Teaching and research in chemistry is what I have wanted to do with my life since I was twelve years old (Honest!). Chemistry is an exciting, stimulating mental exercise, as well as being extremely important to our society, and communicating that excitement and importance to students is tremendous fun. I enjoy teaching at all levels, from general chemistry to graduate special topics courses.

In recent years, I have been exploring some of the ways in which computers can be used to supplement the more traditional methods of conveying chemical information. While I will never give up blackboard and chalk, I find that the ability of computers to generate full-color images of molecules can enliven many classes.

A few years ago, with the help of Professors Francois Amar, Alice Bruce, and Bruce Jensen, I authored an NSF-ILI proposal, which resulted in our being able to purchase four Silicon Graphics workstations and a variety of modeling software. Those machiines are long gone, but have been replaced by eight Linux workstations. I have worked with Professors Jensen Tripp, and Bruce to develop experiments for undergraduate laboratory courses; we have modeled, for example, rotational barriers in ferrocenes and DEET, and the enzymatic hydroxylation of fumaric acid. You can see some of these results on the Jensen Web pages.

In addition to acting as the Department's WebMeister, I also have made available on our Web Page a variety of supplementary materials for our the courses that I teach:

• a general chemistry course, Applications of Chemistry

  This course is no longer offered, but some of the materials here may be useful to those taking other gen chem courses

• undergraduate organic chemistry, CHY 251/252;

• our graduate course in problem solving, CHY 558;

• theoretical organic chemistry, CHY 556;

• molecular modeling, CHY 550

• biological chelmistry, CHY 431

This last is a new course, offered for the first time in Spring semester, 2002, to satisfy new requirements of the American Chemical Society for our certified B.S. degree.

Recently, I have begun exploring the use of JMol applets for embedding moleculr stauctures within a Web page. JMol is free, will work on any computer, and allows scripting. Waatch my course page!

Finally, I have tried to offer some little lessons in chemistry for everyday life, via the "Molecule of the Month".