Seminars

Spring 2024

• Monday, April 1 at 2:00 PM in Student Center 119
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. Scott Davies Associate Professor of Biology, Quinnipiac University “Coping with environmental change:  Reproductive adjustments of songbirds to urban living”
• Urbanization profoundly alters the environment and forces urban organisms to adjust to the new conditions. Since urban areas are one of the most rapidly expanding habitat types worldwide, the potential impact of urbanization on biodiversity is substantial. There is, therefore, an urgent need to understand the mechanisms responsible for adjustment to these new habitats.
• Like most wild animals, birds have distinct seasonal breeding periods that are synchronized with optimal environmental conditions to maximize reproductive success. Hence, it may be advantageous for urban birds to adjust the timing of reproductive activity to local environmental conditions. This presentation will describe how wild songbirds adjust their reproductive activity to live in urban areas and explore the mechanisms responsible for these adjustments.
• Dr. Scott Davies is originally from the United Kingdom and got his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Wales, Bangor. He moved to the USA to complete his PhD at Arizona State University studying the reproductive endocrinology of urban birds. He then continued his work on the physiology of urban living as a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech and the University of Nevada, Reno.  He has been at Quinnipiac since 2017.

• Tuesday, March 5 at 3:30 PM in Buckman Theater
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. Neil Schultes Associate Agricultural Scientist, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station “Fire blight – a bacterial scourge of apple production”
• Fire blight is a devastating disease affecting apple and pear production.  The pathogen is a Gram-negative bacterium called Erwinia amylovora that is native to North America but readily infects apple and pear trees that originated in the old world.  This disease was first described in 1787 and due to modern cultivation practices has become a major problem in apple production.  This talk will give an introduction into the biology of this plant pathogen, describe current control practices and present some current lab based research into future disease management strategies.
• Dr. Schultes received his Ph.D. in Genetics at Harvard Medical School and did postdoctoral research at Yale University before joining CAES in 1994, where he has advanced from Assistant Scientist to his current position.

Fall 2023 

• Tuesday, December 5 at 10:00 AM in Student Center 120
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. Hany Dweck, Assistant Scientist II, Department of Entomology, CT Agricultural Experiment Station “How Does Spotted Lanternfly Smell its Chemical World?”
• The spotted lanternfly (SLF), first found in North America in Pennsylvania in late 2014, is a serious invasive pest. It possesses piercing-sucking mouthparts that puncture plant stems, leaves, and fruit to feed on the sap, affecting over 70 different plant species, including economically important ones such as grapevines, maple trees, black walnut, birch, willow, and others. This feeding activity weakens and stresses plants, making them more susceptible to diseases and environmental stressors, potentially leading to decreased health and tree mortality. Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) reports that approximately half of the state's trees are threatened by the SLF invasion. SLF, like numerous other insects, primarily relies on olfactory cues to locate its host trees. Additionally, olfaction plays a crucial role for the SLF in predator avoidance, aggregation, mate selection, and identifying suitable sites for feeding and depositing its egg masses. In this seminar, we will delve into the olfactory mechanisms and their pivotal role in an interaction that holds both economic urgency and fundamental biological significance: the interaction between SLF and Connecticut's trees. Through a comprehensive exploration of the olfactory mechanisms underlying the SLF-Connecticut's trees interaction, we aspire to make significant contributions to our understanding of this ecological relationship and uncover novel strategies for effective pest control.
• Dr. Dweck has been a Chemical ecologist and Assistant Scientist II in the department of Entomology at the Connecticut Agricultural Station since January 2023. He earned a B.Sc. and M.Sc. at Cairo University, Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, and conducted postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. John Carlson at Yale University.  He was born in Giza, Egypt, and has lived in Sweden, Germany, and the United States.  He is also a proud husband and father of two boys. His laboratory studies how crop pests find their host plants, communicate, and avoid danger using tools and techniques from various fields, including behavior, electrophysiology, analytical chemistry, molecular biology, and genetics.

• Wednesday, November 8 at 1:00 PM in Student Center 120
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. Rebekah Stein, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Quinnipiac University “Environmental Controls on Plant ‘Isotope Biogeochemistry’”
• The topics of this talk primarily center on carbon and its bonds with other elements in common organic compounds within plants. Namely, plants change their isotope biogeochemistry as a result of changed physiological behavior in times of stress (often related to environmental stressors). This includes factors such as atmospheric composition (e.g., carbon dioxide, oxygen), water availability (e.g., precipitation), temperature, and more. These changes can be measured in the laboratory and can be used as tools to examine the impacts of climate change on our biological carbon sink as well as feeding behaviors (in agriculture and humans, microbes, pollinators, and more). The breadth of uses for isotope biogeochemistry is wide; this talk will demonstrate several potential uses, including those going on at QU. 
• Rebekah Stein graduated with a PhD in Environmental Geochemistry & Paleoclimatology from the University of Michigan in 2020, where she focused on how modern and ancient plants and soils were impacted by carbon dioxide and water availability. She continued this work in more complex plant compounds during a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley until she joined the faculty at Quinnipiac University. She teaches environmental science and chemistry courses from her role in the Department of Chemistry & Physical Sciences.

• Monday, October 2 at 3:00 PM in Buckman Theater (BC 150)
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents  Dr. Marta Clepper, Assistant Teaching Professor of Physical Science at Quinnipiac University “Is a Category 6 Hurricane on the Horizon?”
• This talk will include discussion on hurricanes, understanding why and where they form, and a look at some historical hurricanes. Past and present trends on numbers of hurricanes and links to changes in the Earth’s climate will be examined. Finally, a look at the impacts hurricanes have on coastal communities and environments and what can be done to protect them from the dual threat of rising sea levels and increasing strengths of these storms. 
• Dr. Clepper is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Physical Sciences who has been at Quinnipiac University for six years. She earned a BS in Geology at Columbus State University (Columbus, GA), as MS in Geology at the University of Texas El Paso (El Paso, TX), and a PhD in Geology at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY). She teaches Earth Sciences and Natural Disasters at Quinnipiac. She has done research on the origins of zircon minerals in the Southern Appalachians, paleoclimate from 12 million years ago in western Texas, and the lithology and sedimentary depositional history of the 450-million-year-old Lexington Limestone Formation of central Kentucky. 

Spring 2023 

• April 26th 2023 5:45pm 

• Distinguished Lecturer M. S. Shur, Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180 will present "Ultraviolet Light Emitting Diodes Save Lives"  

• Modern light sources -Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) - are 20 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs and nearly 3 times more efficient than more modern compact fluorescent lamps. It is even more important that LEDs can produce light optimized for specific needs and applications, such as light for treating the seasonal affective disorder, growing plants, and preserving or even “restoring” paintings and objects of art. Many emerging applications are in medicine, lighting for seniors, merchandising, the automotive industry, photography, the film industry, and theatre lighting. LEDs go beyond the visible range: they are capable of producing ultraviolet (UV) light. UV radiation finds numerous applications in water and air purification, sterilization, biological threat identification, medicine, biology, industrial processes, defense, and homeland security. Conventional ultraviolet mercury, xenon, and deuterium lamps are bulky, might contain mercury, produce ozone, require high voltages, slow to turn on, and have a limited set of available wavelengths. UV LEDs are environmentally friendly and compact sources consuming low power and emitting at many wavelengths. Research is now underway to use these LEDs for increasing yield, improving quality, and extending the storage time of fruits and vegetables. UV LEDs will help reduce waste, alleviate the problem of world hunger, purify water, kill bacteria and viruses, and solve the tremendous problem of Hospital Acquired Infections (leading to nearly 100,000 deaths annually in the United States alone).

• Monday, March 6th at 4:00 PM 
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. M. Amine Hassani, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station “Modulation of the flower microbiota to mitigate fire blight disease incidence” Monday, March 6th at 4:00 PM in SC 119
• Dr. Hassani is a postdoctoral research scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) with a research interest in plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions. Before joining the CAES, I did a postdoctoral training at University of Kiel, Germany working on the fungal wheat pathogen Zymospetoria tritici and its interactions with the wheat microbiota. Currently, he investigates how the apple flower micrbiota may help mitigating fire blight disease caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora. 
• Plants are colonized by a diverse community of micro-organisms which may include: viruses, archaea, bacteria, fungi, and eukaryotic microbes. These plant-associated micro-organisms are collectively termed the plant microbiota and they colonize virtually all plant tissues, including the anthosphere (i.e. the flower). The apple flower host a microbiota dominated at the phylum level by Proteobacteria and at the family level by Pseudomonadaceae and Enterobacteriaceae. Because apple flowers constitute nutrient-rich habitat for micro-organisms, they are vulnerable to plant pathogens such as the pathogenic bacterium, Erwinia amylovora. This bacterium causes the fire blight disease that is very devastating for apple trees. Several disease management strategies are used to control the fire blight disease, including using biological control microbes. In this seminar, I will show how the modulation of the apple flower microbiota helps in reducing the fire blight disease. Specifically, how two flower-associated bacteria alter the behavior of the pathogenic bacterium Erwinia amylovora. 

• Fall 2022 

• Thursday, October 27 at 1:00 PM in SC 120
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor SocietySeminar Series presents Dr. James Kirby, Associate Professor of Chemistry “The Effect of Cations on the Redox Properties of POMs” Polyoxometalates (POMs) are well known for their redox properties.  Because they don’t change structure while easily being reduced and reoxidized, they have been used as catalysts for industrial redox reactions.  Dr. Kirby’s work has focused on the redox properties of single atom bridged POMs and the effect that cations have on their redox properties.  In this seminar, Dr. Kirby will explain what redox is, how it is studied, and present some recent results on the study of some single atom bridged POMs.
• Dr. Kirby is an Associate Professor of Chemistry who has been at Quinnipiac University for over 25 years.  He earned a BS in Chemistry at Trinity College (Hartford, CT), a MEd in Instruction Learning at UMass (Amherst, MA) and a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at Georgetown University (Washington, DC).  He teaches General Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry at Quinnipiac and does research with students.  He is the current Program Chair for the Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society.

• Fall 2022 

• Thursday, December 1 at 12:00 Noon in SC 119 
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. Alex Hodges, Associate Professor of Physics “Investigations of the Archaeal Actin Cytoskeleton” 
• Dr. Hodges is an Associate Professor of Physics at Quinnipiac University, where he has been since 2012.  He earned a BS in Physics from Wright State University and a PhD in Physics at the University of Cincinnati in Condensed Matter Physics.  He did Postdoctoral Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and at the University of Vermont College of Medicine prior to coming to Quinnipiac.  He teaches General Physics at Quinnipiac and does research with students in the area of Biophysics.

• Tuesday, October 4 at 2:00 PM in Student Center Room 120
• Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. Mark Gius, Professor of Economics Quinnipiac University “The Impact of State Level Large Capacity Magazine Bans on the Victim Counts of Mass Gun Homicides”
• Prior research has attempted to determine if various gun control policies are effective in reducing either the probability or the severity of mass gun homicides. The present study builds on this prior research by examining the impact of state-level large-capacity magazine bans on the victim counts of mass gun homicides. Using data for the period 1966 to 2020 and a fixed effects model, results of the present study suggest that state-level LCM bans had no statistically significant effects on the victim counts of mass gun homicides. However, it was found that the number of firearms used by the perpetrator significantly increased the victim counts of mass gun homicides. This study is unique in that it looks at individual-level data to determine which factors affect the overall victim count of a mass gun homicide.
• Mark Gius, Ph.D. is a Professor of Economics at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He has taught at Quinnipiac for over 25 years. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the Pennsylvania State University. His teaching interests are law and economics, labor economics, and industrial organization. His main area of research is applied microeconomics with an emphasis on public policy research. His research has appeared in Applied Economics, Applied Economic Letters, Contemporary Economic Policy, and the Social Science Journal. Dr. Gius has published over 120 peer-reviewed journal articles, and he is the author of Guns and Crime: The Data Don’t Lie. He served as a member of a working group on mass shootings for the National Institute of Justice. He is a member of the Connecticut Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has served on numerous governance committees at Quinnipiac University including the Faculty Senate, the University Review Committee, the Senate Policies Committee, and the School of Business School Evaluation Committee.

• Spring 2021 Distinguished Lecturer, April 19th 
• Distinguished Lecturer Dr. Federico Rosei
• Director of Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications, Université du Québec 
• Dr Rosei will present “Energy and Society: What Type of Energy for the Future of Humanity?” 
• You can watch the lecture here:  https://quinnipiac.zoom.us/rec/share/da5UpR2vrBeAhjqnJO0xlFFKZmVfC4twKwWn-N_0eQ6fZLL91YxTgOSayItlzja8.tqa6llVgNipfChDo?startTime=1618876853000
• Dr. Federico has held the UNESCO Chair in Materials and Technologies for Energy Conversion, Saving and Storage since 2014. Dr. Rosei’s research interests focus on the properties of nanostructured materials, and on how to control their size, shape, composition, stability and positioning when grown on suitable substrates. He has extensive experience in fabricating, processing and characterizing inorganic, organic and biocompatible nanomaterials. He has published over 170 articles in prestigious international journals. . He received MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1996 and 2001, respectively.His research has been supported by multiple funding sources from the Province of Quebec, the Federal Government of Canada as well as international agencies, for a total in excess of M$ 16. He has worked in partnership with over twenty Canadian R&D companies. He is co-inventor of three patents and has published over 270 articles.

• Spring 2021 Seminar  “Mediating individual variation in Pavlovian conditioned responses”
• Monday, April 14, 2021 4:00 pm 
• Dr. Joshua Haight, Assistant Professor of Psychology
• “Mediating individual variation in Pavlovian conditioned responses”
• You can watch the lecture here: https://quinnipiac.zoom.us/rec/share/7Ek-_h9Gg-GpUwG6pbk1CFAImQd2uiY78H0urMl7Rb1N9w7RfwPV6lmte4TBwo2v.GWYtivwPpJL74Nas
• Dr. Joshua Haight has been an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Quinnipiac University since August 2019. Prior to that, he was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Addy Lab, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a PhD in Neuroscience. He has studied extensively the role of the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus in mediating individual variation in conditioned responses. He has published a book chapter and nine articles in such prestigious journals as Behavioral Brain Research, Neuropsychopharmacology, Neuroscience, and PLosOne. His current research continues with examining the role of the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) in motivated behaviors, specifically in response to reward-paired cues.

• Spring 2021 Seminar “Urban Tree Health Care” April 7, 2021 10:00 am
• by Dr. Susanna Kerio, Assistant Scientist II, CT Agricultural Experiment Station
• April 7, 2021 10:00 am  
• Dr. Susanna Keriö is a forest pathologist and a forest ecologist with expertise in disease resistance of trees to fungal pathogens, and the molecular and genetic factors associated with tree-fungus interaction and tree stress responses. Dr. Keriö’s doctorate research at the University of Helsinki focused on the transcriptional and chemical defense responses of Norway spruce and Scots pine to the Heterobasidion root rot pathogens. In her postdoctorate at the Oregon State University, Dr. Keriö’s research aimed at identifying genetic variation in Populus trichocarpa associated with resistance to the Septoria leaf spot and stem canker pathogen Sphaerulina musiva. 
• Dr. Keriö’s current research in CAES aims at applying the information of molecular, chemical, and cellular stress signatures to develop management strategies to reduce tree stress and to support tree health in urban environments. Dr. Keriö’s current projects include: ecophysiological and molecular markers associated with tree stress, role of metallic nanoparticles in tree-fungal interactions and potential applications in urban tree care, and tissue culture and somatic embryogenesis techniques in American chestnut and other hardwood tree species.

• Fall 2020 Seminar: "Between Earth and Sky: Investigations of Nitric Oxide Fluxes at the Soil-Air Interface"
• Dr. Robert Hansen, Assistant Professor, Chemistry
• "Between Earth and Sky: Investigations of  Nitric Oxide Fluxes at the Soil-Air Interface"
• November 19, 2020, 2:00 pm
• Robert Hansen is an experimental environmental chemist and an assistant professor of chemistry at Quinnipiac University. Dr. Hansen has participated in major atmospheric field measurement efforts, including the 2009 CABINEX and 2010 CalNex campaigns. Dr. Hansen was selected for the Biosphere-Atmosphere Research and Training Fellowship, an NSF-funded graduate training program. Dr. Hansen’s current research focuses on the measurement of nitrogen oxide fluxes from soil and soil surrogates. As concentrations of NOx from human activity are decreasing due to improved regulation, NOx emission from soil is becoming a larger contributor to NOx emissions.  NO is one of the gas-phase NOx compounds whose dynamics have received particular attention. There are three major areas of need regarding NO fluxes: long-term measurements, measurements in populated areas, and mechanistic studies. Through laboratory measurements of soil samples and field measurements with fixed chambers employing low-cost NO sensors, the lecture will address these areas of need. Dr. Hansen will present initial results from his work at Quinnipiac and discuss future directions. research.

• Fall 2020 Seminar: "Optimizing Community Scale Surveillance Efforts for SARS-CoV-2"
• Dr. Douglas Brackney, Associate Scientist, CT Agricultural Experiment Station
• "Optimizing Community Scale Surveillance Efforts for SARS-CoV-2"
• November 11, 2020 4pm
• Dr. Brackney is an Associate Scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor of Epidemiology at Yale. Dr. Brackney received his BS degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001) and PhD from Colorado State University (2007).  He joined the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in 2014 starting his own laboratory that primarily focuses on virus-vector interactions and how such interactions impact virus evolution. During the pandemic, Dr. Brackney re-focused his expertise to help develop approaches for surveilling SARS-CoV-2 in our communities. “At the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic there were deficiencies in our ability to quickly diagnose cases and therefore, we had a poor understanding about how wide-spread infections were in our community and how large of a problem we had. In an effort to better understand the number of cases and improve diagnostics, we began a number of projects to help shed light on these unknown.” This presentation will address such surveillance efforts.

• Fall 2020 Seminar: “Busting Myths about Stress and Memory: Evidence from Behavioral Studies and Neurocognitive Networks 
• Friday October 2nd 1pm
• Buckman Theater 
• Dr. Amy Smith, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
• Amy Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology. Before joining QU, Amy earned her B.A. in Psychology and Mathematics at SUNY Potsdam and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at Tufts University. At QU, Amy teaches classes on cognition and statistics and runs a research lab investigating the effects of psychological stress on memory and problem-solving.
• We all rely on our memory in stressful situations, such as when we have to give a high-pressure presentation in front of our peers. The results of over two dozen experiments have suggested that, in these stressful moments, our memory is impaired. By taking a closer look at the nature of the memories that are impaired by stress, my research has begun to show a different pattern of results: stress does not universally impair memory. Rather, stress may impair memory for information that is not well-learned, but can actually enhance memory for information that is well-learned. In this talk, I will discuss both the behavioral findings from my research and the neural mechanisms involved in stress and memory that support this emerging theory.

• Spring Seminar: Latest Research on Stem Cells
• Distinguished Lecturer, April 22th                                             
• Mt Carmel Auditorium 
• (Sir) Dr. Christopher Lange, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, SUNY Downstate Medical Center
• Latest Research on Stem Cells
• Prof. Lange’s entire career has dealt with understanding the mechanisms of how ionizing radiations affect molecules (especially DNA and the induction and repair of double strand breaks), how the kinetics of those changes affect cell survival and how changes in cell survival determine the survival of tissues, organisms, and tumors. This has led to many seminal works, often more than a decade ahead of the field. These studies have also shown the importance of radiation research in many other fields of science (physiology, cell biology, structural biology, genetics, biophysics, polymer physical chemistry, etc.) and medicine (radiation oncology, sonography, etc.). With a National Cancer Institute Research Career Development Award (1972-77), Lange showed that double-strand breaks (DSBs) in the DNA double helix are reparable in mammalian cells (previously they were thought to be irreparable and lethal). Most recently, he has addressed the necessity of hippocampal neurogenesis (from neural stem cells) for the therapeutic action of antidepressants in adult non-human primates. Please come and hear this esteemed Professor of Physiology & Biophysics from the SUNY Downstate School of Graduate Studies from SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

• Spring 2020 Seminar: “The Nondestructive Assessment of the Internal Condition of Trees” by Dr. Robert Marra, Assoc. Agricultural Scientist, CT Agricultural Experiment Station
• Feb. 27, 2020 4:00pm
• SC 120
• Dr. Marra has expertise in plant pathology, mycology, fungal genetics, population biology, evolution, and molecular biology.  While forest pathology is his principle research interest, Dr. Marra studies a range of plant pathosystems from various perspectives, including population biology, ecology, and mating system evolution. Dr. Marra earned a BS from SUNY-Binghamton (1990) in Biology/Russian and a PhD from Cornell (1998) in Plant Pathology/Mycology. 
• Dr. Marra has developed knowledge and expertise in the use of a new technology for nondestructively assessing the internal condition of trees, identifying cavities, rot, and incipient decay, long an elusive goal of forest pathologists, arborists, and others interested in knowing the extent of internal decay and defect in trees.  The advent of tomographic technologies has made this goal attainable.  Similar to CAT scans used in medical diagnostics, sonic and electrical impedance tomography use sound waves and electrical currents to detect irregularities in structure and composition, as well as water content.  Combining the results of both types of measurements can result in a remarkably accurate depiction of the tree’s internal condition.

• Fall Seminar: How Does Breast Cancer Hijack Mammary Development? by Dr. Jerrica Breindel
• Dr. Jerrica Breindel Biomedical Science
• December 5, 2019 3:00 pm Buckman Theater
• The mammary gland is a unique organ that develops almost entirely after birth and also undergoes significant change during pregnancy and breast feeding. Cellular signaling programs that control normal growth and turnover in the adult gland may influence breast cancer formation and progression. My research is focused on learning how the cells of the mammary gland are regulated during development and how dysregulation of these cells can lead to different types of breast cancer
• Jerrica Breindel, PhD began studying cancer biology during graduate school at Yale University, focusing on how advanced lung cancers become drug-resistant. Dr. Breindel then completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Tufts University where she switched her research focus to the early stages of cancer development, before it can be detectected

• Fall seminar Doing Cool Chemistry with Cold Physics by Dr. Douglas Goodman November 20, 2019 11:00am Buckman Theater
• Dr. Douglas Goodman Assistant Professor Physics
• November 20, 2019 11:00am Buckman Theater
• Modern laser techniques can provide quantum-limited control of an atom or ion’s electronic state during a chemical reaction. Results of one such experiment examining laser-controlled charge-exchange reactions between co-trapped cold sodium atoms (~500 uK) and calcium ions (~100 K) will be presented. The study demonstrated how the reaction rates of individual entrance channels can be measured and manipulated by controlling the reactants' electronic states and/or collision energy. Of the channels studied, the Na[P] + Ca+[D] channel was the strongest with a rate constant ~10-8 cm3/s at an ion temperature of 200 K, which exceeds the classically predicted Langevin rate limit.
• Dr. Goodman is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Quinnipiac University. He earned his B.S. at Trinity College (2006) and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Connecticut (2015). Prof. Goodman's research interests are in the field of experimental ultracold atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics.

• Fall Seminar: Phaeocystis antarctica and the Marine Sulfur Cycle by Dr. Joanna Kinsey
• Dr. Joanna Kinsey, Assistant Professor Chemistry
• Nov. 7, 2019 1:00 pm Buckman Theatre
• The marine sulfur cycle has been studied extensively since the 1987 hypothesis that Earth’s radiative budget and climate was influenced by the ocean-atmospheric coupling of dimethylsulfide (DMS). The primary source of DMS is from the enzymatic lysis of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), a sulfur-containing compound produced by several taxa of algae and corals. Phaeocystis antarctica, a high-DMSP producing algal species found in the Southern Ocean, can form blooms covering hundreds of km2 and ~23% of the primary production in high latitude (>60°S) waters. Coinciding with these blooms are high concentrations of sulfur and carbon compounds, that once in the dissolved phase, are readily consumed by heterotrophic bacteria, photolyzed, or vented to the atmosphere. This seminar will review the marine sulfur cycle and present current and future research on DMS and related compounds.
• Dr. Kinsey joined the QU Department of Chemistry and Physical Sciences in August 2018. She received her Ph.D. from the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Environmental Chemistry in 2014 and was a post-doctoral student at North Carolina State University. She has participated on several coastal field projects and six research cruises that include cruises to Antarctica and diving on the HOV Alvin submersible. Her research focuses on sulfur and carbon cycling in coastal and open ocean regions.

• 2019 Distinguished Lecturer, April 24th 
• Dr. Paul Anastas, Yale “Green Chemistry” 5:45 pm, Mt Carmel Auditorium
• Paul T. Anastas is a Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment. He has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Department of Chemistry, and Department of Chemical Engineering. In addition, Prof. Anastas serves as the Director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale. Anastas took public service leave from Yale to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency Science Advisor from 2009-2012. From 2004 -2006, Paul Anastas served as Director of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute in Washington, D.C. He will be the Keynote and Sigma Xi Distinguished Speaker for the Northeast Regional Sigma Xi Student Conference at QU.

• Dr. Washington daSilva CT Agricultural Experiment Station
• Friday, April 12, 2019 1:00 PM Buckman Theater
• “Small Things Considered: The Impact of Plant Viruses on Wine Production”
• Dr. da Silva is an Assistant Agricultural Scientist II, Department of Plant Pathology and Ecology at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES).  He is a plant pathologist with an expertise is in the fields of diagnoses, bioinformatics, and molecular biology.  He uses state of the art technologies (e.g., high throughput sequencing) to study the biology and ecology of viruses infecting fruit crops.  Dr. daSilva received his B.Sc.. from Universidade Federal de Viçosa (Brazil) in 2010, M. Sc. in Plant Health from LSU in 2013, and Ph. D. in Plant Pathology from Cornell University in 2018.
• The top two priorities of his current research program are to develop and improve molecular diagnostics for plant viruses and to investigate plant-virus-vector interactions with the ultimate goal of translating findings into virus disease management.  He is currently investigating the incidence, prevalence, and genetic diversity of grapevine viruses in the state of Connecticut.

• February 27, 2019 4:00 PM Buckman Theater
• Dr. Alison O’Neill Professor of Chemistry Wesleyan University
• “Modeling ALS with Patient Derived  Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”
• Prof. O’Neil received her B.S. while doing proteomics research with Prof. Anna Tan-Wilson at Binghamton University. She then went on to join the Research and Development Team at LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda Vaccine) working on a vaccine for Norovirus. She then joined the Chemistry and Biochemistry department at Montana State University and earned her PhD under Prof. Trevor Douglas. Prof. O’Neil’s private sector and graduate work was based on designing materials based on viral capsid assemblies. For her post-doctoral studies, she worked on modeling and understanding neurodegenerative diseases using human stem cells at Harvard University. While at Harvard, Prof. O’Neil authored collaborative work with Google, Vertex, and Biogen Idec.
• Prof. O’Neil’s interdisciplinary research will combine her biochemistry and stem cell training to investigate the role of protein aggregates in the progress of neurodegeneration.


• Feb. 5, 2019  2:00 PM Buckman Theatre
• Dr. Douglas Goodman Assistant Professor of Physics
• Legend has it that Nobel Laureate William D. Phillips once said, "Of course there are no two-level atoms and sodium is not one of them!" It is a familiar joke within the Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics community. The saying serves as a warning not to apply the quantum mechanical two-level atom approximation to situations where it does not belong, including the description of atoms when they are trapped and cooled by lasers inside a magneto-optical trap (MOT) Since the 1980s, this two-level approximation has been used to describe the electronic-state distribution arising from the trapped atoms’ interaction with the laser light. However, by using a unique hybrid ion-neutral trap, we were able to directly measure the fractional excited-state population of sodium atoms held within a MOT. Doing so allowed us to compare the experimental results with the two-level model prediction, revealing the conditions under which the two-level model succeeds and when it fails. It is true, there are no two-level atoms, but sodium sometimes acts like one of them
• Dr.  Goodman is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Quinnipiac University. He earned his B.S. (Trinity, 2006) and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics (UConn, 2015). Prof. Goodman's research interests are in the field of experimental ultracold atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics, which includes the study of laser cooling and trapping of atoms/ions, electrodynamic ion traps, and cold ion-neutral.

• Oct. 19 2018 Dr. James Kirby
• 3:00 pm CCE 101 Buckman Theatre,
• Comparing Chemistry Education Research to Chemistry Research

• Nov 2 2018 Dr. David Burn
• 3:00 PM Buckman Theater
• Topic Related to Applied Statistics, and Operational Excellence     

• Nov 19 2018 Dr. Mohammad Elahee, International Business 
• A Cultural Journey through 17 countries   

The QU Sigma Xi Chapter sponsors at least 3 research presentations each semester, with over 50 student attendees. Therefore, we always seek and welcome faculty presenters! The program chair position is Dr. James Kirby. So, if you have an interest in presenting a lecture, please contact Jim! (james.kirby@quinnipiac.edu)