Faculty News

Dr. Michael Hren Receives ACS/Petroleum Research Fund Award

Dr. Michael Hren has received an award from the American Chemical Society/Petroleum Research Fund for his project “Evaluating the Preservation Potential of Buried Organic Carbon: A Laboratory and Field Study of the Impact of Burial Diagenesis on Stable Isotopic and Organic Molecular Records” in the amount of $110,000.

Why Is There Cyanide In My Table Salt

In an article originally featured in the J. Chem. Educ., Drs. Christian Brückner and Sarina Dorazio explore the answer to the following question: “Why is there cyanide in my table salt?” (J. Chem. Educ. 2015, DOI:10.1021/ed500776b). The article, also highlighted in C&EN’s “Newscripts” section, details cyanide’s use as an anticaking agent. Full Article

Boosting The Efficiency of Solar Panels

Dr. C. Vijay Kumar is the focus of a recent UConn Today article highlighting his research to improve the efficiency of solar panels. Dr. Kumar has developed a light-harvesting antenna that could double the efficiency of existing solar cell panels and make them cheaper to build. UConn Today A UConn researcher has developed a light-harvesting […]

Suib & He Group Research Highlighted on Chemistry of Materials Cover

A paper entitled “Colloidal Amphiphile-Templated Growth of Highly Crystalline Mesoporous Nonsiliceous Oxides” from the Suib and He groups (Chem. Mater. 2015, 27, 6173–6176) was featured on the front cover of Chemistry of Materials. They highlighted the utilization of polymer-tethered silica nanoparticles for the preparation of thermally stable and highly crystalline mesoporous transition-metal oxides with uniform […]

Novel “Green” Antenna Could Double Solar Efficiency

The Kumar Group and He Group have reportedly developed a unique “green” antenna that could potentially double the efficiencies of certain kinds of solar cells. Efficient solar cells maximize the absorption of the sun’s wavelengths. However, current silicon solar cells are not efficient in the blue part of the light spectrum. In response, Kumar’s team […]

New Peanut Allergy Test Goes Beyond Scratching the Surface

UConn Today Current peanut allergy tests are not very reliable when it comes to diagnosing the severity of an individual’s allergic reaction, which can range from hives to life-threatening anaphylactic shock. With an estimated three million people in the United States allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, having a more precise and reliable allergy test […]

UConn Welcomes Assistant Professor Jessica Rouge

About Dr. Jessica Rouge Dr. Jessica Rouge is originally from the east coast, growing up on Long Island, NY. She earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from Boston College in 2006. After graduating from BC, she headed west to the University of Colorado, where in 2012 she earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry working with Prof. Bruce […]