MESSAGE FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD

Dear Alumni & Friends of the UConn Chemistry Department,

Chemistry is the science of change—a fact that is reflected in the many events and developments we celebrate in this newsletter. This spring we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our Chemistry Building, originally dedicated April 12, 1999. It was wonderful to look back on the past, to meet alumni from many generations—some of whom never had seen the “new” building in person—and to look forward to the decades ahead.

The anniversary celebration was preceded by the Randolph T. Major Lecture Series, which featured Kenneth N. Raymond, Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His lectures also highlighted change: the changing attitudes in the development of contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and, in a second talk, the chemical changes that can be drastically accelerated inside self-assembled capsules.

Over the last 20 years, the scale of change within the Department was evident by the fact that only 10 of our current 35 faculty members had operated out of the previous building. Research topics once in favor have been replaced with new areas of interest, some of which no one could even envision a few years back. I am thrilled to see our faculty, staff, and students continue in the tradition of science innovation, and I eagerly look forward to what the future will hold.

Please enjoy this newsletter, and feel free to keep in touch—we would love to hear from you!

Christian Brückner
Professor and Head, Department of Chemistry