Semester “Break”

Another semester done! This semester flew by in a whirlwind of new biochemistry lab experiments, attempting to be in 19 places at once advising the lab projects, preparing assignments and exams for intro organic, grading, committee meetings, and trying to stay up...

Holiday Party 2016

This past weekend the Pollock lab members gathered for the annual end of the fall semester slash holiday party. It was great to see the soon-to-be-graduates interacting with the members joining this spring. You can see the size has grown quite big as we have that...

SERMACS 2016

Two weeks ago the Pollock lab traveled to Columbia, SC to attend and present at the Southeastern Regional Conference of the American Chemical Society. If I’m being honest, I was excited and worried about our first set of presentations off-campus. The lab work is...

A fine line

This semester is my first time teaching the first semester of organic chemistry lecture at UR. That also means it is my first time teaching at an “introductory” level here. We have a one semester general chemistry course and then the students jump into...

F2016 Semester

A new semester, another year. The students have moved in, the textbooks have been opened, and the classes have begun. Yesterday was the first day of my third year as a professor (how is that possible?) and my first class as an instructor of organic chemistry (CHEM...

New Publication!

When you’ve been in research a long time, you have your favorite journals– the ones that you always read the table of contents when they come out and put a number of their articles in your “to-read” pile. Now as a professor, my...

Reflections on Summer 2016

Summer research #2 is finished! Here are some of the thoughts running through my mind.   How is it already August 10? This summer flew by.   We made progress on all of the projects despite running into some complications (synthesis yields low, DNA sequencing...

Competent Cells

One of the most difficult things about starting your own research lab (well, actually starting research in any new location) is getting new protocols up and running. You organize everything as you have done before, work meticulously through the steps of an established...