Category: Elections

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Candidate Statements for 2020 Election

Below are the statements from the candidates running for positions on the Executive Committee of the Los Padres Section of the American Chemical Society, or CaLPACS.

Chair Elect

Wilson Hago, Ph. D. is a 25+ year member of the ACS, and current Chair of the Los Padres Section.  He has worked in the local start-up industry as a physical chemist for the past 20 years.  This experience includes research and development on alkaline batteries, cellulose chemistry, biochar, activated carbon, and renewable fuels.  Wilson has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in physics, and a Ph.D in physical chemistry from Brown University.  He has written over 100 patents and is named as inventor on 17 patents.  He is Founder of Hago Energetics, Inc., a startup focused on CO2  capture and  utilization. Wilson would be be honored to continue serving the Section as Chair-Elect to further the Section’s mission of promoting chemistry and chemical education in the Central Coast.

Continue reading “Candidate Statements for 2020 Election”
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Candidate Statements for 2019 Elections

Chair

Dr. Ivan Lorkovic (Grinnell BS ’89, MIT PhD Inorganic Chemistry ’95) has been working as a scientist and engineer in the Santa Barbara area for 25 years.  He served as treasurer and was on the executive committee for CALPACS between 2004 and 2010.  His research interests were studying redox transformations of small molecules:  with Peter Ford studying nitrogen oxide interactions with heme models, with Gas Reaction Technologies developing novel gas to liquids partial oxidation technology, and with Cool Planet Biofuels developing catalysts for biomass derived syngas to higher hydrocarbons.  More recently he has been working with developing and characterizing remote sensing technology at Raytheon Vision Systems in Goleta as systems engineer.  

Treasurer

Continue reading “Candidate Statements for 2019 Elections”
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2016 Elections: Candidate Statements

Chair Elect (3-year Term):

Phil Hampton, Ph.D., is currently a Professor of Chemistry and Faculty Director of STEM Initiatives at CSU Channel Islands. He came to CI as one of thirteen founding faculty members in 2001 and the sole chemist for the campus. Prior to CI, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of New Mexico. He maintain an active research program with CI undergraduates that focuses on organic synthesis, specifically the synthesis of curcumin analogs as potential anti-cancer agents, and on chemical education. He has served as the Principal Investigator/ Project Director on a nearly $6 million grant from the Department of Education, entitled Project ACCESO. Bringing science to the community, specifically K-12 grade students, is Prof. Hampton’s greatest passions. In 2009, he founded the annual (free) Science Carnival offered each Fall where PK-8 grade students can engage in over 100 hands-on science activities. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, backpacking, kayaking, reading, 3D printing, and inventing/ tinkering with Arduinos and electronics. He serves a Board Member of KidSTREAM, a new children’s museum being launched in Camarillo, CA. He has served as a member of the Executive Committee of CALPACS for the past two years.

Secretary (1-year Term):

James Pavlovich, Ph.D., has been Manager of the UCSB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Mass Spectrometry Facility since 1994. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Cal Poly, SLO in 1985. He worked at an environmental analytical laboratory in SLO from 1985-1987. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Oregon State University in Corvallis in 1993. He did postdoctoral research in the Environmental Science and Engineering Department at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. James has served as section chair, treasurer, and secretary.

Treasurer (1-year Term):

Ata Shirazi, Ph.D., retired in 2011 as Manager of the UCSB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry NMR Facility where he had served since 1984. He received his Ph.D. from University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and did post-doctoral work at University of Iowa at Iowa City. He was Manager of the NMR Facility at Washington Univ. School of Medicine from 1980-82 before moving to Santa Barbara. Ata has previously served as section treasurer and for two terms on the Executive Committee.

Members of Executive Committee (3-year Terms):

Jenny Du, Ph.D.        Jenny is the VP of Operations and People at Apeel Sciences, located in Santa Barbara, CA, where she facilitates and coordinates the efforts of the scientific and administrative divisions of the company.

Jenny received her Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Chemistry from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. For her doctoral studies, Jenny crossed over to the Chemistry Department at Queen’s to join the multidisciplinary lab of Prof. Cathleen Crudden where her graduate work in Materials Chemistry earned her the prestigious Alexander Graham Bell Graduate Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Looking to broaden her skill set, Jenny relocated to Santa Barbara, CA to pursue postdoctoral research with Prof. Guillermo Bazan at UC Santa Barbara.

Jenny recently joined the CALPACS Executive Committee to fill a one-year term (2015-2016), and has enjoyed the opportunity to connect with other ACS members (both from academia and industry) as well as members of the broader community through her Committee involvement. In running for a three-year term, she hopes to continue to bring her enthusiasm and energy to the Committee and contribute to expanding the reach of the Committee and the ACS throughout the region.

Charles F. Huber        My name is Charles Huber, and I have been a member of CALPACS from its inception twenty years ago.  I arrived in Santa Barbara in 1987 to take on the job of Chemical Sciences Librarian at UC-Santa Barbara and have done so ever since. Throughout these almost 30 years I have been active in the American Chemical Society, primarily in the Division of Chemical Information, of which I have served as chair, and, currently as an Alternate Councilor. I have served for several years on the Joint Board-Council committee on Chemical Abstracts Service (CCAS), and before that on library advisory committees for CAS and ACS Publications.

Locally, I have served the UCSB chapter of Phi Beta Kappa for several years reviewing prospective members, and for the past two years have reviewed projects by middle school and high school students for the local Math, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) program.

I would be honored to serve CALPACS on its Board, and hope to build on its tradition of service to the chemistry community in our region at all levels – from K-12 students to retirees – and all parts of our section from north to south.

Payam Minoofar, Ph.D.        Having served CALPACS as a previous chair and member of the Executive Committee, I am volunteering to serve the section again as a member of the Executive Committee. The large and beautiful geography of our section presents our members with an unrivaled standard of living. It also presents the section officers with challenges with respect to organization of events. I endeavor to complete the efforts I started five years ago to build the digital resources that will facilitate involvement of our members in our governing process and our activities. Our goals are to improve communication within the section and to increase involvement of our local membership in order to build an intellectually and socially active community of scientists in the Central Coast.

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Summer 2015 Announcement

Summer is upon us, and we would like to make a few announcements before we wish you a fun-filled and productive summer. We need candidates for our annual elections, and there are three chemistry meetings coming up in late summer and early fall.

Elections: Our annual elections for members of the Executive Committee of CALPACS are coming up in the fall season. We need candidates  Continue reading “Summer 2015 Announcement”

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Candidate Statements for 2013

You should have received an email from elections@lospadresacs.org with your personal ballot. Please use the link provided in that email to vote!

Statements for candidates for the Executive Committee for 2013 are as follows.

 

Chair-Elect

Jean Osterman, M.S.

Before graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I spent several years working as a research assistant for the Southern Coastal Water Research Project working on environmental chemistry, chronic and acute bioassays, marine sampling and species identification.  Bench chemistry is pretty exciting on a rocking vessel at sea!

After earning an MS degree from the University of Wisconsin and a secondary credential from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I taught science at a local high school and in natural science education programs for several years.  After some quality time at home with my young children, I returned to work for the Analytical Services Department at JBL Scientific, which became Promega Biosciences.

There I have been fortunate to collaborate with active research groups in California and Wisconsin developing and characterizing an array of synthetic biomolecules, enzyme substrates, molecular tags, and imaging compounds used in Promega products.

On the home front, I serve on the board of Surfing for Hope, part of the Hearst Cancer Resource Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing assistance to people with cancer and their families.  I also serve on the board of my neighborhood association, and enjoy gardening, amateur astronomy, jazz, cooking, wine and a good mystery.

Treasurer

Ata Shirazi, Ph.D. retired in 2011 as Manager of the UCSB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry NMR Facility where he had served since 1984. He received his Ph.D. from University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and did post-doctoral work at University of Iowa at Iowa City. He was Manager of the NMR Facility at Washington Univ. School of Medicine from 1980-82 before moving to Santa Barbara. Ata has previously served as section treasurer and for two terms on the Executive Committee.

Secretary

James Pavlovich, Ph.D. has been Manager of the UCSB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Mass Spectrometry Facility since 1994. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Cal Poly, SLO in 1985. He worked at an environmental analytical laboratory in SLO from 1985-1987. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Oregon State University in Corvallis in 1993. He did postdoctoral research in the Environmental Science and Engineering Department at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. James has served as section chair, treasurer, and secretary.

Members

Steve Contakes, Ph.D. Westmont College

Stephen Contakes is an Assistant Profesor of Chemistry at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, where he teaches courses in the areas of Inorganic, Analytical, Physical, and nonmajors chemistry and engages undergraduates in research involving the preparation and characterization of photoactive small molecules and nanomolecular assemblies. He has been active with CALPACS educational outreaches since 2007, and has served the local section in various capacities including as a member of the executive council and at various times coordinator of the sections’ Chemistry Olympiad competition, National Chemistry Week events, and Earth Day outreaches.

Ashley Ringer McDonald, Ph.D. California Polytechnic Institute, San Luis Obispo

Dr. Ashley Ringer McDonald is an assistant professor of chemistry at Cal Poly. She received her Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry in 2009 from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy from 2009-2011 and has been at Cal Poly since Fall 2011. In gradate school, Dr. McDonald was very active with the Georgia local ACS section, helping organize activities for the Women’s Chemist Committee and serving as the liaison between the chemistry Graduate Student Forum at Georgia Tech and the local section.

William Sietsma, Ph.D. Amgen

Dr. Sietsema is currently Global Regulatory Lead for early development programs at Amgen.  In that role, he develops strategies for early development programs in oncology and inflammation.  Prior to Amgen, he was head of Global Regulatory Consulting and Submissions at INC Research and Adjunct Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of

Cincinnati, College of Pharmacy.

He has 28 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry.  During his sixteen years with INC Research (formerly known as Kendle), he has brought leadership to several initiatives in the fields of inflammation, skeletal disease, analgesia, gastrointestinal

disease, and women’s health.  He played a pivotal role in the rapid

development of Pharmacia’s Celebrex, which transited from beginning of Phase 2 to NDA approval in less than three years.  Ethics of pediatric research have been a particular interest of his and he has given lectures and sat on discussion panels for this topic.

He received his BA, magna cum laude, in Chemistry from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1977 and his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1982.  He is the author of more than 35 journal articles, several book chapters, and more than 50 presentations and posters and is an inventor on four patents.  He has published four books, including Strategic Clinical Development Planning: Designing Programs for Winning Products and Preparation of the New Drug Application: Managing Your Submission in an Era of Changing Global Requirements. He is a member of the American College of Rheumatology, the American Chemical Society, the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society and serves on the advisory board of Hatton Research.  He is on the publications advisory board for Regulatory Affairs Professional Society.  He was recently recognized by R&D Directions as one of the top 20 clinical research scientists.

Kristi Lazar Cantrell, Ph. D. is currently an assistant professor of chemistry at Westmont College. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Westmont College, a master’s degree at Princeton University and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. She undertook two years of postdoctoral research at Genentech Inc., a biotech company, before returning to Westmont in the spring of 2010. Her research focus involves protein aggregation, including alpha-helical and beta-sheet fibril assembly. She has led National Chemistry Week outreach events with Westmont students on behalf of the Los Padres Section of the ACS during the past three years.
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Chair’s Letter

Dear California Los Padres Section ACS Members:

Most of you will receive your ballot electronically.  Thank you for not only being green, but for saving the section money on mailing.  We have literally saved hundreds of dollars on mail costs this year, and this money (and the rest of your dues) has been put to good use.  If you do not get our mailings electronically and would like to, all you have to do is supply your e-mail address on your membership profile at ACS.org.

The Executive Committee has been working hard on your behalf this year, and lots of good things have happened.  We sponsored a number of student activities:

  • Ÿ A talk by Rebecca Anderson on careers in the pharmaceutical industry at Cal Poly.
  • Ÿ The local Chemistry Olympiad competition followed by a talk on the periodic table by Eric Scerri.
  • Ÿ Travel awards for students at Cal Poly and UCSB who attended the National Meeting in Anaheim last spring.
  • Ÿ A pizza party for CSU Channel Island Chemistry Club’s Student Section Ratification.
  • Ÿ Lunch for a session of the graduate student speaker series at UCSB.
  • Ÿ National Chemistry Week activities put on by Cal Poly and Westmont College Chemistry Clubs.
  • Members of the Executive Committee also organized great events and talks:
  • Ÿ A talk on the history of the local oil industry and tour of Oil Museum in Santa Paula.
  • Ÿ A wine social at Kunin Vineyards and talk on wine production by Seth Kunin.
  • Ÿ The annual Fifty Year Member banquet with a talk by Prof. Peter Ford on New Adventure in Biomass Conversion to Chemicals and Fuels.

We still have the Wine Tasting event on December 1 at Talley Vineyards, which is a great place to meet local members and make new contacts.  More Information will be coming shortly.

I invite you all to participate in our activities.  You can find out more about the activities and us at www.lospadresacs.org.  You can also friend us on Facebook as California Los Padres ACS to catch up on all the happenings.  If you have any ideas as to events you’d like us to sponsor, please let us know. Contact us through our web site.

I personally would like to thank all the members of the Executive committee for their hard work.  Each and every one of them pitched in to carry the load.  Many of them have been doing this for years.  We can always use more help, so volunteer if you can.

Al Censullo, our Councilor, headed up our nominating again this year and put together an excellent slate of candidates.  Please take a moment and vote.  We need to receive all votes by December 1, 2012.

In closing, it has been a pleasure serving you.  Nanine Van Draanen, who is already hard at work for next year, will be your new section Chair.  I’m certain that it will be an exciting and action packed year.

Sincerely,

Curtis A Musser

2012 Section Chair

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2012 Candidate Statements

Chair-Elect:
Payam Minoofar: “I am very excited to run for the position of Chair-Elect of CALPACS. I am an experienced scientist with roots firmly planted in chemistry. I obtained my bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in chemistry, and I completed my doctoral work in inorganic chemistry at UCLA. I have enjoyed an exceptionally eclectic career over the past 18 years as a researcher. In this time I have worked in clinical medicine, synthetic chemistry, analytical chemistry, laser spectroscopy, proteomics and product research and development, where I developed a preconcentrator and ultrafiltration polymer membranes. I presently write and complete government funded research at Teledyne Scientific Company in Thousand Oaks, CA. I live in Ventura. My resume testifies to the versatility and the importance of chemistry as the central science. After spending decades building my career, I am eager to give back to the field and the community that have made my career and life so rewarding. I enjoy being a member of the Los Padres section, and I look forward to serving it.”

Treasurer:
Ata Shirazi retired in 2011 as Manager of the UCSB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry NMR Facility where he had served since 1984. He received his Ph.D. from University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and did post-doctoral work at University of Iowa at Iowa City. He was Manager of the NMR Facility at Washington Univ. School of Medicine from 1980-82 before moving to Santa Barbara. Ata has previously served as section treasurer and for two terms on the Executive Committee.

Secretary:
James Pavlovich has been Manager of the UCSB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Mass Spectrometry Facility since 1994. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Cal Poly, SLO in 1985. He worked at an environmental analytical laboratory in SLO from 1985-1987. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Oregon State University in Corvallis in 1993. He did postdoctoral research in the Environmental Science and Engineering Department at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. James has served as section chair, treasurer, and secretary.

Executive Committee:

Phil Hampton received his B.A. in Chemistry from St. Olaf College, Minnesota, and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University. He held a two-year postdoctoral position at California Institute of Technology. He was an Assistant Professor (1991 – 1997) and Associate Professor (1997-2001) in the Chemistry Department at the University of New Mexico. In 2001, he accepted the opportunity to be a founding faculty member of CSU Channel Islands and worked with twelve other founding faculty members to plan for the opening of the Channel Islands campus in Fall 2002. He was promoted to full professor in 2002.

Allan Nishimura is Professor of Chemistry at Westmont College, in Montecito. He received his Ph.D. from UC Davis in Physical Chemistry and did postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley. He was on the Chemistry Faculty at Wichita State University from 1973-1981 before coming to Westmont. Allen has previously been section chair and has served on the executive committee.

Greg Scott is a native of eastern Kentucky and earned his B.S. in chemistry from Davidson College in North Carolina in 2004. Subsequently, he joined the corps of Teach For America where he taught high school chemistry and physics in Brownsville, TX for two years before pursuing graduate studies in physical chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At Illinois, Greg earned his Ph.D. under Martin Gruebele, where he performed experimental studies of single-molecule optical absorption detected by scanning tunneling microscopy and theoretical studies of protein folding potential energy surfaces. Greg joined the faculty of Cal Poly in the fall of 2011 as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry where he is currently teaching in the General Chemistry sequence. He is passionate about chemical education, both in improving learning outcomes for Cal Poly students, but also in working toward achieving educational equity through K-12 outreach. Greg has research interests in the local properties of functionalized nanomaterials as well as in the application of diffusional dynamics for low-barrier kinetics.

Jerry Macala: “I received my PhD from UCSB in 2009, working in the laboratory of Peter Ford on catalytic transformations of biomass. I am currently working as Senior Scientist in the biomaterials research group at Allergan Medical, where I spend a lot of time characterizing physical and morphological properties of new and old materials using some pretty cool instrumentation. I managed a remote research station a few years back at the geographic South Pole, Antarctica. My crew was one of the last to occupy the historic geodesic dome which was built in the 1970’s and had become an icon of the US Polar Program. I have traveled a bit, lived in Australia for a year, lived at the South Pole for a year, been to Spain, Portugal, Morocco, London, Munich, Athens, Vienna, Kathmandu, Bangkok, much of New Zealand, most of Samoa, parts of China, and probably a few more I can’t remember. Traveling is the best way for me to keep myself grounded. It reminds me that people are really the same all over, with the same basic needs and desires.”

Richard W. Hurst is a Professor Emeritus of Geology and Geochemistry at California State University, Los Angeles. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geology, Mineralogy, and Petrology at California Lutheran University. His primary research interests have centered on forensic environmental isotope geochemistry and mineralogy. Since 1980, he has studied the use of naturally-occurring, stable isotopes, especially those of lead, as a means of tracing the sources of hydrocarbon and other types of contamination in the environment. Richard served as the Chair of the 2001 Western Regional Meeting hosted by the California Los Padres Section. He has previously served on the Executive Committee and two terms as section Chair. In 2009, he was awarded the Sandra Lamb Award in recognition of his contributions to the society and environmental geochemistry by the California Los Padres Section.