Each year, the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology hosts an event to celebrate the academic achievements of our undergraduate students. This year’s event was held on April 28, 2023 in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Building. The program included a poster session, awards ceremony and a talk by Dr. Gordana Dukovic from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Gordana Dukovic is a professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering and a fellow and associate director of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on structure, excited state properties, and light-driven chemistry of nanoscale materials. She is a graduate of Douglass College at Rutgers University. She received a PhD in chemistry from Columbia University and carried out postdoctoral research at the University of California Berkeley. She has received the NSF CAREER Award, and was Below is the abstract from Dr. Dukovic's talk:
“Excited State Properties and Light-Driven Chemistry of Semiconductor Nanocrystals”
Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals are remarkably versatile materials with highly tunable electronic structure, optical spectra, and surface properties. My research group works on the photophysics and photochemistry of nanoscale semiconductors with an emphasis on light-driven processes involved in multi-electron redox reactions relevant for renewable and sustainable chemical transformations. In this talk, I will focus on using nanocrystals to convert the energy of solar photons into new chemical bonds to create products such as solar fuels and organic compounds. The talk will combine multiple areas of chemistry including inorganic synthesis, time-resolved spectroscopy, kinetics, and enzyme catalysis.
This event is in loving memory of Jean Wilson Day, who received her Ph.D. from Rutgers in 1965, having done research on polyphosphates under supervision of Professor Ulrich Strauss. That same year she joined the staff of the school of Chemistry as instructor of general chemistry and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1968. She was an extremely enthusiastic teacher, and cared deeply about her students. She taught with great enthusiasm and organized special classes for the slow learners. Jean was also profoundly concerned about environmental pollution and sparked an interest among her colleagues and students seeking remedies.
After her untimely death in 1971, the Department chose to honor Jean’s memory by establishing a lectureship designed to attract undergraduates. As an enduring tribute to her generous spirit, Dr. Jim Savage, along with fellow classmates from Rutgers Class of 1971, formally announced the establishment of the Dr. Jean Wilson Day Memorial Scholarship on May 14, 2011.
Click here to see award recipients!
