William L. Jorgensen Research Group

Julien Michel (Yale, current Postdoc) received the Emerging Technologies in Computational Chemistry Award, which recognizes major methodological advances in computational chemistry, from the Division of Computers in Chemistry at the most recent ACS National Meeting in Washington DC.

Professor William L. Jorgensen was recently named Sterling Professor of Chemistry in recognition of his excellence in the field and as a professor and leader at Yale University.  Congratulations!!!

Zoe Cournia (Yale, Current Postdoc) recently won the Connecticut Technology Council Women of Innovation Award, which recognizes women with outstanding research, teaching, and leadership skills.  Please follow this link to read the Yale Cancer Center editorial and interview with Zoe!

James Luccarelli (Yale, Current Undergrad) was one of this year’s Goldwater Scholarship awardees.  This prestigious award is intended to recognize undergraduate excellence in science, mathematics, and engineering fields of research.  Upon graduation next year, James plans to pursue a joint M.D./Ph.D. in pharmacology.  Click here for the recent Yale Daily News article announcing the winners.

Congratulations Zoe & James!

James Briggs (Purdue, Ph.D.) was named Leader of the Division of Biochemistry at the University of Houston, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Biology and Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Departments.  He is also a member of the Molecular Structure and Function D (MSFD) NIH study section (2007-2010).

Erin Duffy (Yale, Ph.D.) has recently been promoted to Vice President, Structure-Based Drug Discovery, at Rib-x Pharmaceuticals, Inc.  

Antonio Frontera (Yale, Postdoc) is now a Professor of Chemistry at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, Majorca (Baleares) Spain.  He is also currently a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Open Chemical Physics Journal by Bentham Science Publishers.

Frank van Veggel (Visiting Professor) recently had his Canada Research Chair renewed for another five years, an achievement accompanied by a five year grant and an infrastructure investment.

George Kaminski (Yale, Ph.D.) received the Hewlett-Packard
Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, which recognizes exceptional work in computational chemistry and cheminformatics, from the Division of Computers in Chemistry at the most recent ACS National Meeting in Chicago.  He is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Central Michigan University.

Laura L. Thomas (Yale, Current Ph.D.) was awarded the CCG Excellence Award from Chemical Computing Group and the Division of Computers in Chemistry at the 233rd ACS National Meeting in Chicago for her research presentation entitled “Monte Carlo Investigations of Fundamental Properties of Organic Molecules in the Gas and Liquid Phases”.

Birgit (Biggi) Albrecht (Yale, Current Postdoc) has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department at Loyola College in Baltimore, MD.

Ivan Tubert-Brohman (Yale, Ph.D.) started a two-year postdoc at the University of Basel with Professor Markus Meuwly, funded by a Marie Curie Fellowship. He will be simulating transition-metal catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation reactions.

Sara E. Nichols (Yale, Current Ph.D.) was awarded the CCG Excellence Award from Chemical Computing Group and the Division of Computers in Chemistry at the 232nd ACS National Meeting in San Francisco for her research presentation entitled “Shrinking Residues for Enhanced Monte Carlo Sampling for Proteins”.

Birgit (Biggi) Albrecht (Yale, Current Postdoc) and Brian Ray wed on October 7, 2006.  Congratulations!

David Maxwell (Yale, Ph.D.) recently attended the Society for Molecular Imaging meeting in Hawaii, where he was author/co-author of several posters ranging in subject from the in-silico design of thymidine kinase substrates to the analysis of spheroids. He is currently working on the design of several kinase inhibitors as part of the Leukemia SPORE project, and the success towards a c-Kit compound was recently described at the 14th Annual SPORE Investigators’ Workshop in Baltimore, MD.

Steven Wesolowski (Yale, Postdoc) was promoted to Senior Scientist at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals this year. He has also taken on the position of Group Leader, and as such, oversees the research of several Ph.D. -level computational chemists.

Jim Blake (Purdue, Ph.D.) and Ellen Laird (Purdue, Ph.D.) recently got married in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

David Maxwell (Yale, Ph.D.) and his wife Jenna welcomed their third child, Kimberly, on January 6, 2006.  Kimberly is sister to Jonathan, who has just entered Kindergarten, and Amanda, who is now in 4th grade.