Department News
Introducing our Newest Faculty Member
Chemistry professor Dr. Stephen Contakes, who joined the Westmont faculty this fall, hopes to influence student’s lives inside and outside the classroom. The Lehigh University alumnus is a bioinorganic chemist who focuses on metals in biology.
“The chemistry involved in activities such as thinking and moving contain metals which play a key role in the ways our bodies function,” he says. Contakes does research that replicates in non-natural systems the way these metals act. His research may help reduce carbon dioxide emissions or prevent unwanted side effects in drugs. His research has been published in more than a dozen scientific journals.
Contakes earned his doctorate at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was named a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow, a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow and a Barry Goldwater Scholar. Most recently, Contakes taught at Azusa Pacific University and is a visitor at the California Institute of Technology, where he has been conducting research on bioinorganic and biophysical chemistry for the past six years.
Former Westmont provost and current Houghton president Shirley Mullen encouraged him to interview for the faculty position.
“My passion is to see students’ lives change and grow in terms of their ability to think, their personal maturity, their Christian walk and their professional development,” Contakes says.“I fell in love with the place and the people,” Contakes says. “Every conversation I had contributed to my Christian life. I felt that I was challenged here by people’s interactions with me and could see myself committing to the general approach to Christian education.”
Contakes and his wife, Susan, have two sons. John is almost 2 years old and Philliip was born Dec. 2007.
Professor Nishimura: The New Kathleen Smith Chair of Natural and Behavioral Sciences
Allan Nishimura, professor of chemistry, has been installed in the Kathleen Smith chair of natural and behavioral sciences, the first endowed faculty chair in the sciences. A reception and induction ceremony was held on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 on the Westmont College campus.Three former students gave short, personal descriptions of Dr. Nishimura as a professor, research mentor, friend and colleague, followed by a presentation by the awardee on his current research. Chancellor David Winter bestowed the award and gave the Kathleen Smith metal to Dr. Nishimura. Below is a picture of the three former students with Prof. Nishimura and Chancellor Winter. Full story available using this link.
Molecule by Molecule
New General Chemistry text moves quickly to the top of the class.
Niva Tro, Professor of Chemistry, spent the last four years completing a general chemistry book. To date, more than 70 schools plan to incorporate “Chemistry: A Molecular Approach” (Prentice Hall, 2008) into their classes next fall. Released in the spring of 2007, the text has drawn strong and immediate interest. Niva attempts to meet the needs of both faculty and students by covering complex material in depth while striving to make it as easy as possible to grasp. “I set the bar high and then gave students a lot of help in mastering the content,” he says. “With support, they can reach a higher level of understanding.”
Niva Tro loves teaching chemistry, but he wasn’t satisfied with the textbooks available for college courses. So he started writing his own. His first venture, “Chemistry in Focus: A Molecular View of Our World” (Thomson, 2001), has reached its fourth edition. Students at more than 70 colleges and universities use the book in classes for non-majors. Emphasizing the role of the molecular world in daily life, Niva demonstrates the relevance of chemistry by covering issues such as global warming, acid rain and drugs.
The success of this book encouraged Niva to produce a second work, “Introductory Chemistry” (Prentice Hall, 2006). In use at more than 220 institutions, the text is the best-selling volume for preparatory chemistry. He discovered the need for such a book when he taught at Pepperdine; Westmont doesn’t offer this kind of class. As he did in the earlier book, Niva ties chemistry to current events and helps students understand the value of mastering scientific concepts. Clear writing and clever graphics make the text appealing.
For full story from the Westmont Magazine, please follow this link.
Recent Publications
Chemistry professor Allan Nishimura has recently published several articles, coauthored by undergraduates: “Optical methods as probes of the surface dynamics during disorder-to-order transition in naphthalene adlayer on Al2O3 (0001)” in the Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research, with Tim LeDoux, M. A. Evans, Katie Howard, and April Louie, “Temperature dependent non-radiative effects in the disorder-to-order transition in cyclopentanone and cyclohexanone films on Al2O3 (0001)” in Thin Solid Films with Tim LeDoux, Jon Rea, and K. A. Martin, and “Dynamics of disorder-to-order transition in bilayers: Formation of van der Waals molecular clusters by percolation of p-diflourobenzene through water adlayer on Al2O3 (0001)” in the Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research, with J. S. Brigham, A. J. Bishop, and K. A. Martin.
Professor Allan Nishimura Receives UC Davis Prize
Professor Allan Nishimura of the Chemistry Department has received the UC Davis Prize in Undergraduate Research Mentorship. He was given the award on June 8, 2004 when he presented an invited seminar at UC Davis entitled:”Formation of Molecular Clusters by Percolation of Water Through para-Dihalobenzene Adlayer on Al2O3(0001)”The research presented at the seminar was the result of work done by several undergraduate students at Westmont. In its second year, the UC Prize is designed to recognize professors at primarily undergraduate colleges and universities who have been successful in mentoring undergraduates in research and inspiring them to continue research in graduate school. Several Westmont graduates in chemistry have recently gone on to graduate school at UC Davis and these include Scott Riley (1997), Mako Masuno (1997) and David Saiki (2000).The prize was given to Professor Nishimura by Professor William Jackson, chair of the chemistry department at UC Davis, and included a plaque and a modest cash honorarium.
