2015 Candidate Statements

The statements for the candidates in the 2015 CALPACS elections appear below. You will receive your ballot via email. Thank you for voting!

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.

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.

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.

Executive Committee

Jenny Du, B.S.  Chemist, Apeel Sciences.

Derik Frantz, Ph.D. Derik Frantz is an assistant professor of chemistry at Cal Poly. He is a native of Pennsylvania, where he earned his B.S in chemistry from Juniata College in 2005. He then moved to Switzerland for an internship and remained there for graduate school, earning M.Sc. (2008) and Dr. sc. nat. (2012) degrees at the University of Zurich under the supervision of Jay Siegel. He was awarded a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to perform postdoctoral research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Timothy Swager’s laboratory from 2012 until 2014. He joined the faculty at Cal Poly in fall 2014.

Wilson Hago, Ph.D. 

Councillor

Al Censullo, Ph.D. received his B.S. in Chemistry from Villanova University (Villanova Pennsylvania), and Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Penn State University. He moved to California in 1974, to join the faculty of the Chemistry Department at Cal Poly. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo. He has served continuously on the CALPACS Executive Committee since the start of the section in 1995. He is been active in National ACS activities, and is the current Chair of the ACS Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology, and Symbols.

Alternate Councillor

David Marten, Ph.D. is a recently retired (2014) professor of chemistry at Westmont College where he taught for 31 years. Previous academic positions were held at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Iowa after receiving his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, working with Charles Casey (past President of the National ACS), and two years of post-doctoral research at Brandeis University. He received his bachelors degree in chemistry from Western Illinois University. His research is in the area of organometallic chemistry directed towards organic synthesis. He was one of the founding members of CALPACS and has held positions of Chair, Executive Committee Member and Alternate Councilor.