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Department Awards
The Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry proudly recognizes students who have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement, commitment to the discipline, and potential for future success in the sciences. Awards are given annually to honor excellence in scholarship and service within our department.
- Steven C. Welch Outstanding Graduate in Chemistry and Biochemistry
This award is presented annually to a graduating Chemistry and/or Biochemistry major who exhibits exceptional academic performance and a clear dedication to the field. Selection is based on the student’s overall GPA, GPA in the major, and alignment of future goals with the mission of the department.
The award is named in honor of Professor Emeritus Dr. Steven C. Welch, a distinguished chemist and dedicated educator whose legacy continues to shape the department. Dr. Welch was known for his rigorous standards, innovative research, and deep commitment to student learning and success.
Each recipient of the Steven C. Welch Outstanding Graduate Award receives $500 in recognition of their achievement, and students do not need to be nominated to receive the award. Tenure track faculty members will form an award committee in Spring to determine the awardee of the year.
2025 Awardees: Sean Blythe (Chemistry) and Eliza Capitulo (Biochemistry)
- Outstanding Senior
This award is given to the student who has shown the best overall performance as a Chemistry or Biochemistry major. Students are selected based on their overall GPA.
2025 Awardee: Ashleigh Fischer (Biochemistry)
- Sub-Discipline Specific Awards in analytical, organic, inorganic, and physical chemistry
Awards in analytical, organic, and inorganic chemistry are granted to students who demonstrate outstanding performance in the corresponding courses—CHEM 275, CHEM 201/202, and CHEM 404. Selection is based on course grades and/or results on the American Chemical Society (ACS) standardized exams. When multiple students meet these criteria, additional considerations such as future career goals may be used to determine the recipient. For physical chemistry, the award is based primarily on a student’s overall performance in CHEM 401, 402, and 405. ACS exam results in physical chemistry may also be considered as part of the evaluation.
Outstanding Student in Inorganic Chemistry
2025 Awardee: Nandin Bat-Erdene (Biochemistry)
Outstanding Student in Organic Chemistry
2025 Awardees: Sebastian Aguero (Chemistry) and Santana Rodriguez (Chemistry)Outstanding Student in Analytical Chemistry
2025 Awardee: Marcos Arrioja (Biochemistry)Mari A. Smith Outstanding Student in Physical Chemistry
2025 Awardee: Kyler Magnuson (Chemistry) - Outstanding Student in Undergraduate Research
This award recognizes a student who has demonstrated exceptional performance in their research activities. Preference is given to students graduating at the end of the academic year in which the award is presented. Students graduating in the following fall semester may also be considered if they are completing their independent study project during the award year. Recipients are selected based on the recommendation of their research mentor.
2025 Awardees: Martin Burgess (Chemistry), Kathleen Nguyen (Biochemistry), and Carina Valencia (Biochemistry)
- Outstanding Faculty-Student Collaboration
The Outstanding Faculty-Student Collaboration Award honors a tenure-track faculty member and a student from each department in the College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics for achievement in collaboration on a project related to research and/or teaching.  CSTEM prides itself on active student research and the teacher-scholar model. This award will showcase how closely our faculty work together with our students on innovative projects, while helping our students learn and grow from the experience. 
2025 Awardees: Dr. Ezequiel Vidal and Kyler Magnuson (Chemistry)
- Molsoft Award
The Molsoft Computational Science Award recognizes a student who has meaningfully incorporated computation into their research projects or advanced coursework within the department. By providing free software licensing, Molsoft empowers recipients to pursue projects and research opportunities that will enhance their academic and professional development.
2025 Awardee: Santana Rodriguez (Chemistry)
- 2024-25 CSTEM Dean’s Outstanding Graduate Award
The Dean’s Outstanding Graduate Award in the College of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics is given to a graduating student who exemplifies the core values of research, creative activities and commitment to discovery. The student has not only demonstrated academic excellence, but has also shown a strong record of service to the college, the university and the surrounding community.
2025 Awardee: Maya Qaddourah (Biochemistry)
CSTEM Research & Design Showcase
CSTEM hosts an annual Research & Design Showcase that includes poster sessions, oral presentations, capstone projects, and senior projects from all disciplines. Hosted in May prior to Commencement, the Showcase and Award Recognition Ceremony is an opportunity for Chemistry & Biochemistry students to share their current research and celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating seniors.
Spring 2025 Seminar Series
Leading chemistry and biochemistry researchers present their new discoveries from 5:00-5:50PM. These events are free and open to the public. Students from all disciplines are highly recommended to attend and participate.
Questions? Contact Dr. Jesus Cordova, Assistant Professor, in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry.
- Thursday, February 20
Seminar Title: A journey to cancer cell-selective chemotherapy: cytotoxic natural product to life saving drug.
Nilanjana Chakraborty is a 4th year PhD candidate in the Boger Lab, Scripps Research. They come from a synthetic organic chemistry background and now explore the world of proteins with expertise in chemistry under the supervision of Dr. Boger. A class of duocarmycin prodrugs that emerged from the lab’s research was designed to be selectively activated in tumor micro-environment. Their research focuses on understanding the mechanism of activation of this unique class of cancer-cell-selective N-acyl O-aminophenol prodrugs under physiological conditions. To assess the mechanism, the lab started with the development of a prodrug consumption assay and demonstrated how this simple, yet powerful assay revealed that efficacious members of this class release the free drug exclusively in a protein mediated reaction. The studies provided insights into site, slow release, and mechanism of free drug release, and were used to characterize the activation protein(s). They are expanding the scope of this assay to now further improve the cancer-cell selectivity with rationally designed new and improved analogs of the prodrug, to understand the structural requirements for the activating protein-prodrug binding and activation, and to identify the protein responsible for the tumor selective activation likely constituting a new oncology targeted precision therapy.
Location: Markstein Hall 102
- Thursday, February 27
Seminar Title: Topology-guided Design of Functional MOFs: Making Crystals with Predictable Structure, Variable Composition and Tunable Solid-state Properties.
Dr. Fernando Uribe-Romo is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Central Florida. Their research group investigates the synthesis of framework materials for applications in alternate energy systems. Efforts are focused in the design of organic and inorganic molecular components with known solution-state properties to be incorporated in solid state materials in the form of metal-organic and covalent-organic frameworks. These molecular components will provide the frameworks the ability to perform physicochemical relevant to alternate energy such as photocatalysis, electric and ionic conductivity, and non-linear optical activity. His lab group comprises a variety of chemistry and materials science sub disciplines, such as organic, inorganic, organometallic, and solid-state synthesis, crystallography, materials characterization, electrochemistry, photonics, catalysis, and computational design and theory.
- Thursday, March 6
Seminar Title: Targeting NIS Synthetases for Antibiotic Design: the Case of DesD.
Dr. Hoffmann accepted a position as the John Stauffer Professor of Analytical Chemistry in 2015, moving to CLU from Gonzaga University in Washington State. She teaches General Chemistry, Quantitative Analysis and Instrumental Analysis, sometimes Capstone and the occasional upper division course such as Chemical Investigations of Art or Drugs & Poisons. Dr. Hoffmann has an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and got her doctorate in Biochemistry from Oregon Health and Sciences University in Oregon. The Hoffmann Lab's research reflects the biochemistry training and is focused on the structural and functional characteristics of a family of bacterial proteins that could be an excellent antibiotic drug target.
- Thursday, April 24
Seminar title: TBA
Dr. David VanderVelde is the manager of the solution NMR facility at Caltech. Previously, he was the director of the NMR Facility at the University of Kansas, and a senior scientist there. His research interests are in application of NMR spectroscopy to answer chemical and biological questions, and he has coauthored 140 publications in this area. He has a B.A. in chemistry and English from Hope College, an M.A. (literature) and Ph.D. (inorganic chemistry) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Thursday, May 1
Seminar title: New Directions in Iron Catalysis
Despite advances in high-throughput screening methods leading to a surge in the discovery of catalytic reactions, our knowledge of the molecular-level interactions in the rate- and selectivity-determining steps of catalytic reactions, especially those involving highly unstable and reactive open-shell intermediates, is rudimentary. These knowledge gaps prevent control, suppression or enhancement, of competing reaction channels that can drive development of unprecedented catalytic reactions. In this talk, I will focus on our use of high-level quantum mechanical calculations, rigorously calibrated against experimental data, to interrogate the mechanisms and to guide the development of new catalysts and reagents for currently sluggish or unselective reactions. In particular, I will focus on our use of combined experimental and computational tools to understand and develop new (asymmetric) iron-catalyzed decoupled cross-coupling reactions.
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Dr. Osvaldo Gutierrez was born in Salamanca, Guanajuato (Mexico) and raised in Sacramento, California. He attended Sacramento City College for 6 years then transferred to UCLA in 2006 to pursue a career in medicine. However, working as an undergraduate at the laboratories of Prof. Kendall N. Houk inspired him to change career path to organic chemistry.
He graduated in 2009 with B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from UCLA and moved back to northern California to enroll in graduate studies at UC Davis. and his thesis was focused on the use of computational electronic structure methods to reveal mechanisms of catalytic processes. He then moved across the country to work with Prof. Marisa C. Kozlowski at the University of Pennsylvania where he used computational and experimental tools to study transition-metal catalyzed processes.
In 2016, he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland-College Park as an Assistant Professor and promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. In 2021, he was appointed Associate Professor at Texas A&M University and promoted to Full Professor effective September 1, 2024. In January 1, 2025, Prof. Gutierrez was appointed Professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department and as the inaugural Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) Hispanic Serving Institution (HIS) STEM Faculty Director at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Recently, President Biden honored Osvaldo with the The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Award which is "the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers." Previously, he was recognized with the NSF CAREER Award (2018), the NIH NIGMS Maximizing Investigator's Research Award (2020), and was recently named as part of the C&EN Talented 12 (2020) and Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar.
Location: Markstein Hall 102
Super Stem Saturday
Get involved and volunteer at one of our booths! is held the second Saturday in the month of March and is part of the . This event is free and open to the public.