Welcome to the chemistry department’s annual newsletter! I am Chariklia Sotiriou-Leventis, but you can call me Lia. I am excited to serve as the 18th chair and first woman chair of the department. I have been in this department since 1994. I have taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate level courses in organic chemistry. My research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of light porous materials, called aerogels with myriad of applications ranging from carbon capture to drug delivery vehicles. Over the years, I have published 143 articles and 16 patents.
I want to share with you my philosophy about our field of study: Chemistry is a central science at the crossroads of biology, biochemistry, medicine, physics, math and engineering, and also underpins large sections of the industrial enterprise. From this vantage point, chemistry plays a pivotal role in virtually every aspect of our lives and is an essential tool to address many of our world’s current pressing issues such as climate change, clean and renewable energy, the food supply, and the pollution of the environment.
To face these challenges, all S&T undergraduate students in our department are involved in experiential learning, a critical component of which is doing research in a faculty’s research lab of their choice. And all of our faculty are engaged in cutting-edge fundamental and applied chemical research, such as the ongoing projects of Dr. Amitava Choudhury’s $110,000 ACS-PRF grant for “Developing sustainable catalyst for propane dehydrogenation,” Dr. Manashi Nath’s $548,698 NSF grant for “Designing Efficient Electrocatalysts for Selective Reduction of CO2 to Carbon-Rich Products,” Dr. Garry Grubbs’ $558,549 DOE grant for “Studying f-Electron Contributions in Thorium- and Uranium- containing molecules,” and Dr. Prakash Reddy’s Department of Defense grants totaling ~$1M for “Nonaqueous Decontamination Agents for Nerve Agents and Pesticides,” and “Toxicity Mitigation of Organophosphate-Based Pesticides and Nerve Agents.”
Below are some highlights of the past 12 months, but we have too much good news to share, so I encourage everyone to visit our department’s social media pages (at the bottom of this letter). Next time you visit Rolla, reach out for a tour of our department by calling 573-341-4420 or emailing chem@mst.edu.
