with CSUN student co-authors, in collaboration with a lab at Auburn University.  The article, titled "Ultrafast dynamics of exciton formation and decay in two-dimensional tungsten disulfide (2D-WS2) monolayers" is published online in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.  Chemistry graduate student Zeynep Eroglu is the first author, and chemistry undergraduate Olivia Comegys as well as physics graduate student Leo Quintanar are co-authors. Congratulations, Boulesbaa lab!

July 15, 2020: Drs Abrol and Crowhurst have published a collaborative paper, with former students Sayuri Pacheco, Marlyn Widjaja and Jafaeth Gomez as co-authors.  The paper, titled "The complex role of the N-terminus and acidic residues of HdeA as pH-dependent switches in its chaperone function" will be published in the September issue of the journal Biophysical Chemistry. They were also asked to provide cover artwork for the issue. 

July 10, 2020: Congratulations to our colleagues for their promotion successes!  Dr Miao has been promoted to Associate Professor, while Drs. Abrol and Andersen have been promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure.  Additionally, Dr Schrodi has been promoted to full Professor.  Congratulations again to you all!

June 4, 2020: Dr Abrol has been awarded a NIH SCORE SC2 grant!  The grant, titled "Probing the Structural Basis of Innate G Protein Specificity in G Protein-Coupled Receptor Signaling” is funded for 3 years and is worth $300,000 in direct funds to the lab. Congratulations, Ravi, on your first major grant at CSUN!  We are sure it is the first of many.

June 1, 2020: Congratulations to Rowen Jane Odango on being awarded one of the coveted College of Science and Mathematics 2019–20 Graduate Fellowships for Outstanding Research Promise in Science & Mathematics. She is also the co-recipient of the Leslie & Terry Cutler Scholarship!  Both are much deserved.  This is our acknowledgment of a tremendous talent and the hard work that she has put into her M.S. research projects.  We expect great things of her in the future.  This is a wonderful achievement and we are very proud of you!

June 1, 2020: Our students were successful this year in competing for awards in the College of Science and Mathematics!  Congratulations go to undergraduates Michael Peterson for being the 2019–20 recipient of the Gilbert and Jacki Cisneros Foundation Scholarship, and Alisha Holden for being awarded the college's Robert Nolan Scholarship! These are wonderful achievements and we applaud your success.

May 18, 2020: Our department was quite successful in obtaining grants through the campus-wide Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (RSCA) program competition.  Congratulations go to Drs. Andersen, Kelson, Miao and Ye, each of whom will receive either a $5,000 mini-grant or 3 units of release time for the 2020-2021 academic year! Well done.

May 15, 2020: Congratulations to Dr Crowhurst for being awarded a Summer Grant through Research and Sponsored Programs!  The grant provides $3,000 in summer salary to allow her time to develop and write a proposal for a large external grant.

May 2020: A new research article has been published by Dr Ye, in collaboration with Dr Jack Eichler at UC Riverside, and with CSUN student co-authors Alex Gilewski, Emily Mallory and Mikhail Litvak. The paper, titled "The impact of coupling assessments on conceptual understanding and connection-making in chemical equilibrium and acid–base chemistry" can be found in the Journal of Chemistry Education Research and Practice.

May 14, 2020: Congratulations to Alex Gilewski, whose MS Chemistry thesis has been selected as one of only four recipients of the campus-wide 2020 Outstanding Thesis/Graduate Project Competition! Alex's research advisor, Li Ye, is very proud of his accomplishment, as is the rest of the department!

May 13, 2020: Congratulations to all of our undergraduates receiving their bachelor's degrees in Biochemistry or Chemistry this semester!  It is too bad that we cannot be there in person to celebrate with our students; normally we have a reception to honor all our graduates. As a small way to mark their accomplishments Dr Garrett has recorded a video to honor everyone. Your hard work has finally paid off - we wish all of you the very best in the next stage of your careers. Be sure to stay in touch and keep us updated on your future endeavors!

May 12, 2020: Undergraduate students Mario Aguirre Cardenas, Nicole Babayans, Kristine Bislamyan, Jesus Cruz, Nicole Gardon, Alejandro Leon, Joanna Mae Ohide, Mehrnaz Siavoshi and Derek Stavich as well as graduate students Hafridha Hadi and James Nguyen have been given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors. Graduate students Jane Odango and Joseph Yoon have also been given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments! In lieu of our usual departmental reception, Dr Garrett has recorded a video to honor each student.

May 12, 2020: We hit a new record this semester: nine graduate students successfully defended their theses! Benjamin Azmon (Minehan lab), Adam Freund (Eloranta lab), Alex Gilewski (Ye lab), Kevin Ng (Minehan lab), Nazaret Rptchian (Kelson lab), Cal Weeks (Kelson lab) and Joseph Yoon (Schrodi lab) are receiving their MS degrees in Chemistry, while Dane Geddes-Buehre (Crowhurst lab) and Benjamin Cordova (Tamae lab) will earn their MS degrees in Biochemistry. In lieu of honoring these students at our annual departmental reception Dr Garrett has recorded a video to give them their due credit. Congratulations, everyone!

May 11, 2020: Congratulations to Dr Miao, who has been awarded CSUN's "Preeminent Scholarly Publication Award" for 2020. The four primary dimensions of this award are Originality, Professional Recognition, Significance, and Clarity. Professor Maosheng Miao’s publication, “Reactivity of He with ionic compounds under high pressure,” published in Nature Communications in 2018, stands out in all four dimensions. Miao’s publication on the “nanny” role of helium is lucid, impactful, and well-recognized by the scientific community.

May 11, 2020: Congratulations to Dr Nguyen-Graff, who has been awarded CSUN's "Extraordinary Service Award" for 2020. A faculty member in Chemistry and Biochemistry since 2006, Dr. Nguyen-Graff developed the Peer Learning Facilitators program for Chemistry 100 with 15 facilitators serving more than 300 students per semester providing small group discussion and problem-solving sessions. She also manages the chemistry tutoring center, and she spent spring break transitioning both programs online. An innovative and motivating instructor, she acts as a technology resource for her chemistry colleagues and has been recognized for her energetic embrace of technology by serving as a Canvas Insights early adopter. Dr. Nguyen-Graff has helped to organize Earth Day events at CSUN attended by elementary and middle school students. She has led chemistry workshops to prepare pre-credential students for the California Subject Examination for Teachers (CSET). She also works with the CSUN Science Learning Collaboratory, which offers summer institutes and monthly presentations for middle school and high school science teachers.

May, 2020: Dr Abrol's lab has published its latest manuscript in the May issue of the Journal of Molecular Evolution. The article, titled "Pseudo‑Symmetric Assembly of Protodomains as a Common Denominator in the Evolution of Polytopic Helical Membrane Proteins" is co-authored by CSUN undergraduate student Alexander Tran. A figure from his paper was also chosen for the cover of the May issue of the journal.

March 27, 2020: Many of our students participated in presenting their research at CSUNposium this year, which was held virtually. Our department can celebrate a few student participants in particular who won awards in their specific categories. Congratulations to graduate student Benjamin Cordova (Tamae lab) and undergraduate student Matthew Green (Teprovich group), who both won first place in their respective groups of 10-minute oral presentations! Second place honors were also given to undergraduate Nicole Babayans (Melikyan lab) in her 3-minute oral presentation group, undergraduate Akemi Hinzer (Crowhurst lab) for her poster, as well as graduate students Emily Mallory and Alex Gilewski (Ye group) for their joint poster. Congratulations to all of our students for their efforts!

March 2020: Dr Melikyan has co-authored a chapter in the book "Cobalt Catalysis in Organic Synthesis: Methods and Reactions" with former student Elen Artashyan. Their chapter is titled "Ionic and Radical Reactions of pi-Bonded Cobalt Complexes". The book is available from Wiley in electronic and hardcover versions (as well as other booksellers).

March 2020: Congratulations to Profs. Teprovich and Boulesbaa for their recent award of almost $68,000 over one year to work with Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) on a project titled "Nanocomposite Spectroscopy Characterization for Solar Batteries.”

February 3, 2020
Dr Li Ye has been awarded a seed grant in collaboration with three faculty at UC Riverside (Drs. Kinnari Atit, Jack Eichler and Matthew Casselman).  The award, titled "Supporting Student Learning about Molecular Structures from Simulations" is a two-year grant from the California Education Learning Lab, worth approximately $100,000. Congratulations, Dr Ye!

January 18, 2020
Congratulations to Imex Aguirre-Cardenas (Crowhurst lab) and Benjamin Cordova (Tamae lab) for being named as finalists to compete for the Nagel Undergraduate Student Research Award and Eden Graduate Student Research Award, respectively, at the CSUPERB Symposium, held this year in Santa Clara CA. In order to gain finalist status Imex and Benjamin each had to submit a poster abstract, personal essay and a letter of recommendation from his research mentor.  While at the symposium each presented his research poster to a panel of faculty judges (separately from the regular poster session), and Benjamin additionally had to give a 10-minute talk to the large audience of attendees.  Although neither student was ultimately named the winner of the award, we are proud that they both did an excellent job presenting their work and representing CSUN!

December 2019
Congratulations to the CSUN student chapter of the American Chemical Society for earning an honorable mention award for its activities conducted during the 2018-2019 academic year! This award would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of the Chem Club’s 2018-2019 executive board members Christian Alvarado, Fiorella Betdashtoo, Alice Bonilla, Brandon Marion, Khadija Moctar, and Fernando Ortega. Drs Kayla Kaiser and Ravinder Abrol are also commended for their dedication of time and energy to ensure this ACS student chapter is successful.

Fall 2019
Dr Minehan congratulates graduate student Kevin Ng, who recently completed the total syntheses of four natural products: alvaradoins E and F, uveoside and 10-epi-uveoside. The work was recently published in the journal Organic Letters; the alvaradoins have been shown to have pronounced cytotoxicity toward human oral epidermoid cancer cell lines, and alvaradoin E has displayed antileukemic activity in animal models. Also in the paper, undergraduate student Laura Vardanyan and postbaccalaureate student Ryan Shaktah have studied the binding of these natural products to both DNA and human serum albumin (HSA), and have demonstrated that the alvaradoins have a good affinity for HSA.

December 10, 2019
Congratulations to Dr Melikyan, who has been elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS). He is being honored for “distinguished contributions to the field of organic and organometallic chemistry, particularly for transition metal-mediated radical reactions.” He will officially receive this honor on Feb 15, 2020 at an induction ceremony that will be held in Seattle, Washington at the annual AAAS meeting. Please see the article in CSUN Today for more details on this honor.

November 25, 2019
Dr Abrol has published a manuscript of his research in collaboration with Dr. Medina-Kauwe at Cedars-Sinai and with former CSUN undergraduate student co-authors Sayuri Pacheco and Simoun Mikhael. The article, titled "HER3-targeted protein chimera forms endosomolytic capsomeres and self-assembles into stealth nucleocapsids for systemic tumor homing of RNA interference in vivo" is published in the December 2 issue of the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

October 24, 2019
Dr Abrol has published a manuscript of his research with former RISE undergraduate student Luis Santiago as first author. The journal article, titled "Understanding G Protein Selectivity of Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptors Using Computational Methods" is published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences in the special issue "Computer Simulation on Membrane Receptors". 

October 15, 2019
Dr Melikyan delivered an invited seminar presentation at Oxnard College to the students and faculty members of the from Dept of Physical Sciences. The talk, titled "Antioxidants, Foods, Supplements, and Cosmetics: Perils of Ignoring Science" was well-received; his visit also became an impromptu recruitment event since numerous students expressed their interest to transfer to CSUN to continue their studies in STEM fields.

September 27, 2019
Osma Gomez (Teprovich Lab) won first place for her poster at the 31st Annual Great Minds in STEM Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.  Her poster titled “Carbon Quantum Dots (CQDs) as Probes of Biological Systems” showcased her research investigating the use of CQDs as dyes for fluorescence microscopy and MRI contrast agents.  The MDA-MB-231 cells utilized for the cell viability and fluorescence microscopy studies were made possible through an ongoing collaboration with the Tamae group.  Congratulations Osma!

September, 2019
Research and Sponsored Programs is sponsoring Biochemistry undergraduate Kevin Abuhanna (Fischhaber lab) to attend the 20th National Minority Access Incorporated Conference from September 26-29th, 2019 in National Harbor, MD to present his research.  Kevin is one of only two students who will be supported to attend this meeting by Research and Sponsored Projects.  Congratulations Kevin!

August, 2019
The department was well-represented at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, held this year in San Diego. Faculty members Miao, Minehan and Melikyan gave talks, as well as graduate student Kevin Ng (Minehan lab).  In addition, research posters were presented by Cal Weeks (Kelson lab), Nicole Babayans (Melikyan lab), and Benjamin Cordova and Saadman Ahmad (Tamae lab).

August 15, 2019
Congratulations to Dr Mads Andersen, who has been awarded an NSF RUI grant!  The award, titled "RUI: Far Ultra-Violet (172 nm) Photolysis of Gaseous Anthropogenic Pollutants" is a three-year grant worth almost $300,000. Congratulations, Mads!

August, 2019
We are pleased to welcome Dr Michael Eller as our newest faculty member to the department!  Dr Eller's research specialty is Analytical Chemistry; his laboratory and office can be found on the third floor of Citrus Hall.  Welcome, Dr Eller!

July 1, 2019
Congratulations to Dr. Ye for receiving a renewal of her multi-PI grant for the project titled “San Fernando Valley Science Project” from UC Regents This project is a collaboration between faculty in the College of Science and Mathematics, the Michael D. Eisner College of Education at CSUN, and science experts and middle and high school teacher leaders from LAUSD school district. The purpose of the project is to implement summer institute as well as monthly workshops for LA science teachers to design lessons using Next Generation Science Standards and use collaborative cloud-based resources and to engage students in science. The grant is worth $24,000 over one year.

July, 2019
Congratulations to Drs. Miao and Andersen on the award of separate CSUN Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (RSCA) grants for the 2019-2020 academic year.  These awards are for 3 units of teaching release time each.

June 19, 2019
Dr Abrol has published a paper on his research, in collaboration with Xin Wen at CSULA and with CSUN undergraduate co-author Seyed Sajjadi. The journal article, titled "A beetle antifreeze protein protects lactate dehydrogenase under freeze-thawing" was published today in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules.

May 17, 2019
Congratulations to all of our new Chemistry and Biochemistry program graduates who were acknowledged at the departmental commencement reception this afternoon! Your hard work has finally paid off - we wish all of you the very best in the next stage of your careers. Be sure to stay in touch and keep us updated on your future endeavors!

May 17, 2019
Undergraduate students Lannah Abasi, Steven Ayoub, Nicole Babayans, Jessica Bergonio, Angela Cannata, Liam Contin, Nicole Gardon, Jonathan Hakimian and Jacqueline Matian as well as graduate students Jane Odango, Joseph Yoon and Cal Weeks were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors at the departmental commencement reception held this afternoon. Graduate student Benjamin Cordova was given the graduate student teaching assistant award, and we also honored Fred Fregoso, who received both college and university awards. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 10, 2019
A record seven graduate students successfully defended their theses this semester: Nicolas Cena (Schrodi lab), Armen Nazarian (Minehan lab), Chris Sobbi (Garrett lab) and Aleksandra Volkova (Andersen lab) received their MS degrees in Chemistry, while Juan Camberos (Fischhaber lab), Fred Fregoso (Fischhaber lab) and Adam Mogul (Medh lab) earned their MS degrees in Biochemistry. Congratulations, everyone!

May 1, 2019
Fischhaber lab member Fred Fregoso has been honored with the Mack I. Johnson Research Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in the College of Science and Mathematics, given to one graduate student each year who has distinguished themselves in research, and who will be joining a PhD program in the fall. This is a very competitive award, so we are very proud - congratulations, Fred!

April 26, 2019
Fred Fregoso, a graduate student in the Fischhaber lab, has been awarded the 2019 Nathan O. Freedman Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate Student! This is a university-wide, competitive $2,500 award given each year to one graduate student who will be continuing their studies in a PhD program - a very high honor, recognizing the hard work that Fred has put into his research and other university activities. Congratulations, Fred!

April 4, 2019
Dr. Miao has been awarded a NSF CAREER grant, worth $490,000 over five years! The grant, titled "Chemical trends of elements under pressure and their effects to forms and properties of materials" is funded officially starting this week, and has garnered a news story in CSUN Today. Congratulations, Dr. Miao - we are excited for your success!

February 28, 2019
Dr. Abrol has published a research paper with former undergraduate Simoun Mikhael as co-author. The journal article is titled "Chiral graphs: Reduced representations of ligand scaffolds for stereoselective biomolecular recognition, drug design, and enhanced exploration of chemical structure space" and has been published by ChemMedChem. The paper is currently available online and will appear in the August 2019 issue of the journal.

February 13, 2019
Dr Ye has published her first journal article based on work done at CSUN. The paper, titled "Does linking help? Effects and student perceptions of a learner-centered assessment implemented in introductory chemistry" has been published with graduate student Alex Gilewski as first author and undergraduate co-authors Emily Mallory, Matthew Sandoval and Mikhail Litvak. It can be found in the journal Chemistry Education Research and Practice.

February 6, 2019
Dr Tamae is the newest recipient of a NIH SCORE SC2 grant! His proposal, titled "Metabolic targeting of cancer cells via the methylglyoxal detoxification systems" is worth $300,000 in direct funds over three years. This is his first major grant, with hopefully many more to come in the future. Congratulations, Daniel - this is great news for you and the members of your lab!

January 5, 2019
Congratulations to Fred Fregoso (Fischhaber lab) for winning the Eden Award at this year's CSUPERB Symposium! The Eden Award is a competitive honor given to a graduate student in the CSU who has been most successful in presenting his thesis research, in the form of an essay, poster and 10-minute seminar presentation at the symposium.  The field was very competitive this year and Fred should be commended for doing so well to clearly convey his complex research results. Well done, Fred!

December 11, 2018
Four of our graduate students successfully defended their theses this semester: Bryan Christian (Medh lab), George Darouj (Fischhaber lab), Samatar Jirde (Vey lab) and Kellee Johnson (Vey lab) earned their MS degrees in Biochemistry. Congratulations to everyone!

October 29, 2018
The Andersen lab has published another journal article! The paper, titled "Atmospheric chemistry of hexa- and penta-fluorobenzene: UV photolysis and kinetics and mechanisms of the reactions of Cl atoms and OH radicals" is based on work from former CSUN undergraduates Jonathan Lengkong and Karen Vo, and is done in collaboration with colleagues in Denmark. It is published in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

October 24, 2018
Dr Andersen has published a research paper with graduate student co-author Alex Volkova and undergraduates Dvien Hovanessian and Connor Britzman. The paper, titled "Atmospheric chemistry of (Z)-CF3CH=CHCl: Products and mechanisms of the Cl atom, OH radical and O3 reactions, and role of (E)-(Z) isomerization" has been published in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. The article presents an important new CFC-replacement compound which shows interesting reactive E-Z isomerization.

October 16, 2018
The CSUN Chem Club has won a green chemistry award from the ACS! The students from the club, along with 12 students from Dr Nguyen-Graff's CHEM 110 class, visited 4th graders at Canoga Park Elementary as part of an Earth Week celebration. One of their activities (and the one for which they won the award) involved measuring what types of materials were best for cleaning up an environmental disaster. The fabrics tested were natural (cotton, linen) and synthetic (nylon, rayon, polyester). The green chemistry component of the activity involved considering the entire energy burden to produce the materials used for remediation. Cotton and linen require energy for cultivation, harvesting and processing into fiber, while the polymers (nylon, rayon and polyester) require energy for synthesis and processing into fiber. The activity included a discussion on the merits and drawbacks of different materials balanced with the materials’ abilities to absorb spilled oil in simulated ocean water. Congratulations, Chem Club!

October 2, 2018
Dr Abrol has been awarded a one-year pilot project grant, in collaboration with Maria Elena de Bellard in Biology. The project, titled “Probing the interplay of CXCR7 and CXCR4 receptor signaling in melanoma progression” is being funded with a $50,000 grant through the NIH-supported BUILD PODER program on campus.  Congratulations, Dr Abrol!

September 12, 2018
Dr Vey has been awarded a NIH SCORE SC3 grant for her proposed work, titled "Mechanistic studies to enable rational design of Class D monooxygenases". The grant is worth $300,000 in direct costs over four years.  Congratulations Dr Vey - this is very exciting news for your research group!

September 1, 2018
Dr Andersen is corresponding author on a new research paper he has published with his Danish and Norwegian collaborators. The article, titled "Atmospheric chemistry of n-CH3(CH2)xCN (x = 0–3): Kinetics and mechanisms" can be found in the International Journal of Chemical Kinetics.

August 14, 2018
Congratulations to Dr Paula Fischhaber, who has been awarded a NIH SCORE SC1 grant! The award, titled "SLX4 in Nuclease Recruitment" is worth $1 million in direct costs over four years, and is aimed at increasing our understanding of the mechanism of regulation of Double-Strand Break Repair pathways that protect against cancer and aging. This is huge news for the department and very exciting for Paula and her research students!

July 11, 2018
Dr. Joseph Teprovich has received a 2018-2019 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award from CSUN for a project titled “Development of safe and high energy density all solid-state lithium ion batteries”. The $5,000 award will fund research and enable students to gain hands on experience in the synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of the materials utilized in this emerging class of energy storage devices. Congratulations, Joe!

July 11, 2018
Dr Li Ye has been awarded a 2018-2019 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award from CSUN. The award, worth $5,000, will fund research into the evaluation of learner-centered assessments on student learning and academic achievement in chemistry. This provides valuable seed funds for obtaining preliminary data in advance of seeking larger extramural grant. Congratulations, Dr Li!

July 1, 2018
Dr Fischhaber has been elected for a five-year term as Deputy chair of the Faculty Consensus Group (FCG) and Strategic Planning Council (SPC) for CSUPERB (the CSU Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology). The FCG and SPC are the organizational arms of CSUPERB and are composed of representatives from the 23 campuses in the CSU system. The position of Deputy Chair is a demanding and high-profile one.  Congratulations on your new position, Paula!

July 1, 2018
Dr Ravinder Abrol has been awarded a RGS Summer Seed Grant award from CSUN. The award, worth $3,000, funds a short-term project, titled  “Structural and Evolutionary Bioinformatics of G Protein-Coupled Receptor Signaling” that should help in the collection of preliminary data to support a proposal for a larger extramural grant. He will present the results of the work at a mini-symposium to be held in the Fall. Congratulations, Ravi!

June 28, 2018
Congratulations to Dr. Vey for receiving a Research Development grant from CSUPERB!  The grant, worth $15,000, supports the 18-month project titled "Enabling rational design of the biodesulfurization process: biochemical characterization of DBT and DBT sulfone monooxygenases and DBT desulfinase".

June 15, 2018
Dr. Teprovich has received a $25,000 contract for a project titled “Material Development and Characterization for Energy Storage and Conversion Devices” with the DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory.  This project will focus on the synthesis and characterization of new materials with applications in non-platinum group metal fuel cell catalysts and surface plasmon initiated photochemistry.

June 13, 2018
Congratulations to undergraduate Liron Kinog (Melikyan lab) for winning the Third Place Award for her poster "Assessing the Binding Affinity and Potential Estrogenicity of Natural Polyphenols", presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the AAAS in Pomona. Well done, Liron!

May 21, 2018
Dr. Ye has received a CSUN Learning-Centered Instructional Project Grant, worth $3,000, to develop and establish the validity of learner-centered assessments for measuring linked concepts in chemistry. Congratulations, Dr Ye!

May 19, 2018
Congratulations to all of our new Chemistry and Biochemistry program graduates who were acknowledged at the departmental commencement reception this afternoon! Your hard work has finally paid off - we wish all of you the very best in the next stage of your careers. Be sure to stay in touch and keep us updated on your future endeavors!

May 19, 2018
Undergraduate students Lannah Abasi, Alexander Alon, Adam Basma, Jimmy Guzman, Edwin Partiai, Jennifer Portillo, Yulduz Rakibova and Armenuhe Terzian as well as graduate students Kevin Ng and Samatar Jirde were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors at the departmental commencement reception held this afternoon. Graduate student Benjamin Azmon was given the graduate student teaching assistant award, and we also honored college and university award recipients Adam Basma, Fred Fregoso and James Mason. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May, 2018
Dr Abrol has been awarded the 2018 BUILD PODER Faculty Mentor of the Year Award! It was presented to him during the BUILD PODER Senior Showcase. Congratulations, Ravi!

May 11, 2018
Two of our graduate students successfully defended their theses this semester: Aidan Kim (Medh lab) and Marlyn Widjaja (Crowhurst lab) earned their MS degrees in Biochemistry. Congratulations, Aidan and Marlyn!

April 30, 2018
Congratulations to Fred Fregoso (Fischhaber lab) has been awarded a Graduate Fellowship for Outstanding Research Promise from the College of Science and Mathematics! The fellowship, awarded to four deserving graduate students in the college per year, is worth $5000. Well done, Fred - you deserve it! 

April 6, 2018
Students in our department were quite successful at this year's CSUNposium!  Not only did we have many students presenting in all categories (posters, 3- and 10-minute talks), we had numerous students taking home prizes.  Congratulations go to Ronelle Caguioa (Abrol lab) as well as the pair of Sharon Truong and Misael Sanchez (Vey lab) who won first place honors for their 3-minute oral presentations!  Additionally, congratulations go to Samatar Jirde (Vey lab), who won first place and Shannen Guarina (Melikyan lab), who won second place for their 10-minute oral presentations!  We are also proud of all of our students who participated in the CSUNposium and presented the quality research they are doing in our labs.

March 14, 2018
Dr Miao has published his latest research in Nature Communications, along with Chemistry undergraduate co-author Steven Valdez and several collaborators from all over the world.  His journal article, titled "Reactivity of He with ionic compounds under high pressure", pushes new boundaries in our understanding of helium.  This groundbreaking publication has also been highlighted in an article in CSUN Today.

February 16, 2018
The Chemistry Club has been busy once again: they were heavy participants in "I Heart Science Day" that was held at CSUN. 120 6th graders from Patrick Henry Middle School rotated through four activities (chemistry, biology, physics, geology) in four different classrooms. Each room had a hands-on science event with a somewhat competitive aspect. Well done Chem Clubbers!  The students look like they had a lot of fun!

February 8, 2018
Dr Andersen has published another paper on his research, titled "A three-dimensional model of the atmospheric chemistry of E and Z-CF3CH=CHCl (HCFO-1233(zd) (E/Z))". The paper includes graduate student co-author Aleksandra Volkova as well as collaborators at the Universities of Illinois and Copenhagen.  It is published in the April 2018 issue of the journal Atmospheric Environment.

December 8, 2017
This semester four of our graduate students successfully completed and defended their Master's theses!  Congratulations go to Lili Gonzalez-Osorio, Aaron Miller, Eddie Surinarintr and Casper Wong, all of whom have earned MS degrees in Biochemistry!

November 29, 2017
Dr Kayla Kaiser has been highlighted with a story in CSUN Today titled "CSUN Professor Uses Traditional Foods to Spread Cultural Insight in STEM". This semester, Dr Kaiser has offered an unique version of Science 100, in which food plays a central role to help illustrate some key concepts in science. Congratulations, Dr Kaiser!

October 31, 2017
Congratulations to the CSUN chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) for being awarded an Honorable Mention from the ACS for their high levels of pro-chemistry and pro-STEM activities within CSUN as well as the surrounding community. The commendation goes on to single out faculty advisors Drs. Abrol and Kaiser, because, the letter states: "few faculty members are willing to make the great commitment of time and energy that a successful chapter requires." Well done, ACS chapter members! 

September 29, 2017
Dr Abrol has published a chapter in a new book, "G Protein Coupled Receptors Part A", part of the Methods in Cell Biology book series published by Elsevier. Chapter 14, titled "Identifying multiple active conformations in the G protein-coupled receptor activation landscape using computational methods" was co-authored with collaborators Sijia Dong and William Goddard 3rd at Caltech.

September 17, 2017
Dr Andersen has published a manuscript along with undergraduate co-authors Jonathan Lengkong and Karen Vo, as well as collaborators in Copenhagen. The research article, titled "Atmospheric chemistry of hexanenitrile: Kinetics and products of the gas-phase reactions of CH3(CH2)4CN with Cl atoms and OH radicals" is currently available online at the website for the journal Chemical Physics Letters, and will be published in a future issue of the journal.

August, 2017
We are pleased to welcome a third new faculty member who is joining our department this fall (in addition to Drs. Ye and Teprovich): Dr. Aziz Boulesbaa will add a Materials Chemistry component to our Physical Chemistry subdivision.  Welcome, Dr Boulesbaa!

July, 2017
Dr Tamae has contributed a chapter to a new book, "Targeted Biomarker Quantitation by LC-MS", which will be officially released by Wiley in August 2017.  Chapter 18, written by Dr Tamae, is titled "Targeted LC–MS Quantification of Androgens and Estrogens for Biomarker Development", and covers an area of research in which he has extensive expertise. A portion of his chapter is also available on Google books.

July 1, 2017
Congratulations to Dr Vey, who has been granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor! Well done, Dr Vey!

June 9, 2017
We are pleased to announce that we will have two new faculty members joining our department this fall! Dr. Li Ye will be joining us as our very first faculty member whose research focuses on Chemical Education, and Dr Joseph Teprovich will join our Analytical chemists. Welcome, Drs. Ye and Teprovich!

May 31, 2017
Dr Miao has published a research paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters with collaborators at UC Irvine and in China.  His manuscript, titled "Honeycomb boron allotropes with Dirac cones: A true analogue to graphene" is currently available online and will be published in a future issue of the journal.

May 22, 2017
Undergraduate students Elyas Alalli, Keerati Asawalapsakun, Adam Basma, Nicole Gardon, Kevin Kossick, Heather Nguyen, Yulduz Rakibova and Brenda Velasco as well as graduate students Kelly Hazen, Ismail Hossain and Marlyn Widjaja were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic and research endeavors at a reception held in their honor this afternoon. Graduate student Aidan Kim was given the graduate student teaching assistant award, and we also honored college and university award recipients Anosh Dadabhoy, Kimberly Madhwani, Aaron Miller and Marlyn Widjaja. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 22, 2017
Congratulations to all of our new Chemistry and Biochemistry program graduates! Your hard work has finally paid off - we wish all of you the very best in the next stage of your careers. Be sure to stay in touch and keep us updated on your future endeavors!

May 9, 2017
Marlyn Widjaja (Crowhurst lab) has been awarded a Graduate Fellowship for Outstanding Research Promise from the College of Science and Mathematics! The fellowship, awarded to four deserving graduate students in the college per year, is worth $5000. This is the first time since 2010 that a student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has won this fellowship. Congratulations, Marlyn!

May 8, 2017
Congratulations to Kimberly Madhwani, who has been awarded a CSUN Outstanding Graduating Senior Award! Kimberly, who does research with Dr Medh, is one of only four students at the university to win this prestigious award.  There is a news article about her and the other awardees at CSUN Today, and she will be honored at the commencement ceremony for the College of Science and Mathematics on May 22. Well done, Kimberly!

May 3, 2017
Our two newest Biochemistry faculty have each been awarded CSUPERB New Investigator Grants! Dr Abrol's proposal, titled "Understanding G protein selectivity in the biased signaling of dopamine receptors” and Dr Tamae's proposal, titled "Metabolic targeting of cancer cells via the glyoxalase detoxification system" have both been funded $15,000 seed money for their 18-month projects. Congratulations, Drs. Abrol and Tamae!

April 29, 2017
The department was well-represented at this year's SCURC (Southern California Undergraduate Research Conference), held at UCLA. Students from the Crowhurst, Medh, Melikyan and Oh labs participated in both the oral and poster presentation categories in their respective subdisciplines. Two of our participants won top prize in their category: Elen Artashyan (Melikyan lab) won for her oral presentation, titled "Cobalt-mediated radical cyclizations: Novel gateway to linearly fused carbocycles", and Sam Mahdi (Crowhurst lab) won for his poster presentation, titled "Structural and dynamic differences influence the affinity of RGS4 and RGS7 for Gαi1". Congratulations to all presenters, especially Elen and Sam!

April 27, 2017
We have two student winners of merit awards in College of Science and Mathematics competitions! Aaron Miller (Fischhaber lab) has won the prestigious Bianchi Outstanding Graduate Student award, and Anosh Dadabhoy has been awarded the Robert Nolan Scholarship. These are very competitive awards throughout the college, so we are excited with their success. Congratulations, Aaron and Anosh!

April, 2017
Dr Andersen has co-authored a chapter in a recently published book, titled "Advances in Atmospheric Chemistry (Volume 1)". His 98-page chapter is titled "Atmospheric Chemistry of Halogenated Organic Compounds". The book is published by World Scientific and is available from major online booksellers, including Amazon. 

April 7, 2017
Our students did very well at the CSUNposium, held today on campus.  Graduate students Ismail Hossain (Oh lab) and Kellee Eberle (Vey lab) placed first and second, respectively, in their oral presentation session (competing against students in Chem & Biochem, Mathematics and Physics). In addition, Sam Mahdi (Crowhurst lab) placed second in the undergraduate poster competition.  Congratulations, Ismail, Kellee and Sam!

April 5, 2017
A team of Biochemistry students have made it into the final 5 competitors at this year's CSUN-wide Bull Ring entrepreneurship competition! Beginning as a project in Dr Fischhaber's CHEM 462 class, undergraduates Adam Freund, Jimmy Guzman Jr and Matthew Ledesma, under the team name "Omnigreen", will next compete in the final round on May 2. At stake are cash prizes (for the top 3 teams) and in-kind sponsorships to advance their company's development. Good luck, team Omnigreen!

March 27, 2017
Our scholarship winners have been announced! Graduate students Kelly Hazen (Charonnat lab) and Ismail Hossain (Oh lab) have each been awarded the Professor LeRoy Nyquist Memorial Scholarship in Organic Chemistry and undergraduate student Adam Basma (Miao lab) has been awarded the Dr. Lan K. Wong Undergraduate Research Scholarship to help support their research activities. In addition, undergraduate student Yulduz Rakibova (Fischhaber lab) has been awarded the Patricia A. Maloney Student Travel Award to help fund her trip to an upcoming scientific conference. Congratulations to all the awardees!

January 7, 2017
At the 29th annual CSU Biotechnology Symposium that was held this year in Santa Clara, graduate student Aaron Miller was awarded the prestigious Crellin Pauling Student Teaching Award (which includes a $2000 scholarship) for his extensive work as a teaching assistant in our General Chemistry labs. After receiving the award at the dinner banquet, Aaron made a short but very inspirational speech to the large crowd, talking about his passion for teaching and thanking his mentors. Congratulations, Aaron!

January 6-7, 2017
Seventeen students and six faculty from our department traveled to Santa Clara to attend the 29th annual CSU Biotechnology Symposium. Every student presented or co-presented a poster of their current research, and all attendees gained exposure to biotechnology-related resources, teaching and career opportunities, as well as a chance to talk science with department members and students/faculty from other CSUs.

December 27, 2016
Dr Melikyan has published his latest research paper along with former undergraduates Ryan Davis, Bryan Anker, Deborah Meron and Kellyanne Duncan. The article, titled "Acquiring a Prognostic Power in Co2(CO)6-Mediated, Cobaltocene-Induced Radical Dimerizations of Propargyl Triflates" has been published in a December 2016 issue of the journal Organometallics.

December 15, 2016
We are pleased to announce that the 2016/2017 Sandra L. Jewett Scholarship in Biochemistry has been awarded to Marlyn Widjaja (Crowhurst lab). It is a cash award given to one promising graduate student in our department each year, and Marlyn will also be recognized at our graduation day reception in May. Congratulations, Marlyn!

December 12, 2016
A third paper in quick succession has been published by the Andersen lab. The article, titled "Atmospheric chemistry of (CF3)2CF-C≡N - A replacement compound for the most potent industrial greenhouse gas, SF6" has been published online in conjunction with his Danish collaborators in Environmental Science and Technology, and will be featured in a future issue of the journal. To further emphasize the importance of this research, it has also been highlighted in a very interesting article this week in CSUN Today.

December 7, 2016
Hot on the heels of his other publication, Dr Andersen has had another manuscript published: his paper appears in the January 2017 edition of the International Journal of Chemical Physics. The article, titled "Atmospheric Chemistry of CH3CH2OCH3: Kinetics and Mechanism of Reactions with Cl Atoms and OH Radicals", reports on research performed in collaboration with Danish collaborators.

November 29, 2016
The latest manuscript from Dr. Andersen has been accepted for publication in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. The article, titled "Atmospheric Chemistry of Z- and E-CF3CH=CHCF3", with Dr Andersen as corresponding author and in collaboration with scientists in Denmark, is currently available online and will be published in a future issue of the journal.

November 25, 2016
A final manuscript from the Hajdu lab has been posthumously published by former Hajdu student co-authors Amir Keshavarz and Ligia Zelaya, in collaboration with Drs Radha Ranganathan and Jasmeet Singh in Physics. The article, titled "Activity-based targeting of secretory phospholipase A2 enzymes: A fatty-acid-binding-protein assisted approach" has been accepted for publication in Chemistry and Physics of Lipids. It is currently available online and will be published in a future issue of the journal.

November 1, 2016
Dr Vey has published her latest research paper in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. The journal article, titled "Initial investigations of C4a-(hydro)peroxyflavin intermediate formation by dibenzothiophene monooxygenase" includes graduate student Lili Gonzalez-Osorio as first author as well as former undergraduate Kelvin Luong and graduate student Samatar Jirde as co-authors. The paper is currently available online, and will be published the December 2016 issue of the journal.

September 15, 2016
Congratulations to Dr. Miao, who has been awarded 1.5 million core hours on the XSEDE supercomputers. This grant is worth almost $51,000 and will provide the Miao lab significant computational resources to continue their important research.

September 7, 2016
Dr Miao has published his latest research paper along with international collaborators and Dr Jorge Botana, a visiting scholar at CSUN. The article, titled "Iodine Anions beyond −1: Formation of LinI (n = 2–5) and Its Interaction with Quasiatoms" has been published in the September 19 issue of the journal Inorganic Chemistry.

August 24, 2016
Dr. Andersen has published a research paper with international collaborators in Sweden and Denmark. The article, titled "Atmospheric Chemistry of Tetrahydrofuran, 2-Methyltetrahydrofuran, and 2,5-Dimethyltetrahydrofuran: Kinetics of Reactions with Chlorine Atoms, OD Radicals, and Ozone" has been published online by the Journal of Physical Chemistry A and will be released in a print version at a later date.

August 22, 2016
The Melikyan lab has published their latest research paper. The article, with undergraduate co-authors Ryan Davis and Samantha Cappuccino, is titled "Acquiring and exploiting persistency of propargyl radicals: Novel paradigms"; it has been published online by the journal Organometallics and will be released in the print version at a later date.

August, 2016
Two of our graduate students successfully defended their theses over the summer: Shayla Brooks (Crowhurst lab) earned her MS degree in Biochemistry and will continue on to the PhD program at City of Hope. Jordan Carter (Schrodi lab) earned his MS Chemistry degree, and will continue this fall as a PhD candidate at UC Davis. Congratulations, Shayla and Jordan!

June 27, 2016
We are pleased and excited to announce that we will have two new biochemistry faculty joining our department this fall! Dr. Ravinder Abrol is a computational biochemist (focusing primarily on the structural basis of G protein coupled receptor signaling), and Dr. Daniel Tamae is an experimental biochemist (focusing on quantification and identification of changes in metabolic products in cancer cells). Welcome, Drs. Abrol and Tamae!

May 22, 2016
Undergraduate students Kayla Jane Conanan, Danny Resendiz, Patrick Keane, Maryam Ghiassee, Fred Fregoso, Robert Cohen Sedgh and Edwin Partiai were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic endeavors at a reception held in their honor this afternoon. Graduate student Aaron Miller was also given the Teaching Assistant Award and Jewett Scholarship in Biochemistry, and Ligia Zelaya was awarded the LeRoy Nyquist Scholarship in Organic Chemistry. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 13, 2016
Four of our graduate students successfully defended their theses in the Spring semester: Steven Ruark (Schrodi lab), Kaveh Vossoughian (Garrett lab), Alex Mantanona (Garrett lab) and Michelle Chan (Garrett lab) earned their MS degrees in Chemistry. Congratulations, Steven, Kaveh, Alex and Michelle!

May 5, 2016
MS Chemistry graduate student Ryan Davis has been awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! With 17,000 applicants and a 12% success rate, this is a very significant accomplishment! The award provides funds for stipend and tuition for three years. Ryan, who is currently a member of the Melikyan lab, will be taking his award to Yale University to join the Chemistry Department in the fall as a PhD candidate. Congratulations, Ryan!

May 2016
We are pleased to announce that Dr Brenton Hammer will be joining us in the fall as a new faculty member. Dr Hammer is a polymer chemist, and will be joining the organic division of our department. Welcome, Dr Hammer!

May 1, 2016
Dr Schrodi has been awarded a renewal of his SCORE SC3 grant, titled "New robust olefin metathesis catalysts based on non-toxic and abundant low-valent molybdenum". The grant begins on July 1, and is worth $435,000 over four years. Congratulations, Dr. Schrodi!

April 22, 2016
Congratulations to graduate student Alex Mantanona, who has been awarded this year's Hugo and Irma Oppenheimer Award! The award, given to one student per year by the College of Science and Mathematics, honors a student's excellence in research and commitment to teaching. Very well-deserved, Alex!

March 25, 2016
Congratulations to Dr Crowhurst, who has been awarded a NIH SCORE SC3 grant! The award, which supports her grant proposal titled "In vitro and in-cell investigation of the acid-stress chaperone HdeA", is worth $435,000 over four years.

March 24, 2016
Five students from Dr. Curtis’ lab (Farnaz Aghabarari, Maryam Ghiassee, Megan Melnick, Heather Nguyen, and Kyle Tucker) presented posters at the 33rd Informal Symposium on Kinetic and Photochemical Processes in the Atmosphere, held at UC Irvine. Their work was well-received by the attendees.

March 11, 2016
Our newest faculty member, Dr. Miao, has been very active with his research: his first journal article from our department has been published! The article, titled "Electron counting and a large family of two-dimensional semiconductors" is being published by the journal Chemistry of Materials. It is currently available online and will be formally published in a future issue of the journal.

December 23, 2015
Drs. Fischhaber and Kelson have been busy in their research activities - they have published their second manuscript in a month!  The paper, titled "Saw1 Localizes to Repair Sites but is not Required for Recruitment of Rad10 to Repair Intermediates Bearing Short Non-Homologous 3' Flaps during Single-Strand Annealing in S. cerevisiae" can be found in the January 2016 issue of the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. It is co-authored by undergraduates Melina Mardirosian (first author) and Claire Phan, as well as graduate students Linette Nalbandyan and Aaron Miller.

December 13, 2015
The Fischhaber and Kelson labs have published their latest manuscript, titled "Rad7 E3 ubiquitin ligase attenuates polyubiquitylation of Rpn10 and Dsk2 following DNA damage in Saccharomyces cerevisiae" in the December issue of the journal Advances in Biological Chemistry. The article is co-authored by former graduate students Joe Benoun and Destaye Moore, as well as former undergraduate researchers Danielle Lalimar-Cortez, Analila Valencia and Adriana Granda. The full article is available for downloading from the journal website.

December 2, 2015
Following closely on the heels of her first publication, Dr Vey has had a second manuscript published in the journal Acta Crystallographica (Section F), in collaboration with Dr. Howard Xu at CSULA, and with undergraduate student co-authors Cheryl Jordan, Brad Sandoval and Mkrtich Serobyan.  The article, titled "Crystallographic insights into the structure-activity relationships of diazaborine enoyl-ACP reductase inhibitors" is available online in the December 2015 issue of the journal.

November 19, 2015
Dr Melikyan has published a new research paper in the journal Organometallics. The article, titled "Radical reactions of 1,4-alkadiynes: Metal coordination as an effective tool for controlling the regio- and stereoselectivity of the C–C bond formation" is co-authored with former undergraduate student Bryan Anker, and is available online at the journal website.

October 22, 2015
A manuscript has been published by Dr Crowhurst, in collaboration with Dr Paul Weers at CSU Long Beach and his student James Horn. The article, titled "Backbone and side chain chemical shift assignments of apolipophorin III from Galleria mellonella" has been posted online and will be published in a future issue of the journal Biomolecular NMR Assignments.

September 30, 2015
Dr Vey has published her first manuscript based on research performed at CSUN. Her paper, titled "X-ray crystal structure of DnmZ, a nitrososynthase in the Streptomyces peucetius anthracycline biosynthetic pathway" is available in the October 2015 issue of Acta Crystallographica Section F, and is co-authored with two of her former graduate students: Lauren Sartor and Charmaine Ibarra.

September 3, 2015
It is with great sadness we must announce that Dr. Joseph Hajdu died in hospital today after a sudden and brief illness. Dr. Hajdu started at CSUN in 1984 and over the years his teaching and scholarship has touched the lives of countless students and made him a valued faculty member of our department. Memorial service arrangements are still to be determined.  Please keep his family and his students in your thoughts in these difficult hours.

August 18-20, 2015
Our department was well-represented at the Fall 2015 American Chemical Society national meeting in Boston: Drs. Hajdu and Melikyan gave short talks on their research, Dr. Melikyan chaired a scientific session, and his students Samantha Cappuccino, Ryan Davis and Michael Mousselli presented posters of their research projects.

August 17, 2015
Dr Curtis and his research students have been working on exciting research in the area of atmospheric chemistry.  Their work was highlighted this week in an article in CSUN Today, which described the Curtis lab's efforts to explore how sea spray, smoke and smog can affect the Earth’s atmosphere. They use high-tech analytical chemistry equipment, including a custom-made cavity ringdown spectrometer, to pursue their investigations. The article highlights one example of the exciting research that is being undertaken with students within our department!

August 2015
This summer we had a record number of students successfully defend their MS theses:  Rhoda Gould (Melikyan lab), Yehan Zhang (Garrett lab) and Christine Dimirjian (Minehan lab) earned their MS Chemistry degrees, while Majib Jan (Medh lab) and Duan Trinh (Hajdu lab) received their MS Biochemsitry degrees.  Congratulations to all of you and best of luck in your future endeavors! 

June 5, 2015
It has been confirmed that Dr Maosheng Miao will be joining us as our newest faculty member in Physical Chemistry, starting in Fall 2015.  Welcome, Dr Miao! We look forward to having you in our department.

May 18, 2015
Undergraduate students Bryce Clifton, Yvonne Diaz, Maryam Ghiassee, Jimmy Guzmán, Jr, Amanda Minzer, Robert Goon Sedgh Naseri and Braddock Sandoval were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic endeavors at a reception held in their honor this afternoon. Graduate student Alex Mantanona was also given the teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 8, 2015
Two of our graduate students successfully defended their theses in the Spring semester: Robert Pankow (Ogawa lab) earned his MS degree in Chemistry and Charmaine Ibarra (Vey lab) earned a MS in Biochemistry. Robert is moving on to pursue a PhD degree and Charmaine is becoming a researcher for the Army. Congratulations, Charmaine and Robert!

May 1, 2015
Two of our students earned second place honors at today's Sigma XI Student Research Symposium, held on campus.  Congratulations go to undergraduate Ryan Davis (Melikyan lab) and Alex Mantanona (Garrett lab).

April 28, 2015
Congratulations to Tania Benjamin for winning the Wolfson Scholar award! This prestigious award is given to only one outstanding student at CSUN per year, and it is the second year in a row that it has been given to a student in our college. Among her other activities, Tania has been active doing research in the lab of Dr. Schrodi.  Congratulations, Tania!

April 24, 2015
Our students have been very successful this year in winning college awards! Congratulations go to Rowen Jane Odango (Heald Outstanding Junior), Kimberly Madhwani (College of Science and Mathematics Outstanding Junior) and Ryan Davis (Leslie and Terry Cutler Scholarship)!

April 11, 2015
Congratulations to undergraduate Ryan Davis for winning the Outstanding Oral Presentation Award at the ACS Southern California Undergraduate Research Conference (SCURC), held at UCSD! Ryan, a student in Dr. Melikyan's group, gave a presentation on his research, titled "Cobalt-complexed propargyl radicals: Transiency vs persistency". Very well done, Ryan!

April 9, 2015
This year we have had notable success in our nominations for the Faculty and Staff Awards from the College of Science and Mathematics.  Big congratulations go to Dr Eloranta for winning the Bianchi Research Award, and to Dr. Garrett, who has won the Teaching Award!

April 3, 2015
Over 120 scientists from all over Southern California descended on CSUN to attend the 32nd ISKPPA (Informal Symposium on Kinetics and Photochemical Processes in the Atmosphere).  It was a one-day event that featured prominent speakers, posters, and a unique feature called "one-minute madness" where people had 60 seconds to advertise their posters. The event was organized by Drs. Andersen and Curtis from our department.  Congratulations on a successful event!

April, 2015
Dr. Schrodi has published a chapter, titled "Mechanisms of Olefin Metathesis Catalyst Decomposition and Methods of Catalyst Reactivation" in the 2nd edition of the Handbook of Metathesis: Catalyst Development and Mechanism (from Wiley-VCH). It is available from the Wiley Online Library, which is accessible through the CSUN library site.

March 30, 2015
Congratulations to Dr Melikyan for being one of thirteen winners of the 2015 Kennedy Center / Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award! He was nominated for this national honor by former student Christopher Wild.

March 6, 2015
Dr Melikyan has published an invited review article in the journal Accounts of Chemical Research, titled "Propargyl radical chemistry: Renaissance instigated by metal coordination". It is currently available online and will be published in a future issue of the journal.

February 13, 2015
Drs. Kayla and Mike Kaiser, joined by 40 CSUN student volunteers, hosted the highly successful "I (heart) Science Day". 113 6th-graders from Patrick Henry Middle School visited the CSUN campus to participate in fun hands-on science-oriented activities, including the Slime-Making activity presented by our department. More details can be seen on the event's Facebook page.

January 22, 2015
Dr Minehan, along with undergraduate students Harmanpreet Panesar and Jennifer Solano, has published a research article in the journal Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. The article, titled "Synthesis and DNA binding profile of N-mono- and N,N′-disubstituted indolo[3,2-b]carbazoles" will be published in the March 14 issue of the journal.

January 4, 2015
The Melikyan lab has published their latest research article in the journal Organometallics, titled "Assembling contiguous quaternary carbon atoms: Regio- and stereoselective rearrangements in cobalt-directed radical reactions of 1,4-enynes". Coauthors of the paper include graduate student Rhoda Hughes, as well as undergraduates Bianca Rivas, Kellyanne Duncan and Nare Sahakyan. The article is currently available online and will appear in a future issue of the printed journal.

December 23, 2014
We are pleased to announce that this year’s recipients of the 2014 Professor LeRoy Nyquist Memorial Scholarship in Organic Chemistry and the 2015 Sandra L. Jewett Scholarship in Biochemistry are being awarded to Christine Dimirjian and Elena Korsakova, respectively. Both of these students will be recognized at our graduation day reception in May. While the Sandra L. Jewett Scholarship in Biochemistry is familiar to our Department, the Professor LeRoy Nyquist Memorial Scholarship in Organic Chemistry is a new award that recognizes promising graduate students specializing in organic chemistry. Congratulations, Christine and Elena!

September 6, 2014
The Schrodi lab has published a research article with former graduate student Wing-Sy Wong deRieux and former undergraduate student Aaron Wong.  The article, titled "Synthesis and characterization of iron complexes based on bis-phosphinite PONOP and bis-phosphite PONOP pincer ligands" is currently available online at the Journal of Organometallic Chemistry and will appear in the December 1, 2014 issue of the printed journal.

September 2, 2014
Dr. Fischhaber has been awarded her second SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! Titled "Recruitment of End-Processing Factors in DSB Repair", the grant is worth almost $410,000 over four years. Congratulations, Dr. Fischhaber!

August 8, 2014
Dr Medh and her former graduate student Ryoko Kawashima have published a paper titled "Down-regulation of lipoprotein lipase increases ABCA1-mediated cholesterol efflux in THP-1 macrophages". It can be found in the August 8 issue of the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.

July 31 2014
Congratulations to Amir Keshavarz, from the Hajdu lab, for successfully defending his thesis this afternoon. He has earned a MS in Biochemistry degree, and will be moving on to a PhD program in the fall.

July 26 2014
Dr. Andersen has published a journal article, titled "Atmospheric chemistry of short-chain haloolefins: Photochemical ozone creation potentials (POCPs), global warming potentials (GWPs), and ozone depletion potentials (ODPs)" with two colleagues in the journal Chemosphere. The article is currently available online and will be published in the June 2015 issue of the print version.

July 2014
Congratulations to Drs. Crowhurst, Curtis and Garrett for final confirmation of their tenure and promotion to Associate Professor! It was hard-fought and well-deserved.

May 21, 2014
Undergraduate students Elyas Allali, McKinzie Garrison, Jacob Gershbock, Amanda Kuthi and Melina Mrdroosian were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic endeavors at a reception held in their honor this afternoon. Graduate student Miran Mavlan was also given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 12, 2014
The department is extremely excited to announce that McKinzie Garrison, graduating this week with a BS in Biochemistry, has been awarded the Wolfson Scholar Award! This is the highest honor a student can receive at CSUN, and only one CSUN student per year is given this prestigious award. An article about McKinzie has been published in CSUN Today and she will be honored in a special ceremony at the Honor Convocation on Friday May 16th. Congratulations, McKinzie - we are so proud of your accomplishments!

May 12, 2014
An article has been published in CSUN Today that highlights the public advocacy efforts by Dr. Melikyan as a supplement to his book, published in 2010, which discusses some of the potential health dangers of certain cosmetics and popular dietary supplements.

May 9, 2014
Two of our graduate students successfully defended their theses in the Spring semester: Xiao Cai and Miran Mavlan, both from the Minehan lab, have earned MS degrees in Chemistry, and both will next move on to pursue PhD degrees. Congratulations, Xiao and Miran!

March 24, 2014
This year we have one student who has been honored with a college award: congratulations go to McKinzie Garrison for winning the prestigious Bianchi Outstanding Undergraduate Student award for her prolific research activities!

March 14, 2014
Dr Fischhaber has published her latest paper, titled "SAW1 is Required for SDSA Double-Strand Break Repair in S. cerevisiae" with former undergraduate students Graciel Diamante, Claire Phan and Angie Celis as well as former graduate exchange student Jonas Krueger. It can be found in the March 14 issue of Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.

Feb 3, 2014
The Curtis lab has had a manuscript accepted for publication in the journal Atmospheric Environment. The paper, titled "Size and mass distributions of ground-level sub-micrometer biomass burning aerosol from small wildfires" is co-authored by undergraduate Rintaro Okoshi as well as former graduate students Abdur Rasheed, Greeshma Chen Reddy and Clinton McCrowey and will be published in a future issue of the journal.

Jan 20, 2014
A manuscript from the Crowhurst lab has been published in the February 2014 issue of the journal Protein Science. The paper, with undergraduate co-author McKinzie Garrison, is titled "NMR-monitored titration of acid-stress bacterial chaperone HdeA reveals that Asp and Glu charge neutralization produces a loosened dimer structure in preparation for protein unfolding and chaperone activation".

Dec 17, 2013
A manuscript from the Melikyan lab, titled "Radical reactions of the cobalt-complexed propargyl acetals: Inter- and intramolecular variants" has been accepted for publication in the journal Organometallics and will appear in a future issue. The paper's co-authors include former undergraduate Ruth Sepanian and former graduate student Erin Voorhees.

Dec 2, 2013
Four graduate students successfully defended their research theses in the fall semester: Ryoko Kawashima (Medh lab) earned a MS in Biochemistry, while Sarah Gafvert (Miller lab), Muhammet Mammetkuliyev (Eloranta lab) and Clinton McCrowey (Curtis lab) earned MS degrees in Chemistry. Congratulations to you all and best of luck in your future endeavors!

Oct 1, 2013
The Melikyan lab has published its most recent manuscript in the October issue of the journal Dalton Transactions. The article, titled "Impact of reducing agent, temperature, and substrate topology on diastereoselectivity of the intermolecular coupling reactions, or how "free" are cobalt-complexed propargyl radicals?" includes student co-authors Louis Carlson, Nare Sahakyan, Arthur Floruti and McKinzie Garrison.

August, 2013
Dr. Hajdu has published a research paper, titled "Synthesis of mixed-chain phosphatidylcholines including coumarin fluorophores for FRET-based kinetic studies of phospholipase A2 enzymes" in the July-August issue of the journal Chemistry and Physics of Lipids. The paper is the product of a collaboration with Dr. Ranganathan in Physics and includes two former student co-authors (Manlin Wang and Susmitha Pinnamaraju).

August 3, 2013
Congratulations to our graduate students who successfully defended their theses over the summer! Jan Maly (Crowhurst lab) earned a MS in Biochemistry, and Soseala Tinilau (Curtis lab), Erin Voorhees (Melikyan lab) and Don Luong Tran (Kelson lab) earned MS degrees in Chemistry. Best of luck with the next stage of your careers!

July 10, 2013
Dr. Crowhurst has published a research manuscript, titled "13C, 15N and 1H backbone and side chain chemical shift assignment of acid-stress bacterial chaperone HdeA at pH 6" in the journal Biomolecular NMR Assignments. The article has been posted online and will appear in a future issue of the journal.

June 28, 2013
Dr. Fischhaber and former graduate student Justin Karlin have co-authored a paper, titled "Rad51 ATP binding but not hydrolysis is required to recruit Rad10 in synthesis-dependent strand annealing sites in S. cerevisiae". The article has been published in the June 2013 issue of the online journal Advances in Biological Chemistry (DOI: 10.4236/abc.2013.33033)

June 27, 2013
Congratulations to Dr. Vey for receiving a NIH SCORE SC2 grant! The award is worth more than $400,000 over three years.

June 25, 2013
Dr. Curtis has published a research manuscript in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, titled "A latched comparator circuit for triggering continuous-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy", with his former graduate student Abdur Rasheed as co-author. The paper is available for viewing online.

May 21, 2013
Undergraduate students Jacob Gershbock, Aaron Miller, Lusine Simonyan, Daniel Tolentino and Guoqing Wang were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic endeavors at a reception held in their honor in the afternoon. Graduate student Courtney Sams was also given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 21, 2013
Congratulations to all of our graduating Chemistry and Biochemistry students! Your hard work has finally paid off - we wish all of you the very best in the next stage of your careers. Be sure to stay in touch and keep us updated on your future endeavors!

May 10, 2013
Congratulations to Courtney Sams and Wing-Sy Wong (MS Chemistry), as well as Joe Benoun and Keen Kim (MS Biochemistry) for successfully completing their Master's degrees! We wish you much success in your scientific careers! Keep in touch!

April 26, 2013
This year four of our students won prizes at the Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium on campus. Congratulations go to Robert Pankow and Ryoko Kawashima, from the Ogawa and Medh labs, respectively, for winning first and second place prizes in their graduate student presentation session. In addition, we congratulate Bryan Anker (Melikyan lab) and Kenneth Cooper (Ogawa lab) for their first and second place positions in the undergraduate session.

April 10, 2013
We have three students who won prestigious college awards again this year! Congratulations go to Jan Maly (Crowhurst lab) for winning the Bianchi Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Harmanpreet Panesar (Minehan lab) for receiving the Bianchi Outstanding Undergraduate Award, and Melina Mrdroosian (Fischhaber lab) for winning the Outstanding Junior Award!

April 9, 2013
Congratulations to Dr. Curtis for winning the 2013 Tenure-track teaching award from the College of Science and Mathematics! The students are very lucky to have such a gifted teacher.

February 15, 2013
Four Chemistry students won prizes at the 2013 CSUN Student Research Symposium: Vahe Darabidian and Nare Sahakyan (both from the Melikyan lab) received first and second place, respectively, for their oral presentations, while Robert Pankow and Kenny Cooper (from the Ogawa lab) received a second place prize for their joint poster at the symposium. Congratulations to all that participated!

February 14, 2013
A manuscript from the Curtis group, titled "A Portable High-Resolution Polar Nephelometer for Measurement of the Angular Scattering Properties of Atmospheric Aerosol: Design and Validation" has been accepted for publication in the journal Aerosol Science and Technology and will be published in a future issue. The paper has four student co-authors: Clinton McCrowey, Soseala Tinilau, Gabriela Calderon and Jung-Eun Koo.

January 15, 2013
Dr. Curtis has received a grant for the Summer Interdisciplinary Team Experience (SITE) in collaboration with Dr. David Klein of the Mathematics department. The award is worth $11,000 during summer 2013. Congratulations Dr. Curtis!

January 14, 2013
Dr. Schrodi's research group has published a paper in the January 14th issue of Organometallics, titled "Reactivation of a ruthenium-based olefin metathesis catalyst". The co-authors on the paper are former graduate student Daniel Tabari and undergraduate student Daniel Tolentino.

December 14, 2012
Congratulations to Master's students Matthew Ryan (Schrodi lab), Nick Baca (Garrett lab) and Chikako Omura (Minehan lab) for successfully completing their theses and earning their MS degrees! We wish you all luck in the next stages of your careers.

August 20, 2012
Dr. Medh has published a manuscript in the journal Advances in Biological Chemistry. The paper, co-authored with former graduate student Diala Dahabreh, is titled "Activation of peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma results in an atheroprotective apolipoprotein profile in HepG2 cells" and can be found in the August 2012 issue of the journal.

July 11, 2012
The Crowhurst research lab has published a manuscript, titled “Expression, purification and preliminary NMR characterization of isotopically labeled wild-type human heterotrimeric G protein alpha(i1)” in the August 2012 issue of the journal Protein Expression and Purification. The first author on the paper is graduate student Jan Maly.

May 30, 2012
A manuscript from the Minehan research lab, titled “Total Synthesis of Indole-3-Acetonitrile-4-Methoxy-2-C-beta-D-Glucopyranoside. Proposal for Structural Revision of the Natural Product” has been accepted and will be published in a future issue of the journal Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. The co-author on this paper is postbaccalaureate student Akop Yepremyan.

May 23, 2012
Dr. Melikyan's book, published in 2011 and titled "Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Antioxidants, Foods, Supplements, and Cosmetics" has been named as an award-winning finalist in the "Science: General" category of the 2012 International Book Awards, sponsored by JPX Media Group. This is the second time his book has been named as a finalist in a book award competition. Congratulations again, Dr. Melikyan!

May 22, 2012
This year students from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have received three of the six available prestigious academic awards in the College of Science and Mathematics! Congratulations go to Michael Enos (Heald Outstanding Graduating Senior Award), Saemi Oh (Outstanding Junior Award) and Daniel Tolentino (Bianchi Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award).

May 22, 2012
Undergraduate students Michael Enos, Ryan Faulconer, McKinzie Garrison, Ivan Sanchez, Daniel Tolentino and Shuai Wang were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic endeavors at a reception held in their honor this afternoon. Graduate student Wing-Sy Wong DeRieux was also given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

May 22, 2012
Congratulations to all of our graduating Chemistry and Biochemistry students! Your hard work has finally paid off - we wish all of you the very best in the next stage of your careers. Be sure to stay in touch and keep us updated on your future endeavors!

May 11, 2012
Congratulations to Master's student Daniel Tabari (Schrodi lab) for successfully completing his thesis and presenting his thesis seminar! He has earned an MS in Chemistry.

May 11, 2012
The Schrodi lab has published a new research paper, titled "Development of a Method for the Preparation of Ruthenium Indenylidene-Ether Olefin Metathesis Catalysts" in the May issue of the journal Molecules. The paper's co-authors are former graduate student Leonel Jimenez, undergrad Daniel Tolentino, and former undergrad Benjamin Gallon.

May 3, 2012
Congratulations to Dr. Vey for receiving a CSUPERB New Investigator award! The grant is worth $15,000 over the next 15 months.

May 2, 2012
Students in our department did well in the Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium which took place on April 27. Special congratulations go to graduate student Judy Salandanan (Minehan lab) and undergraduate student Daniel Tolentino (Schrodi lab), who placed first and second in their respective competitions.

March 14, 2012
Congratulations to Dr. Crowhurst for receiving an RUI grant from the NSF! The grant is worth $436,000 over three years.

March 12, 2012
The Melikyan research lab has published a new article, titled "Cobaltocene-Induced Low-Temperature Radical Coupling Reactions in a Cobalt-Alkyne Series" in the March 12th issue of Organometallics. The paper has two undergraduate and two graduate student co-authors (Bianca Rivas, Stepan Harutyunyan, Louis Carlson and Ruth Sepanian).

December 16, 2011
The Minehan research lab has published a new article, titled "Intramolecular [2 + 2] Cycloaddition Reactions of Alkynyl Ether Derived Ketenes. A Convenient Synthesis of Donor–Acceptor Cyclobutanes" in the December 16th issue of Organic Letters. The co-author on this paper is undergraduate student Vincent Tran.

November 1, 2011
Dr. Melikyan's recently published book "Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Antioxidants, Foods, Supplements, and Cosmetics" was named as a finalist in the "Science" category of the USA "Best Books 2011" Awards nationwide competition, sponsored by the USA Book News. Congratulations Dr. Melikyan!

September 12, 2011
After a very long installation period, our 600 MHz NMR spectrometer is finally up and running! We now have a very high resolution state-of-the-art instrument at our disposal in the department!

July 22, 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Melikyan for receiving a research grant from the NSF! The grant is worth $240,000 over three years.

July 7, 2011
Dr. Jessica Vey joined our department today as our newest biochemistry faculty member. She comes to us from a postdoctoral position at Vanderbilt University, where her research focused on structural characterization of G proteins by crystallography. Welcome, Dr. Vey!

July 1, 2011
Dr. Fischhaber has been granted tenure and has been promoted to the position of Associate Professor of Biochemistry. Congratulations, Dr. Fischhaber! Your hard work has paid off.

June 27, 2011
The 600 MHz NMR magnet has finally arrived! The transport of the magnet up to the 3rd floor in our small elevator was harrowing, but it was successfully carried out, after much sweating. Installation will begin this week in Citrus Hall and will take ~1 month.

June 15, 2011
Dr. J. Michael Kaiser joined the department today as our new Instrumentation Manager. Welcome, Dr. Kaiser - we are thrilled that you are here!

June 15, 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Schrodi for receiving a SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth $435,000 over four years.

June 6, 2011
Attention recent graduates and graduating students: if you are looking for a job that uses the skills you learned pursuing your Chemistry or Biochemistry degree, check out the AfterCollege jobs website, created for graduates of our department.

June 2, 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Hajdu, who has been granted SCORE SC3 funding from the NIH! The grant is worth $435,000 over four years.

June 2, 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Minehan for receiving a SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth $435,000 over four years.

May 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Kelson for receiving a Research Development grant from CSUPERB! The grant is worth $15,000 over the next 15 months.

May 24, 2011
Undergraduate students Rana Akiel, Udara Ilandari Dewage, Marina Dykhne, McKinzie Garrison, Tram Le, Earl-Eugene Ringpis and Justin Waschk were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic endeavors at a reception held in their honor this afternoon. Former graduate student Sam Muhia was also given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

Spring 2011
Congratulations to our Master's student Naveen Battala (Crowhurst lab) for successfully completing his thesis and presenting his thesis seminar in the Spring 2011 semester! He has earned an MS in Biochemistry.

May 11, 2011
Congratulations to graduate student Heemal Dhanjee (Minehan lab) for winning first place for his oral presentation in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences category at the CSU Student Research competition, held in Fresno last weekend. Excellent work, Heemal!

May 2, 2011
Congratulations to graduate students Seong-Jin Moon (Minehan lab) and Danielle Lalimar Cortez (Fischhaber lab) for coming in first and second place, respectively, at the 13th Annual Student Research Symposium for the CSUN Chapter of Sigma Xi, which was held on Friday April 29th 2011! Both students did an excellent job giving their oral research presentations.

April 28, 2011
Our new 400 MHz NMR spectrometer has arrived! The Varian 400-MR system has been successfully delivered, and installation will start next week in its new home in Magnolia Hall.

March 23, 2011
Dr. Gagik Melikyan will be honored as the 2011 Jerome Richfield Scholar on Wednesday March 23, and will present a seminar of his research, titled "Controlling Radicals: from Reaction Flask to Food and Body Preservation". The event will begin at 4:00pm in the Library Presentation Room.

March 18, 2011
A manuscript from the Minehan research lab, titled "[3,3]-Sigmatropic Rearrangement / 5-Exo-Dig Cyclization Reactions of Benzyl Alkynyl Ethers: Synthesis of Substituted 2-Indanones and Indenes" has been accepted and will be published in a future issue of The Journal of Organic Chemistry. The co-author on this paper is graduate student Armen Tudjarian.

March, 2011
A manuscript from the Kelson research lab, entitled "Single-flask preparation of polyazatriaryl ligands by sequential borylation/Suzuki–Miyaura coupling" has been accepted and will be published in the April 11, 2011 issue of Tetrahedron Letters. The paper has one undergraduate and two graduate co-authors from the Kelson group (Eric MacIntosh, Bertoldo Avitia and Samuel Muhia).

March 1, 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Medh for receiving a SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth over $400,000 for four years.

February 18, 2011
Congratulations to Heemal Dhanjee for receiving first place in the College of Science and Math oral presentation session at the 15th annual CSUN Student Research and Creative Works Symposium! Heemal is a postbaccalaureate student in the Minehan lab.

January 3, 2011
Students: are you interested in doing research with Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty? We now have a new website that posts research opportunities! The site shows who is looking for students and what type of commitment each faculty member wants. It will take some of the legwork out of your search and allow you to focus on faculty who want to expand their labs! Go to this page and check it out.

Fall 2010
Congratulations to our Master's students who successfully completed their theses and presented their thesis seminars in Fall 2010! MS in Chemistry recipients were Leonel Jimenez (Schrodi lab), Samuel Muhia (Kelson lab) and Bertoldo Avitia (Kelson lab).

December 15, 2010
Faculty member Dr. Gagik Melikyan has published a book, entitled "Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Antioxidants, Foods, Supplements, and Cosmetics". It is written for a broad audience, and questions the current consensus in these fields of study. It is available on Amazon.

October 20, 2010
The Minehan lab has published its most recent research in a paper entitled "Indium-mediated allylation of aldehydes, ketones and sulfonimines with 2-(alkoxy)allyl bromides" inTetrahedron Letters. The article is co-authored by a graduate student in the lab, Heemal Dhanjee. It is available online and was also published in this week's issue of the journal.

September 18, 2010
The National Science Foundation has awarded the department grant funds to puchase a new 600 MHz NMR spectrometer! This will provide an enormous boost to the research and teaching efforts of many faculty in the department and college. Dr. Crowhurst, the primary PI on this multi-PI proposal, will be significantly impacted: her primary research tool is high-field NMR, and until now she has travelled off-campus to run all experiments. The spectrometer will become the new centerpiece of our collection of state-of-the-art departmental instrumentation.

August 2010
A manuscript from the Melikyan research group, entitled "1,3-Steric Induction in Intermolecular Radical Reactions Mediated by a Co2(CO)6-Metal Core" has been published in the August 23 issue of Organometallics. The paper has two graduate student co-authors (Ryan Spencer and Aaron Rowe).

August 2010
A manuscript from the Schrodi research lab, entitled "A most convenient and atom-economic preparation of a highly active ring-closing metathesis catalyst" has been published in the August 23 issue of Organometallics. The paper has one graduate and one undergraduate co-author from the Schrodi group (Leonel Jimenez and Benjamin Gallon).

August 2010
A manuscript entitled "Use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo" from the Carroll research lab, in collaboration with the Oppenheimer lab in Biology, has been published in the August 1 issue of Experimental Cell Research

July 2010
A manuscript from the Melikyan research lab, entitled "Inter- and intramolecular isocarbon couplings of cobalt-complexed propargyl radicals: challenging the consensus" has been published in the July 17 issue of Tetrahedron.

June 21, 2010
Congratulations to Dr. Fischhaber for receiving a SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth $418,693 over four years.

June 11, 2010
Congratulations to Dr. Crowhurst for receiving a SCORE SC2 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth $435,000 over three years.

June 11, 2010
Congratulations to Drs. Ogawa and Schrodi for receiving grants from the ACS Petroleum Research Fund! Each grant is worth $50,000 over two years.

May 23, 2010
A manuscript from the Fischhaber research lab, entitled "Rad10-YFP focus induction in response to UV depends on RAD14 in yeast" has been accepted for publication in Acta Histochemica and is currently in press.

May 18, 2010
Two students from the Department were awarded prestigious College of Science and Mathematics awards this year: Destaye Moore (MS Biochemistry) received the Bianchi Outstanding Graduate Student Award and Danya Smart (BS Biochemistry) earned the CSM Oppenheimer Award. Congratulations to Destaye and Danya!

Spring, 2010
Congratulations to our Master's students who successfully presented their thesis seminars in Spring 2010! MS in Biochemistry recipients were Justin Karlin (Fischhaber lab), Destaye Moore (Fischhaber lab) and Ryan Spencer (Melikyan lab), and Diala Dahabreh (Medh lab) received a MS in Chemistry.