Chemistry Stories

Xavier Zarza ’28, a biology major at Virginia Military Institute, envisions a substantially less expensive alternative in his Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) project, “Electroplating 3D Prints for Antiseptic and Inert Properties in Prosthetics.”

Maj. Chris Shingledecker, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Military Institute, is featured on “Eye in the Sky,” an episode of the public radio program, “With Good Reason,” that first airs April 25.

VMI cadet uses modern chemistry techniques to analyze and uncover the medical practices behind a Civil War field surgeon’s 19th-century medical kit.

Uncertainty after high school is normal and something Colin Crenshaw ’27 faced upon graduation. It’s one of the reasons he decided to attend Virginia Military Institute.

Maj. Christopher N. Shingledecker, assistant professor of chemistry at Virginia Military Institute, recently learned that a research proposal he submitted to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has been accepted.

When the Nobel Prize winners were announced recently in Stockholm, Sweden, a cheer went up nearly 7,000 miles away from faculty members at Virginia Military Institute as the world recognized the importance of technology embraced by professors and cadets in classes on post.

Maj. Christopher N. Shingledecker, assistant professor of chemistry at Virginia Military Institute, is a member of a research team responsible for discovering three new molecules in space.

Virginia Military Institute cadets enrolled in Lt. Col. Kevin Braun’s general chemistry lab course recently conducted preliminary data analysis on metals in an unconventional place — the VMI Museum. The VMI Museum was established in 1856 when Maj. Gen. Francis Smith, VMI’s first superintendent, accepted the donation of a Revolutionary War musket. Most of the 15,000 artifacts in the museum have been presented by alumni who used them, or by individuals who acquired antiquities and gifted them to VMI. Many of the objects are not on display but kept in storage, and it was from those pieces that Braun’s class […]

Visualizing three-dimensional (3D) molecules on a two-dimensional piece of paper can be a struggle for any chemistry student. Lt. Col. Dan Harrison ’05, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, used his experience with research software to find a tool to address this challenge.

A contingency of two cadets and one professor recently presented research at the American Chemical Society Southeastern Regional Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ACS is the world’s largest scientific association with a membership of over 154,000 chemists, chemical engineers, and others.

Col. Tappey H. Jones ’70, professor of chemistry at Virginia Military Institute, has had his findings recently been published in Nature: Communications Biology. This article covers findings of years of research, much collaboration with colleagues, and a bit of providence.