American Chemical Society meetings are always fun because they give so many chances to re-unite with Reed chemists, and last week’s meeting in San Diego was no exception. I met up with Vyom Shukla ’14, now in his 2nd year of graduate work with Prof. Dale Boger at the Scripps Research Institute, and made the acquaintance of Alex Oxyzolou ’85, who predated my arrival at Reed. Alex, who is known to his Pierce College (Los Angeles) students as “Dr. Oxy”, teaches chemistry and is interested in using molecular models in his courses. The record-holder for crossing paths with me, though, was Julia Chamberlain ’03. We saw each other several times over several days at CHED sessions. It’s great to have Julia back on the west coast.
Julia was loaded with exciting news. Her baby boy, born last summer, is thriving. And then there’s Julia’s new job. After spending several years at U. Colorado-Boulder developing PhET simulations for chemical education, Julia has landed a full-time teaching job in the chemistry program at U. California-Davis as Lecturer PSOE. You can read up on Julia at her UC Davis web page.