Krystal Grieger
Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Thesis Defense

Monday, April 22^nd, 2024 at 11:00 am
Family Life Center (FLC) 122 or ZOOM

Integration of Green and Sustainable Chemistry into the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Curriculum
Due to the benefits of learning about green and sustainable chemistry (GSC), there have been both national and global calls for its integration into the undergraduate and graduate curriculum. In fact, the American Chemical Society (ACS) has recently updated their guidelines for undergraduate chemistry education to require that ACS certified schools provide students with a working knowledge of the green chemistry principles. Unfortunately, there is yet to be a nationwide, uniform recommendation of which aspects of GSC should be included or how, leaving individual instructors or institutions to decide whether—and how—to incorporate it. Furthermore, faculty nationwide have expressed the need for readily available materials to teach and assess student knowledge of GSC. Therefore, our research sought to address both the need to begin exploring which aspects of GSC are being integrated into the undergraduate organic chemistry curriculum and to begin developing the needed instructional and assessment materials.

In this presentation I will first share our findings from a faculty survey exploring how GSC is incorporated into the undergraduate organic chemistry curriculum across the United States. Next, I will present findings from our work on the development and evaluation of instructional materials designed to teach both the core organic chemistry curriculum and GSC. Finally, I will conclude with a summary about the assessments developed to both measure student knowledge and elicit their conceptions about the green chemistry principles.

Abdullah Rubayyi
Graduate Student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
2^nd Year Seminar

Monday, April 22^nd, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Sugihara 118 or ZOOM

Unlocking the Potential of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) in Nanoparticle Encapsulation and Applications
Composites derived from Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) represent an emerging class of porous materials with distinct functional traits. These composites, known as Nanoparticles@MOFs, combine the customizable porosity of MOFs with the versatile functionalities of metal or metal oxide nanoparticles. A diverse range of Nanoparticles@MOFs composites has been synthesized and scrutinized for their performance across various domains such as molecular adsorption and separation, catalysis, sensing, optics, pollutant mitigation, drug delivery, and renewable energy applications.This seminar presents a scholarly exploration into the synthesis, characterization, properties and diverse applications of Metal and Metal-Oxide Nanoparticles (NPs) within Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs).