Annual Report Text, 1998-1999

This year Dr. Sanford taught both organic lecture and laboratory and has had a very active research group. Organic lab was especially fun this year as we introduced a series of new labs into the course and began using our new capillary gas chromatographs, a new gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer and a new 400 mHz NMR in the course. Dr. Sanford’s main contribution was the development of a three step reaction sequence to make polystyrene and the introduction of gel permeation chromatography (GPC) to the course.

At the end of last summer Aimee Kubasiak ‘99, Angela Perkins ‘98, and Betty Tang ‘02 accompanied Dr. Sanford to the ACS meeting in Boston where they presented posters of their summer’s work that included the trapping of one of our elusive [1.1.1]propellanes and the development of an improved synthesis of a poly(phenylenevinylene). After dragging them back to Holland, Aimee and Angela continued their research along with Kate Berghorst (‘00), Julie Koeppe (‘01), Carrie Langstraat (‘99) and Brandon Doroh (‘99).

This summer Kate Berghorst (‘00), Julia Koeppe (‘00), Jeff Petkus (‘01) and Betty Tang (‘02) will again be working on the preparation of substituted [1.1.1]propellanes and highly conjugated polymers. Our road trip this summer will be to Madison, WI, for the National Organic Symposium.

On the home front, 2 year old Daniel keeps both his mom and dad, Jim Timmermann, busy and likes to get together with chemistry friends Robert and Katie Polik and Julia Elrod. The newest member of the family, Eleanor Rose, was born on July 31st, the day after Dr. Sanford’s research students completed their work for the summer.