Chemical Education Today
Reports from Other Journals
News from Online: The Many Faces of Chemistry by Mark Michalovic
Does DNA conduct electricity? You’ve probably never thought to ask that question before. However, Jacqueline Barton, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, has spent an awful lot of time thinking about this sort of thing. As it turns out, the DNA double-helix can conduct an electrical current along its helical axis. She has found that electrical conductivity is a good way to detect genetic defects. Since such defects often disrupt the flow of electrons up and down the double-helix, any drop in conductivity is a sign that a DNA molecule has not replicated properly. This is certainly outside-the-box research, and it isn’t being done by the man with thick glasses and a lab coat that children often draw when asked to draw a picture of a scientist. Chemistry doesn’t look like it used to, literally and figuratively. An ever more diverse group of people is doing chemical research. What’s more, the nature of their research is expanding to tackle questions beyond the traditional realms of chemistry. If you are interested in inspiring your students with examples of scientists from traditionally underrepresented groups, as well as the often unusual research of today’s chemistry, there are many useful Web sites that share information about the scientists themselves and the work they do.
women who have made chemical contributions in each area. Sections on chemical education and women who faced special career challenges are also included. From these sections there are links to longer biographical sketches. Future plans call for lesson materials and activities relating to the work of the profiled chemists.
A Traveling Exhibit Gone Digital
Web Sites for Specific Ethnic Groups
Cosmetics Giant Supports and Celebrates Women Scientists Profiles of more women scientists can be found at “For Women in Science” (http://www.loreal.com/_en/_ww/index.aspx ?direct1=00008&direct2=00008/00001). This is the official site of a fellowship program funded by the cosmetics manufacturer L’Oréal, which supports female researchers around the world. The program annually gives awards for outstanding achievement in scientific research to one woman scientist from each of five global regions. Though not limited to chemistry, all five of the awards went to chemists in 2007. The site contains profiles of each year’s winners. To view pages on each of the winning scientists, click on the “Laureates” link at the bottom left of the “For Women in Science” home page.
photo by NASA
Barton is just one of more than 60 women chemists past The Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native and present featured on the Chemical Heritage Foundation Web Americans in Science (SACNAS) Biography Project (http:// site “Her Lab in Your Life: Women in Chemistry” (http://www. www2.sacnas.org/biography/listsscientist.asp) is another good chemheritage.org/women_chemistry/). This Web site has short resource for people interested in diversity in the sciences. Not bios of the scientists, as well as ways in which their work has strictly limited to chemistry, this site features autobiographical affected everyday life. sketches written by over sixty scientists in a variety of fields. In addition to groundbreaking researchers like Barton Many of the autobiographies have separate versions for middle (http://www.chemheritage.org/women_chemistry/body/barton. school and high school students. Among the scientists listed html), the site also profiles women who have taken unusual are people Joaquin Ruiz, a professor of geochemistry at the career paths within chemistry, to illustrate the breadth of career University of Arizona (http://www2.sacnas.org/biography/ choices that are available to a person with training in the chemiBiography.asp?mem=80&type=2). A native of Mexico City, cal sciences. For example, the site outlines the unusual career Ruiz uses chemistry to explore some very big questions in geolof Mae Jemison (http://www. ogy. For example, what geologic chemheritage.org/women_chemisforces in the earth cause large try/career/jemison.html). Trained amounts of copper to be found in chemical engineering and in one place on the globe, like medicine, she became NASA’s Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, while first African-American female large amounts of, say, iron, are astronaut when she flew aboard deposited elsewhere in the Earth’s the space shuttle Endeavour in crust? How do geologic forces 1992. She now works to develop within the Earth lead to this sort new technologies for making life of chemical separation within the easier in developing nations. crust? Ruiz is also interested in Inspired by a traveling exthe chemistry of volcanic eruphibit of the same name, “Her Lab tions. Understanding this chemin Your Life” is organized like a istry could someday help protect museum exhibit, with major secpeople from toxic gases that are tions on different areas of human Mission Specialist Mae Jemison in the Spacelab Japan often spewed out during volcanic endeavor and information on the eruptions. In addition to autobiscience module aboard the Earth-orbiting Endeavour. 1592 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 84 No. 10 October 2007 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org
Chemical Education Today
photo by Micheline Pelletier/Gamma
World Wide Web Addresses
photo by FOTOSMITH
photo by Micheline Pelletier/Gamma
Two 2007 L’Oréal Women in Science laureates. At left, Tatiana Birshtein, a professor in the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds, Russian Academy of Science, is shown looking at proteins investigated by Golubev. At right, Ameenah GuribFakim, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Mauritius, is at a tea plantation on the island of Mauritius.
Joaquin Ruiz, geochemist.
ographies, the SACNAS main Web site (http://www.sacnas.org) also has information about scholarships for Latino and Native American students in the sciences. The National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) also has scholarship information for African-American students in the sciences. This information can be found by visiting NOBCChE’s home page (http://www.nobcche.org/) and following the link “Tools and Resources”. While NOBCChE’s site does not include biographical information on particular scientists, we’d be amiss not to mention the story of one of chemistry’s rising stars. Adekunle Adeyeye was born and raised in Nigeria. While earning his Ph.D. at Cambridge University, he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory, where the electron was discovered in 1897. This is fitting because now that Adeyeye is a professor at the National University of Singapore, he has some big plans for these tiny particles in the field of computer technology. Adeyeye would like to push data storage to its limits in terms of size. He wants to use electrons themselves as data bits, using their intrinsic
“up” and “down” spins. More information on Adeyeye and his unusual research can be found at his faculty Web page (http:// www.ee.nus.edu.sg/stfpage/eleaao/index.htm). Background on the research field of spintronics can be found in a June 2002 article “Spintronics”, from Scientific American Online (http:// www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007A735-759A-1CDDB4A8809EC588EEDF).
Women in Chemistry: Her Lab in Your Life http://www.chemheritage.org/women_chemistry/
National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE)
Women in Chemistry: Jacqueline Barton http://www.chemheritage.org/women_chemistry/body/barton.html Women in Chemistry: Mae Jemison http://www.chemheritage.org/women_chemistry/career/jemison.html L’Oréal: For Women in Science http://www.loreal.com/_en/_ww/index.aspx?direct1=00008&direct
=00008/00001
Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) http://www.sacnas.org
Chemists with Disabilities One might think blindness could be a serious impediment to a career in chemistry. Most lab work requires visual observations of some kind, and chemical theory is usually communicated in pictorial representations of molecular structures and interactions. Despite being blind, William Skawinski (http:// membership.acs.org/C/CWD/workchem/edueast.htm#gen86) has made a successful career as a drug chemist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Skawinski is one of several scientists profiled in “Working Chemists with Disabilities” (http://membership.acs.org/C/CWD/workchem/start.htm), a site created by
http://nobcche.org
Adekunle Adeyeye: Introduction
http://www.ee.nus.edu.sg/stfpage/eleaao/index.htm
Spintronics: Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007A735-759A1CDD-B4A8809EC588EEDF
Working Chemists with Disabilities
http://membership.acs.org/C/CWD/workchem/start.htm
Profiles of Chemists in Education Institutions/East: William Skawinski http://membership.acs.org/C/CWD/workchem/edueast.htm#gen86
SACNAS Biography Project http://www2.sacnas.org/biography/listsscientist.asp
American Chemical Society Committees: Chemists with Disabilities http://membership.acs.org/C/CWD/
SACNAS Biography: Joaquin Ruiz, Geochemist
Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual for High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs, 4th ed.
http://www2.sacnas.org/biography/Biography.asp?mem=80&type=2
http://membership.acs.org/C/CWD/TeachChem4.pdf
Access date for all sites Jul 2007
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Reports from Other Journals the American Chemical Society Committee on Chemists with Disabilities (http://membership.acs.org/C/CWD/). The highlighted scientists have a variety of sensory, mobility, and even cognitive disabilities, but have found ways to succeed in science nonetheless. For example, Skawinski works with molecular structures by using three-dimensional models, talking computers, and a colleague who traces NMR spectra with tactile glitter paint so Skawinski can read them by hand. The Committee also shares the publication “Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual for High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs” in Adobe pdf format (http://membership. acs.org/C/CWD/TeachChem4.pdf) for those teaching students with disabilities.
The world of chemistry is becoming a more diverse place, as people from all races and backgrounds, men and women, make important contributions to chemical knowledge. For those looking for diverse role models to inspire the next generation of scientists, the Web sites listed here just scratch the surface of what’s available. Hopefully this will be even more so as time goes on and the chemical community becomes even richer in human diversity than it has already become. Mark Michalovic is an education consultant at the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, Chemical Heritage Foundation, 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106; markm@ chemheritage.org.
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