To help chemistry students think about career choices after graduation, West Virginia University will host the 16th Annual C. Eugene and Edna P. Bennett Careers for Chemists Program on April 14 at 7 p.m. at the Erickson Alumni Center.
The event is sponsored by the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
The Careers for Chemists Program acquaints high school, undergraduate and graduate students in chemistry with a variety of career opportunities available to them by bringing professionals from around the country to campus to discuss the usefulness of a chemistry education.
The program was created as part of a $1.6 million endowment established by the Bennetts in 1994.
C. Eugene Bennett received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in chemistry from WVU.
Every April, three speakers are invited to participate in the program. The speakers share a degree in chemistry, but their careers cover a spectrum of choices, including medicine, law, forensics, journalism, business, government labs and academia.
“This year, our guest speakers are all WVU chemistry alumni with different backgrounds and careers who will share their experiences and offer advice on reaching career goals,” said Ken Showalter, the C. Eugene Bennett Chair in Chemistry.
Showalter is pleased to welcome T. Brent Gunnoe, Jan Steckel and Aaron J. Peoples to campus as this year’s speakers.
Gunnoe is a professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the development of new catalysts based on transition metal complexes.
He received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from WVU and a doctoral degree in inorganic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Currently, Gunnoe serves as director of the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalization, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Frontiers Research Centers Program for developing new technologies for alternative energy resources.
Previously, he was assistant professor at North Carolina State University, where he was the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.
Over the years, Gunnoe has also been active in promoting and mentoring undergraduate research, having served as co-director of a research experience for undergraduates program funded by the National Science Foundation and acting as director of undergraduate research for the chemistry department at NC State.
Steckel is a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Energy at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Currently, she is working on the development of ab initio-based polarizable and non-polarizable classical force fields, and serves as secretary of the theoretical subdivision of the American Chemical Society.
Steckel graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from WVU and earned a doctoral degree in computational chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh.
Prior to joining the computational chemistry group at NETL, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut f�r Materialphysik’s Center for Computational Materials Science at the University of Vienna, and has received a number of awards, distinctions and fellowships for her work.
Peoples is a manager of natural products at NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Mass., a start-up biotech company focused on antibiotic drug discovery using previously uncultivable microorganisms as sources of novel compounds.
He began his career there as an entry-level chemist.
Peoples received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from WVU and earned a master’s degree in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. His research centers on parallel b-sheet formation using synthetic peptides as model systems.
In pursuit of an interest in business and management, he enrolled in the MBA program at Boston University and is in his final year, about to transition into a business development role at NovoBiotic.
While on campus, the speakers will meet with freshmen, upper-class undergraduates and graduate students in an informal discussion.
The evening program invites speakers, undergraduate and graduate students and faculty to a dinner followed by short presentations by each speaker, with a question and answer session that is open to the public.
A reception will follow the event.
For more information, contact Barbara Foster in the Department of Chemistry at 304- 293-2729 or Barbara.Foster@mail.wvu.edu.
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